‘Oakland Faith Project’ Documents a Shifting Religious Landscape
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"content": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Wednesday, November 3, 2026 at 10 am\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We discuss post-election results, analysis and what to expect as major California races are finalized. With reporters from across the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/californianewsroom\">California Newsroom\u003c/a>, we’ll talk about the contest for governor and key congressional seats, along with statewide ballot propositions and consequential local races. And we’ll answer your questions about what the election results mean for the future of California and national politics.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos,\u003c/strong> politics correspondent and co-host of Political Breakdown, KQED\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang, \u003c/strong>capitol reporter, CalMatters\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze,\u003c/strong> reporter, KPCC – Los Angeles Public Radio Station\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Amaray Alvarez,\u003c/strong> Kern County reporter, KVPR – Valley Public Radio\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Welcome to special coverage of midterm election results from the California Newsroom and \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. As Democrats swept critical races across the country last night to seize control of Congress, the blue wave was also felt in California, flipping at least three seats, with more likely adding to the Democrats’ substantial majority in the House. The party also continued its hold on California’s governor’s office with the widely expected early win of Javier Becerra.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Javier Becerra:\u003c/strong> As governor, my mission is straightforward, but not simple: deliver a California we can afford and defend a California we can’t afford to lose.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Listeners, tell us what results so far from candidate races and propositions have surprised you most, and whether you’re feeling more or less hopeful about California’s future. Here’s Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Nithya Raman:\u003c/strong> There are still a lot of ballots to count, and we’re going to let that count finish. I’m hopeful. I’m hopeful.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Listeners, 866-733-6786 is the number to call. Again, 866-733-6786. You can also post on our social channels — Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum — or you can email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Joining me is Marisa Lagos, politics correspondent for KQED and co-host of \u003cem>Political Breakdown\u003c/em>. Hi, Marisa. Morning. Also with us is Jeanne Kuang, capital reporter for CalMatters. Glad to have you, too, Jeanne.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So I want to get from both of you your top-line reactions to these midterm elections. Marisa, what were you thinking and feeling as national and then California results rolled in?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Well, I mean, I think as a California reporter, I am relieved at the decisive nature of these results, if only so we don’t have to relive what happened in June, with this sort of national outcry over our slow vote counting. Not all the races have been called, obviously, but we do know that a lot of results seem pretty clear, even if they’re not final yet.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then I think, after the many attacks by the president on our election system, on California in particular, again, I think the decisive nature of the national and California results really would make it a challenge for him to push back on these. And we’ve already seen him really concede that he will accept these results. So I think that’s a relief. I know that we came into Tuesday with a lot of concerns about how things could play out, not just on Election Day, but in the days after. And it seems like, as of now, those fears are unfounded.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jeanne, what stood out to you about last night?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, absolutely. I agree. I’m surprised at just how decisive some of these results were, especially in what is projecting to be victories for the Democrats in the Central Valley, where traditionally these races have been so close. And I’m sure we all remember these races being decided by a handful of votes weeks after the election ended.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To see those results now — I mean, obviously the districts are different now, having been gerrymandered — but it was still, I think, pretty striking. You know, it’s interesting, the different ways that the progressive challengers and the Democratic Party have held up. I mean, we’re seeing — it looks like the billionaire tax is going to pass, but at the same time, the more DSA-aligned candidate for insurance commissioner appears ahead. And so, you know, it’s been interesting seeing the way those have broken down.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re going to dig into all of that. With regard to probably the most widely expected result, Jeanne, let’s start with the state’s highest office. That winner, of course, is Javier Becerra, declared immediately after polls closed last night. And though he’s downplayed the historic significance of being the first elected Latino governor — we had a Latino governor in the seat a century and a half ago — it is quite a milestone for California, the nation’s most populous state, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and it is, I think, kind of surprising that it took this long. But it makes sense that it’s someone like Javier Becerra. He had kind of risen to power in East L.A. during a period of Latino political activism, during this great anti-immigrant sentiment in the early ’90s. And he just kind of was a longtime Democratic workhorse, sort of oftentimes in the background of things, but rose up steadily through Democratic politics.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And, you know, this year, obviously, so many Latino voters were concerned about ICE raids, were concerned about what Trump was doing, and he came in at the right moment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> What do you think voters want to see from him, Jeanne?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Well, he has a lot of big challenges to deal with right off the bat. I mean, obviously, the state has a really high cost of living, and he’s committed to trying to lower that, to trying to restore that California dream, as he often says his parents were able to achieve when they immigrated to the state.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You know, there’s questions about how committed the state will be to its clean energy transition. You know, he wants to keep gas prices low, or as low as he can, while continuing the clean energy transition. So there’s going to be questions about the state’s environmental policies along the way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And there’s just lots of big, sort of looming crises. There’s the issue of how much utility customers should pay for the risks of wildfires. That’s something that has so far been unresolved in the state capital, and he’ll have to deal with that right off the bat, too, if it doesn’t get fixed in the next couple of months.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Marisa, feel free to add what you think his passions and priorities will be and how well they line up with what California wants to see from its governor. But I also want to ask you about the challenger, Steve Hilton, who lost by a very significant margin, and what that means for the chances of Republicans to hold the state’s highest office.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Well, I mean, it’s been 20 years. And Steve Hilton, who I think ran a very energetic, hard campaign, even given the uphill battle, still lost by just huge margins. And not just that, but Becerra may be coming in with an even stronger supermajority of Democrats in the state legislature.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I mean, we’re seeing races too close to call in places like Huntington Beach, which was not even on anyone’s radar, right? And so I think that this blue wave, blue tsunami — I’m going to call it a blue El Niño here in California — is really kind of sweeping up even races, I think, folks didn’t have on their bingo cards, so to speak.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I was just looking at a tweet from Rob Piers, who’s a very smart analyst on the right, and he was talking about Jay Obernolte, who would be only one of four Republican members of Congress left from our 52-seat delegation. He’s only up at this point, and there’s more votes to count, by 2.7%. That district was redrawn to shift 3% to the right under Prop 50.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So there’s a chance that, actually, California House Republicans would have lost more seats if Prop 50 hadn’t passed, just because of those dynamics of when you take voters away from one district, you have to put them somewhere else. So I think it’s really fascinating. And I know my colleague Guy Marzorati already has been talking about this a lot: Was Prop 50 even necessary at this point? It may not have been, but I still don’t think that’s going to prevent folks like Newsom from taking a victory lap on it, especially given how the redistricting war has really backfired for Republicans in places like Texas and Florida.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think you’re answering listener John’s question. He writes, “Is there any way to tell how gerrymandering worked out? Did it do what it was supposed to do?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And speaking of that supermajority, we have a clip from Steve Hilton vowing to continue the fight for a Republican to hold the state’s highest office. Let’s hear it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Steve Hilton:\u003c/strong> The fight goes on. And here’s the game plan: 2028, we end the Democrat supermajority in the state legislature. 2030, we elect a Republican governor in California.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, The Sister on Bluesky writes, “One thing that should be clear from last night’s results: establishment Democrats are losing popularity. They were too silent, too compliant, too cowardly during Trump’s reign of terror. We have too many ‘comfortable Dems’ in California, e.g., Mike Thompson. Time for change.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> That’s so fascinating. I will tell you, we had Javier Becerra in here last week, and I said to him, “You should hire Steve Hilton. Bring in a team of rivals. See what happens.” He didn’t seem very open to that, but I’m still hoping we could see that happen.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> But do you think that’s true, sort of that energy, that desire for change? And maybe that is what you were both mentioning with the insurance commissioner’s race, and seeing Jane Kim right now, who, of course, is seen as the progressive, more change-agent-type candidate, leading in what is still a very tight race and too close to call. Tell me quickly what your impressions are of that sort of energy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> I mean, look, I think that we are in an era where there’s a lot of pushback against the establishment on both sides of the aisle, this rise of populism. I don’t know, though, that we can say there’s clean results yet. I mean, Mike Thompson has not lost that race yet. Doris Matsui, it looks like, might have consolidated Republican votes if she’s going to take out her challenger, Mai Vang.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But yes, this is going to be a very large majority, which I think potential Speaker Hakeem Jeffries is probably breathing a sigh of relief over, because it will make some of the left-wing, DSA-aligned candidates a little less potent for his speakership.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I do think we’re in a moment here, and it’s going to be a challenge for Democrats to figure out, in some ways, how to balance the things they promised around affordability, around changing people’s lives, with the other things they promised around holding Trump accountable.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I know folks like James Talarico in Texas are saying those are the same sides of the same coin — that the corruption they see is really one of the reasons Americans are struggling. But putting that into practice and into policy, and then how does it turn into 2028? What is the conversation around taxing billionaires and Medicare for All in a Democratic primary? I mean, it’s a big tent, and it’s always messy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Let me go to caller Douglas in San Francisco, who’s on the line. Douglas, go ahead. You’re on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Douglas:\u003c/strong> Hi, thank you very much. Listen, you guys are talking micro. I’m going to go a little macro here. Trump said, “Put me on the ballot.” We all did. Everybody throughout the country, Republican or Democrat, this is absolutely an anti-Trump vote. It wasn’t a pro-policy or referendum or pro-candidate vote.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This was an anti-gerrymandering vote. Voters got together and said, “Don’t rob me. Whatever you do, we’re going to come out and we’re going to destroy your gerrymandering lines.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was also an issue in which the GOP does not quickly recover and decide they’re going to participate in the situation with Democrats in Congress. All those people that choose not to demonstrate cooperation are going to be voted out in two years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s also an issue that Democrats have got to get off of social issues and get on to people issues and policy issues, just like gay marriage.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, let me get Jeanne’s impressions of what Douglas is saying. What do you think, Jeanne?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Well, certainly, watching these races in California, watching these House races, I think you’re right. I mean, everyone treated it like Donald Trump is on the ballot. I mean, even in the governor’s race, which was already going to be pretty favored for the Democrat, Javier Becerra said Donald Trump is on this ballot. Obviously, he wasn’t. But, you know, it was very easy this year in particular for Democrats to tie their opponents to Trump at every single turn.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> This is special election coverage from the California Newsroom and \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. We’ll hear more from our guests, Jeanne Kuang and Marisa Lagos, and from you, our listeners, after the break. This is \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> with Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> in the California Newsroom. This is special election coverage. We’re talking about the message California voters sent in these midterm elections, the decisive races and propositions, and the ones that remain too close to call.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re talking about it with Jeanne Kuang, capital reporter at CalMatters, and Marisa Lagos, politics correspondent for KQED and co-host of \u003cem>Political Breakdown\u003c/em>. And with you, our listeners: How are you feeling about last night’s election results? What questions do you have about them? What results surprised you or differed from what you hoped for in California? And are you feeling more or less hopeful now about California’s future?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The email address is \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. Find us on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum. Call us at 866-733-6786, 866-733-6786.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Brian writes, “I’m surprised Prop 40 is not doing better. I know billionaires spent a ton of money campaigning against it, but it seems in most people’s interest to put this excess wealth to work for all. I feel like I’m missing something.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jeanne, I’ll start with you. Prop 40 would have assessed — or maybe would — a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of the state’s roughly 200 or so billionaires. It has not been called yet, but it’s trailing. Why?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, you know, it was interesting talking to the proponents last night, when they kind of early started to concede that this was probably not going to pass. They’re blaming the massive amounts of money that their opponents spent. I think we tallied up something like $380 million being spent against Prop 40 by mostly billionaire opponents. So that’s definitely a major factor.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s also pretty hard to pass ballot measures to begin with. And when you have things that are kind of confusing or have caveats, like, “Oh, this is one-time, and it’s just for this one program,” in this case health care, you know, these are just all things that you have to overcome as a proponent of a ballot proposition at the ballot box, with voters who are not necessarily that aware of what’s going on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So it’s already going to be headwinds, and then you’ve got the spending against you. You also had a lot of confusion amongst Democrats because most of the prominent Democratic leaders in the state were against it, and a lot of influential groups like Planned Parenthood were also against it. So I think that confuses liberal voters. I’m not sure where, you know, they don’t know where to align themselves.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> What would you add with regard to the forces that have caused this right now to be trailing Proposition 40, and also what this means for any future effort, potentially, Marisa, to be able to introduce a new one in the state? Or even, as Gavin Newsom claimed was the reason he was not behind it, he wanted a nationwide one.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, this is something I’m going to be watching carefully. I agree with Jeanne 100%. I mean, when voters have doubts, they vote no. And, you know, there was literally almost no money on the yes side to push this. There was $388 million on the other side. Almost a quarter or a third of it came from one man, Sergey Brin, the Google co-founder.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I think when you add that with the sort of institutional Democratic and left-wing opposition, we saw folks making this claim — and, you know, one that I think has always been sort of anxiety-inducing for the left — which is, is the tax structure in California pushing innovation and money out of state? That’s a debate we’ve been having for a long time. I think that all added up to a really tough environment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But to your point about what’s next, I mean, I’m going to be watching this really carefully. I think it’s going to be fascinating. You know, I think that no matter what lessons are being taken — and let’s be clear, both sides saw this as a litmus test and something that they could use as a model elsewhere, right? So it’s not to say that the backers of this are in any way cheering — but I do think that there is so much anger over inequality, the wealth of billionaires, the rate at which it’s growing, and the way our tax system really does not capture that wealth, that this will be an issue come the 2028 state Democratic primary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But how do people like Newsom thread that needle? I mean, he is going to have to make the case to voters in other states who don’t know all the details on the ground that he is somehow for taxing the Elon Musks of the world nationally, but not in California. Does that fly? Is it a vulnerability? Or can he turn around and say, “Look, I’m not a crazy liberal from California. I pushed back when there was a bad policy, but I support taxes”? You know what I’m saying? So I think it’s going to be really interesting to see how this is framed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then we’re already seeing Dave Regan, the union leader who put this on the ballot, saying they’re going to come back with another one in a couple of years. So this fight may not be over.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, with Proposition 42 getting more yes votes at the moment — and that was, of course, going to prohibit the state from taxing financial assets, right, the very wealth of billionaires — is that going to make it a lot harder for Regan to do that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Well, no, because it’s a ballot measure, so it prevents the legislature from doing that. But voters can overturn their own will at any moment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, I mean, are the fundamentals going to be difficult if they try to run the same playbook? I think they will, because voters are already skeptical of this. So I would be looking at what sort of details they might bring back if they indeed try this again, which we’ll have to see.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And can there be a bigger coalition? I mean, Dave Regan himself is very controversial. A lot of people in the union world particularly really dislike him. That certainly didn’t help them build a coalition on the yes side. So there’s a lot of uniqueness to this particular campaign.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But yes, Prop 42 will prevent the legislature from doing any sort of wealth tax. But let’s not forget, we can always overturn our own will as voters.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Direct democracy. This is our Discord. They want to know, Jeanne, what are your thoughts on Prop 3 passing, which extended the tax on high-income earners, but Prop 40 going down?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Prop 3 passed pretty easily. I mean, it’s just extending a tax that already exists — higher income taxes on the highest earners. This was originally passed by the teachers union to shore up state revenues for schools.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I think this just shows that a lot of Californians, at the end of the day — we have this reputation of being highly taxed, but it’s a liberal state. People support the progressive tax system. You know, if you earn more, you should pay more.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I think, I guess it’s an interesting one, but it doesn’t, I don’t think, really say anything about whether or not people are interested in taxing wealth, which was such a new and untested idea. And at the end of the day, you know, we do rely on the wealthiest residents for a lot of our income tax revenue, and I think people are generally supportive of that structure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Okay, Mina, I do have some breaking news. Congressional District 13 — this is Adam Gray’s seat in Modesto and that area — has just been called for him. This is notable because it’s one of only three swing districts left. Last time, in 2022, when he won this seat, he won by 187 votes. This time, he’s up by more than 20,000 votes. So if there was ever evidence of this blue tsunami, that is one of the districts we will be looking at.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yes, for sure. Right, 187 votes — that was the one that lasted several days. Let me go to Dorian in Marin, who’s on the line. Dorian, go ahead.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Dorian:\u003c/strong> I, first of all, I just want to thank you all for giving me the opportunity. As I mentioned to the caller, I’m not one that gets involved with politics, but I will tell you that I am proud that this country and the people have a common decency. I mean, my wife is from another country, and I know the struggle that she had to get here, and I’m just grateful for how things turned out, and I hope —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Thank you, Dorian. Thanks for sharing where you’re at.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dan says, “This was a vote against Trump’s administration and not necessarily for Democrats. Now Democrats need to deliver on health care and the economy if they want this to be a long-term shift.” What do you think about that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, it’s funny because you can also point back to 2024. A lot of people were not, as it turns out, necessarily voting for Republicans or Trump, but rather against the incumbents and the status quo and the higher cost of living that they were seeing with Joe Biden in charge.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I think that’s often the lesson when it comes to these very swingy elections that we see. But it’s true that, especially here in California, especially with the governor’s race, Democrats do have to own the cost-of-living issue. They have to own the affordability issue. And I think that’s going to be one of the biggest tests for Becerra going forward.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Let me go to caller Bill in San Bernardino. Bill, go ahead. You’re on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Bill:\u003c/strong> Hi there. Thanks for having me. I wanted to comment on the discussion about Prop 40, the billionaire tax, and say that, you know, I think the points you all made about the billionaire spending against the tax are a really important one. And just to talk about the context a little more, I think that voters across the country are really susceptible to these claims that their assets, even if they’re not billionaires, will be taxed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I saw that a lot in the anti-messaging, you know, because we don’t live in a society where you can rely on social systems to take care of you, right? So if you’re a homeowner, your biggest asset is your home, and that’s a process that’s been socially constructed since the ’50s, since the end of World War II.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so people are susceptible to these scare tactics, saying, like, “Well, the government’s not just going to stop at the billionaires. They’re going to come for you, too.” And if we had a social safety net that really protected people, if we had health care, if we had the right to education, if you had the right housing, people who are not billionaires would not feel so much threat by this claim that they’re going to come for everybody’s assets.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Bill, thanks. I want to share that perspective. Thank you. Marisa, I have heard that sentiment, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Oh, 100%. I think that was a really potent argument. I think it is why Prop 42 looks like it’s going to pass, which is the one that would prohibit any taxation of assets like this, but for anybody. And Prop 41, the other measure that was sort of complicated and related to the state spending limit and special taxes, looks like it’s going down.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Billionaires put both of those on the ballot in order to undercut Prop 40, the billionaire tax. And yeah, I mean, I think, look, it makes sense, too. It’s a very smart political argument in a moment when everyone is anxious about their own checkbook, about their bottom line, when gas prices are high, milk prices are higher, beef prices — you know, all the things. And so it was sort of this perfect storm.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You know, again, I think that the broader politics right now around inequality and anger at it are not necessarily going to disappear just because of the defeat of Prop 40. And so, you know, this is a fight that might just move to the national level in a different manner. And I think it’s really fascinating.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You know, I’ve pushed Becerra on this. I talked to billionaire Chris Larsen, who helped fund opposition to Prop 40. And I think there’s agreement that the tax system itself needs to be reformed in a broader way. Maybe, if you didn’t like Prop 40, even if you’re somebody who thinks billionaires should be taxed more, there should be a bigger conversation. Is there the political will for that, Mina? Either in Sacramento or D.C., we’ll have to wait and see.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> I think this is what Mitko is actually saying. Mitko writes, “I voted against Prop 40 because it was just a quick, one-time fix. My vote had nothing to do with tech people spending money on ads. We need long-term fiscal change in California, mainly revising the unfair Prop 13, which nowadays penalizes people with super-high taxes based on the sky-high real estate.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You know, another listener, Mick, writes something sort of similar with regard to the significant Democratic Party majority in California: “Why has reforming or repealing Prop 13 taken so long? This seems an obvious choice for equitable tax reform compared to a billionaire tax.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I mean, certainly there are some really important things that you all have been bringing up. Our last caller, Bill, brought up, too, which is, yes, people are very frustrated with our tax system, but it’s also very much about concerns with regard to whether you can afford things moving forward as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I think this concern is really what played out in some of the congressional races that we thought would be close, but that ended up being more decisive initially — or at least the results being more lopsided initially — than a lot of people remembered.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the ones I’m talking about, of course, is District 22. This is in the Central Valley, David Valadao and Randy Villegas. We have Amaray Alvarez on the line with us, a Kern County reporter for KVPR. Amaray, welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Amaray Alvarez:\u003c/strong> Hi. Good morning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So talk to us. I understand the Associated Press has not called this race yet for Randy Villegas, but he declared a victory last night as initial returns showed him with a sizable lead. What does that tell you about what Central Valley voters wanted?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Amaray Alvarez:\u003c/strong> Yes, he did declare victory last night, I believe. It may have been declared a few minutes ago in his favor, but yes, he declared victory ahead of time, and now I believe he is our new congressman in District 22.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> What do you think it was about Villegas’ message that resonated when Valadao has enjoyed a long incumbency, winning so many of the last several elections?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Amaray Alvarez:\u003c/strong> Yes, well, the district was redistricted with Prop 50, so that made a shift. But also, a lot of the constituents that I spoke to were upset with David Valadao. He voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill, which cut aid to Medicare and Medicaid. And this is one of the districts with the most people on it, so a lot of people were upset about that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Affordability, gas prices, and immigration — this is a largely Latino area as well. And people really resonated with Randy Villegas. He’s the son of Latino farmworkers, immigrants, and they just felt like he had their best interests at heart.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> What work, though, do you think is ahead for Randy to show that he deserves this opportunity?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Amaray Alvarez:\u003c/strong> I feel like he really was out there and showed up for people. A lot of people said it’s been hard to talk to David Valadao, that he’s been their congressman for so long, but they really have never seen him, have never met him, and have never talked to him.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Randy Villegas had a lot of events. He was out even for Dolores Huerta, who passed away last week. He was there at events for her, just showing up for the community in a way that they haven’t seen a congressman do for them in the past few years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Amaray Alvarez, Kern County reporter for KVPR, Valley Public Radio, really appreciate hearing from you. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Marisa, I know this is a race that you’ve watched very closely. Tell me what you think of where this stands. And yes, confirmation came less than 15 minutes ago or so that this has been called for Randy Villegas.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Randy Villegas will be the next congressman from the Central Valley. And I mean, first, it’s so important to know — this is a seat, like, it’s a cliché, but I keep saying it’s like Lucy in the football for Democrats. I mean, there was one time in 2018 that they managed to beat David Valadao, only for him to come back and win again in 2020.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He was the only sitting Republican in Congress who had voted for the impeachment of President Trump in 2020, and he really, sort of, for years, has risen above the partisan fray and been able to keep that seat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And Villegas — I mean, what is so interesting is Villegas really sort of prosecuted a different theory of the case for Democrats. You know, in the past, everyone who’s run against Valadao has come from the center-left. They’ve really tried to stress their credentials as being more moderate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We see this in the neighboring District 13, where Adam Gray just won. He’s a Blue Dog Democrat, very much known as a moderate both in Sacramento and D.C. Villegas is a progressive. Bernie Sanders came to campaign with him. AOC was there. He is running unabashedly on Medicare for All.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it’s going to be really fascinating to see, to your point, what can he deliver around some of the priorities he campaigned on? And is this just part of a blue tsunami, or is he really a candidate who reflects the district and has excited voters who may not have shown up in cycles past? We may not know that for a couple of years, right, when he’s back on the ballot. But I think it’s really interesting to see someone like him win in this area, especially given all the issues there that were just laid out, including how things like not just the war on Iran and gas prices, but tariffs, beef imports, all of that were such big issues, and, of course, immigration. I mean, you really can’t understate how much that sort of bleeds into these other, bigger anxieties.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Let’s hear a little bit, actually, from Randy Villegas, who spoke with KGET after he declared victory, though the AP had not yet called the race.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Randy Villegas:\u003c/strong> My parents came to this country with nothing but hopes and dreams for a better future for their children. And to know that in one generation, their son is going to be a member of Congress advocating for other families across this country means the world to me. To know that we’re going to have somebody who’s going to stand up and champion the working class in every decision that we make, and we’re going to have somebody that works just as hard as the Central Valley does.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re talking about the races and propositions — the ones that were decisive, the ones that still have not quite been called — and the message that California voters sent in these midterm elections. We’re talking about it with Marisa Lagos of KQED, Jeanne Kuang of CalMatters, and with you, our listeners.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">866-733-6786 is the number to call. Again, 866-733-6786. Find us on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum, or email your comments and questions to \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From the California Newsroom and \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, this is special election coverage. Stay with us!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You’re listening to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> in the California Newsroom with special election coverage. Last night’s blue tsunami is being felt in California on some statewide ballot propositions and in some key races.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re talking about how Californians cast their ballots in these midterm elections with Jeanne Kuang, a capital reporter for CalMatters, and Marisa Lagos, politics correspondent for KQED and co-host of \u003cem>Political Breakdown\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And just before the break, we heard from Amaray Alvarez of KVPR. Listeners, how are you feeling about the election results? What questions do you have about the propositions and races? What results have surprised you or differed from what you hoped? And are you feeling more or less hopeful about California’s future? Do you feel like the people in charge are getting the message you want to send?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The email address is \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. Find us on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum. Or you can call us at 866-733-6786, 866-733-6786.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the propositions that listeners are wanting us to talk about, Marisa, is Proposition 45. This one, of course, was the CEQA reform proposition. There has definitely been some evidence of an appetite to reform CEQA to get development projects off the ground. What do you think is happening here with these results?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Yeah, this one was really interesting. You know, it was polling really high a few months ago. And then, once the opposition campaign really started in earnest, it fell quickly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think there are a few things going on here. One is that there were real efforts to tie this to President Trump’s attacks on environmental policies here in California. I think that might have resonated with people saying, “Well, why would we sort of weaken our environmental protection laws more at this time?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You can make the argument that those are pretty different issues, like oil drilling versus a review. Basically, what this would have done is shorten the timeline for courts to review challenges to construction projects.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There also was this narrative that this could sort of speed up the construction of data centers, the approval of data centers. That’s something that proponents of Prop 45 rejected outright. But there was no real way to know unless this got litigated, because it wasn’t spelled out in plain terms in the text. And I think that was probably a challenge, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then I also just think that we have seen a lot of CEQA reform at the state level in the legislature in recent years. So you had some people casting doubt on whether this was even needed for housing, sort of arguing that this would really only benefit big-scale corporate projects, infrastructure things that maybe aren’t at the top of voters’ minds when you think of the abundance movement.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, you know, I think this was a rare miscalculation for the California Chamber of Commerce. They have only put a few ballot measures on the ballot themselves in recent years and, until now, have had a pretty good track record.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I think what I’ll be watching moving forward is whether there’s still an appetite for more CEQA reform in Sacramento, or, with a supermajority and more progressives coming in potentially, whether there are attempts to roll back some of the reforms. That would definitely give the chamber a stronger hand if they wanted to move forward with something similar in the future.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Jeanne, The Sister writes about Prop 39, “California voters saw this for what it was, an attempt to disenfranchise voters in the state.” That was, of course, the voter ID measure. Do you think that’s true? Is that what drove its defeat, essentially?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> I think this is another one where the opponents were just very eager and happy to tie the campaign to Trump, especially with the past couple of months of the Trump administration trying to intervene in California elections, trying to get ballots not to be counted, alleging that certain voters were not really citizens, things like that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I mean, I think the environment was just really set for the opponents to call this a Trump measure, and that’s what they did.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Listener Tom writes, “I’m hoping the newly elected officials can forget that they’re politicians and, instead of crowing over victory and pushing a partisan agenda, dedicate themselves to restoring faith in government, faith that it can be fair.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Well, let’s talk about somebody who would like to be a newly elected official, but the race is still too close to call. And that’s, of course, in the L.A. mayor’s race, Karen Bass and Nithya Raman.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For that, I want to bring into the conversation Frank Stoltze, reporter for KPCC. Frank, thanks so much for being with us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze:\u003c/strong> Good to be with you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So tell us where things stand right now in the L.A. mayor’s race.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze:\u003c/strong> Too close to call. The city council member and challenger to the incumbent, Nithya Raman, has about 51% of the vote, and the incumbent, Karen Bass, has about 49%. So there’s a very close race going on here, lots of votes to count.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The trend from last night to the latest vote count released early this morning was in favor of Nithya Raman, the progressive backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, we actually have a clip from Karen Bass touting the many years that she has dedicated herself to the city of Los Angeles. Let’s hear it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karen Bass:\u003c/strong> Four years ago, you gave me the honor of a lifetime to serve as the mayor of the city that raised me, the city my parents chose to build a life in, and the city I have spent my entire life fighting for.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Frank, Bass has been in the game a long time. Why is this so close?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze:\u003c/strong> She’s an icon in Democratic Party politics in Los Angeles. She was a community organizer in South L.A. She went on to become speaker of the state Assembly and then served in Congress before getting elected mayor four years ago.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But in the mayor’s position, she’s not performed all that well. She’s had a hard time bringing down the homelessness numbers. She’s struggled with the response to the Palisades fire of last year, and people are not happy in Los Angeles. There’s discontent.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And what we see here is a rejection of some of the major institutions of Los Angeles. The Democratic Party backed Bass. The Chamber of Commerce backed Bass. Big labor, for the most part, backed Bass. And now Bass is losing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> It’s a sentiment that we’ve heard so far, even on this show, and also something it sounds like Nithya Raman tried to capitalize on in her messaging. Let’s hear a clip from her.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Nithya Raman:\u003c/strong> Here in Los Angeles, this election is about change, too. A city that was engineered over the last few decades to resist change. And the people right here who said, “Enough is enough,” because for too long, our broken and unjust status quo has convinced Angelenos that this is the best that we can do.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Hmm. So do you think that Nithya is right? Do you think it is anger at the establishment, too? Or what do you think this race was really about for voters, Frank?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze:\u003c/strong> Karen Bass had very high unfavorability ratings, and more prominent people who were going to enter the race way back in January dropped out — billionaire Rick Caruso, county supervisor Lindsey Horvath. They declined to challenge the mayor.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nithya Raman, seeing the unpopularity of this mayor, jumped into the race and has, you know, apparently succeeded in ousting her. We’ll see where the trend goes. But I think people, again, are not happy with the direction of Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The streetlights — just take that as an example. Many streetlights are broken. You know, just basic city services are not getting delivered.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Right. A lot of challenges in Los Angeles that the next mayor will have to address. And, of course, L.A. is going to play host on the world stage in the Olympics. Tell us about what’s ahead, Frank.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze:\u003c/strong> Well, the mayor said that she should get reelected in part because she’s been planning the Olympics and that Nithya Raman would be too new to get on board. Really, the issue here is the police department.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nithya Raman is saying that she’d like to remove the police chief ahead of the Olympics. Karen Bass is saying that would put the department in disarray ahead of such an important event. So the Olympics have played a role in this election.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Frank Stoltze, reporter for KPCC, Los Angeles public radio station. Thank you so much for being with us. Really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Daniel asks, “Can you review the results of the redistricted seats in California?” We were touching on those a little bit, but let’s go down to 48, Marisa, with Marty von Wilpert in the San Diego area as well. Talk about what’s happening there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Well, this race hasn’t been called yet, but this district, which is definitely evidence of a gerrymander, includes parts of northern San Diego County and Riverside, stretching out to Palm Springs. She is leading with almost 60% of the vote against Jim Desmond, who is a Republican member of the Board of Supervisors in San Diego. He’s around 40%.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So it really looks like her message resonated there. I mean, she definitely ran as a very sort of swing-district candidate. She talked about gas prices a lot. She talked about her family’s military service, her work abroad doing humanitarian work, and her desire to bring back USAID, things like that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And yeah, I mean, this was one of the districts drawn to be flipped by a Democrat. It does appear that Prop 50 has done what it intended to do, but I think the question is, was it even necessary? I mean, some of these margins are so big, you can see a world where they wouldn’t have needed to change the district lines in order to flip them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so I think that’s going to be interesting. Again, I’m not sure that’s something Democrats are going to spend a lot of time worrying about, but it sort of speaks to the weirdness of last night in that way. What we saw in other states was this really backfired on Republicans. Latinos swung so far back to Democrats that a bunch of districts drawn in places like Texas and Florida, which were aimed at getting more GOP seats, didn’t do that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it’s just really fascinating. I think it speaks to the challenge of these pendulum swings and how you do politics if one election is so different from the next.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> It is an interesting question with regard to whether redistricting was necessary. But, Jeanne, of course, these maps are going to hold in ’28 and ’30 as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, actually, as you were talking, Marisa, it made me think: I wonder if that argument could also be used by the proponents of the Independent Redistricting Commission. Like, hey, this is why you should revert back to the way we did it before in 2030. You know, if you didn’t even need it this time around.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Because I think that was something that came up a bit last year during Prop 50. Maybe you should just run races in these independently drawn seats based on policy, based on principles. And, you know, those people might have been right.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, let me remind listeners, you are listening to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> and the California Newsroom. I’m Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s very interesting what has happened, regardless of whether the question about whether it’s necessary or not is one to be debated. You’ve got a situation now where you have Democrats having flipped at least three or four seats, maybe at this point, depending on how many have been called as this show has gone on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Down in the San Bernardino area, in Northern California, the seat that Senator Mike McGuire handily defeated Republican James Gallagher for. And then you also have the situation with Richard Pan defeating Kevin Kiley, who moved to be an independent after he was sort of shuffled out with his district lines.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When all is said and done, Jeanne, how many seats do you think California will contribute — flip seats, flip seats, I should say?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> The purpose was to contribute five flipped seats, and it definitely looks like they’re on track — the Democrats are on track to do that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> So, yeah, go ahead, Marisa. To put it in perspective, we will likely have only four Republican members of the state delegation. There’s 52 all told in California, so 48 Democrats, four Republicans, if my math is correct after very little sleep. Yeah, I mean, and the six —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Of that, Marisa, I mean, what do you think?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Well, you know, I think this is where how Democrats choose to govern matters, because if there are voters who really feel like they’re not being represented by their current members of Congress, that could backfire in future elections.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I think this is where the rubber meets the road in terms of how do you actually put your majority into action? And we’ve already seen the president sound pretty conciliatory, saying he would be willing to work with Democrats. I think it’s going to be fascinating to see if there are actually areas where they can get some things done.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Lynn has some thoughts about what you’d like to see congressional representatives do. Lynn in Beaumont, go ahead. Join us. You’re on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Lynn:\u003c/strong> Hi. Thanks for this. I love this discussion. I’d just called in really to remind people that the election is just the beginning. It’s really the start of our work, and that constituents need to talk to the members of Congress about what they want.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That 52 number that you just talked about really resonates with me. We have 52 members of the House of Representatives right here in California. We need to tell them things we care about. For example, the SNAP policy that the Republicans put forward will expect state government, including California, to cover part of the cost of the federally mandated SNAP program, formerly called food stamps. And it’s going to cost California an estimated $3.1 billion to take the portion of SNAP up into our state budget.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And California, being a rich state, can pull it off with only minimal cuts to other programs. But some states across the country are really going to be harmed by that requirement that their state pays for part of this federal program.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If that’s something we care about, we should be letting our members of Congress know immediately. And all these things that callers have talked about — you can’t just let the lobbyists and the rich friends of members of Congress speak to them and tell them what we care about. Citizens, constituents, need to tell the members of Congress, “Here’s what we really want you to work on.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it sounds like you guys are all queued up to have a program about that even tomorrow, if I’m right.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We are. Thank you, Lynn. Let me go next to Chris in Santa Clara. Chris, you’re on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Chris:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks. I think the one item I’m not hearing your team mention is that it is very likely in the next two years that not one piece of legislation at the federal level is signed into law. And we’re not recognizing that a member of the House of Representatives is likely the least powerful elected official in the country. A volunteer library board member in a suburban city has more power than a member of Congress.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Chris, I think I get your point. Sorry, your line is clicking just a tad there. But, Jeanne, give me a reaction to what Chris is saying here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, it’s an interesting point. I think that’s fair. That being said, Trump has said that he plans to work with the Democrats on this. And I do think that there are a number of issues that the Democrats identified this election cycle that do have bipartisan support.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I mean, there’s widespread anxiety around artificial intelligence, around data center construction, things like that. And I do think the Democrats also have — we’ll see how long it holds — but it seems like they learned a lesson about the cost of living in 2024 and were able to use it across party lines this time around. So I think there’s potentially ways where everyone could come together.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And it’s a good setup, as the listener was mentioning, with regard to our show for tomorrow. We want to hear from you, listeners, what you want Democrats to do with their power and where Californians will be prominent in Congress now that they will be able to lead the committees.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, Marisa, finish us off with what threads you are going to continue to follow after this midterm election.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, look, I think it’s a valid point that this could just be gridlock in Washington. But also, this is the most unpredictable president of my lifetime. Who knows what deals he could cut with Democrats?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And to the earlier caller’s point, 52 is a lot of people. The Democratic delegation here — or 48, rather — has a lot of power in a body of 435.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I think, in that regard, we’re going to be watching to see what happens with the speakership vote. Can Hakeem Jeffries — likely he will be the speaker — but does he get any challenges from some of these more progressive, left-leaning members who are going to want to flex their muscle? How does Trump respond to all of this? What are the final numbers around Prop 40?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then what happens in the next few months ahead of Becerra coming into office? When Governor Newsom was Governor-elect Newsom, the Paradise Fire occurred, and we had horrible flooding and a huge mass shooting. El Niño is headed here. How much is the governor-elect involved in decisions with the governor’s office in the next few months, and then what does he tackle once he’s in there?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> KQED’s Marisa Lagos, CalMatters’ Jeanne Kuang, thank you both. KPCC’s Frank Stoltze, KVPR’s Amaray Alvarez, thank you as well. And thank you, listeners, for listening to special coverage from the California Newsroom and \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We discuss post-election results, analysis and what to expect as major California races are finalized. With reporters from across the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/californianewsroom\">California Newsroom\u003c/a>, we’ll talk about the contest for governor and key congressional seats, along with statewide ballot propositions and consequential local races. And we’ll answer your questions about what the election results mean for the future of California and national politics.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Welcome to special coverage of midterm election results from the California Newsroom and \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. As Democrats swept critical races across the country last night to seize control of Congress, the blue wave was also felt in California, flipping at least three seats, with more likely adding to the Democrats’ substantial majority in the House. The party also continued its hold on California’s governor’s office with the widely expected early win of Javier Becerra.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Welcome to special coverage of midterm election results from the California Newsroom and \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. As Democrats swept critical races across the country last night to seize control of Congress, the blue wave was also felt in California, flipping at least three seats, with more likely adding to the Democrats’ substantial majority in the House. The party also continued its hold on California’s governor’s office with the widely expected early win of Javier Becerra.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Javier Becerra:\u003c/strong> As governor, my mission is straightforward, but not simple: deliver a California we can afford and defend a California we can’t afford to lose.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Javier Becerra:\u003c/strong> As governor, my mission is straightforward, but not simple: deliver a California we can afford and defend a California we can’t afford to lose.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Listeners, tell us what results so far from candidate races and propositions have surprised you most, and whether you’re feeling more or less hopeful about California’s future. Here’s Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Listeners, tell us what results so far from candidate races and propositions have surprised you most, and whether you’re feeling more or less hopeful about California’s future. Here’s Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nithya Raman:\u003c/strong> There are still a lot of ballots to count, and we’re going to let that count finish. I’m hopeful. I’m hopeful.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nithya Raman:\u003c/strong> There are still a lot of ballots to count, and we’re going to let that count finish. I’m hopeful. I’m hopeful.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Listeners, 866-733-6786 is the number to call. Again, 866-733-6786. You can also post on our social channels — Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum — or you can email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Listeners, 866-733-6786 is the number to call. Again, 866-733-6786. You can also post on our social channels — Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum — or you can email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Joining me is Marisa Lagos, politics correspondent for KQED and co-host of \u003cem>Political Breakdown\u003c/em>. Hi, Marisa. Morning. Also with us is Jeanne Kuang, capital reporter for CalMatters. Glad to have you, too, Jeanne.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So I want to get from both of you your top-line reactions to these midterm elections. Marisa, what were you thinking and feeling as national and then California results rolled in?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So I want to get from both of you your top-line reactions to these midterm elections. Marisa, what were you thinking and feeling as national and then California results rolled in?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Well, I mean, I think as a California reporter, I am relieved at the decisive nature of these results, if only so we don’t have to relive what happened in June, with this sort of national outcry over our slow vote counting. Not all the races have been called, obviously, but we do know that a lot of results seem pretty clear, even if they’re not final yet.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And then I think, after the many attacks by the president on our election system, on California in particular, again, I think the decisive nature of the national and California results really would make it a challenge for him to push back on these. And we’ve already seen him really concede that he will accept these results. So I think that’s a relief. I know that we came into Tuesday with a lot of concerns about how things could play out, not just on Election Day, but in the days after. And it seems like, as of now, those fears are unfounded.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And then I think, after the many attacks by the president on our election system, on California in particular, again, I think the decisive nature of the national and California results really would make it a challenge for him to push back on these. And we’ve already seen him really concede that he will accept these results. So I think that’s a relief. I know that we came into Tuesday with a lot of concerns about how things could play out, not just on Election Day, but in the days after. And it seems like, as of now, those fears are unfounded.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, absolutely. I agree. I’m surprised at just how decisive some of these results were, especially in what is projecting to be victories for the Democrats in the Central Valley, where traditionally these races have been so close. And I’m sure we all remember these races being decided by a handful of votes weeks after the election ended.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>To see those results now — I mean, obviously the districts are different now, having been gerrymandered — but it was still, I think, pretty striking. You know, it’s interesting, the different ways that the progressive challengers and the Democratic Party have held up. I mean, we’re seeing — it looks like the billionaire tax is going to pass, but at the same time, the more DSA-aligned candidate for insurance commissioner appears ahead. And so, you know, it’s been interesting seeing the way those have broken down.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>To see those results now — I mean, obviously the districts are different now, having been gerrymandered — but it was still, I think, pretty striking. You know, it’s interesting, the different ways that the progressive challengers and the Democratic Party have held up. I mean, we’re seeing — it looks like the billionaire tax is going to pass, but at the same time, the more DSA-aligned candidate for insurance commissioner appears ahead. And so, you know, it’s been interesting seeing the way those have broken down.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re going to dig into all of that. With regard to probably the most widely expected result, Jeanne, let’s start with the state’s highest office. That winner, of course, is Javier Becerra, declared immediately after polls closed last night. And though he’s downplayed the historic significance of being the first elected Latino governor — we had a Latino governor in the seat a century and a half ago — it is quite a milestone for California, the nation’s most populous state, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re going to dig into all of that. With regard to probably the most widely expected result, Jeanne, let’s start with the state’s highest office. That winner, of course, is Javier Becerra, declared immediately after polls closed last night. And though he’s downplayed the historic significance of being the first elected Latino governor — we had a Latino governor in the seat a century and a half ago — it is quite a milestone for California, the nation’s most populous state, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and it is, I think, kind of surprising that it took this long. But it makes sense that it’s someone like Javier Becerra. He had kind of risen to power in East L.A. during a period of Latino political activism, during this great anti-immigrant sentiment in the early ’90s. And he just kind of was a longtime Democratic workhorse, sort of oftentimes in the background of things, but rose up steadily through Democratic politics.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and it is, I think, kind of surprising that it took this long. But it makes sense that it’s someone like Javier Becerra. He had kind of risen to power in East L.A. during a period of Latino political activism, during this great anti-immigrant sentiment in the early ’90s. And he just kind of was a longtime Democratic workhorse, sort of oftentimes in the background of things, but rose up steadily through Democratic politics.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And, you know, this year, obviously, so many Latino voters were concerned about ICE raids, were concerned about what Trump was doing, and he came in at the right moment.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And, you know, this year, obviously, so many Latino voters were concerned about ICE raids, were concerned about what Trump was doing, and he came in at the right moment.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> What do you think voters want to see from him, Jeanne?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Well, he has a lot of big challenges to deal with right off the bat. I mean, obviously, the state has a really high cost of living, and he’s committed to trying to lower that, to trying to restore that California dream, as he often says his parents were able to achieve when they immigrated to the state.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Well, he has a lot of big challenges to deal with right off the bat. I mean, obviously, the state has a really high cost of living, and he’s committed to trying to lower that, to trying to restore that California dream, as he often says his parents were able to achieve when they immigrated to the state.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, there’s questions about how committed the state will be to its clean energy transition. You know, he wants to keep gas prices low, or as low as he can, while continuing the clean energy transition. So there’s going to be questions about the state’s environmental policies along the way.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, there’s questions about how committed the state will be to its clean energy transition. You know, he wants to keep gas prices low, or as low as he can, while continuing the clean energy transition. So there’s going to be questions about the state’s environmental policies along the way.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And there’s just lots of big, sort of looming crises. There’s the issue of how much utility customers should pay for the risks of wildfires. That’s something that has so far been unresolved in the state capital, and he’ll have to deal with that right off the bat, too, if it doesn’t get fixed in the next couple of months.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And there’s just lots of big, sort of looming crises. There’s the issue of how much utility customers should pay for the risks of wildfires. That’s something that has so far been unresolved in the state capital, and he’ll have to deal with that right off the bat, too, if it doesn’t get fixed in the next couple of months.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Marisa, feel free to add what you think his passions and priorities will be and how well they line up with what California wants to see from its governor. But I also want to ask you about the challenger, Steve Hilton, who lost by a very significant margin, and what that means for the chances of Republicans to hold the state’s highest office.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Marisa, feel free to add what you think his passions and priorities will be and how well they line up with what California wants to see from its governor. But I also want to ask you about the challenger, Steve Hilton, who lost by a very significant margin, and what that means for the chances of Republicans to hold the state’s highest office.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Well, I mean, it’s been 20 years. And Steve Hilton, who I think ran a very energetic, hard campaign, even given the uphill battle, still lost by just huge margins. And not just that, but Becerra may be coming in with an even stronger supermajority of Democrats in the state legislature.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Well, I mean, it’s been 20 years. And Steve Hilton, who I think ran a very energetic, hard campaign, even given the uphill battle, still lost by just huge margins. And not just that, but Becerra may be coming in with an even stronger supermajority of Democrats in the state legislature.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I mean, we’re seeing races too close to call in places like Huntington Beach, which was not even on anyone’s radar, right? And so I think that this blue wave, blue tsunami — I’m going to call it a blue El Niño here in California — is really kind of sweeping up even races, I think, folks didn’t have on their bingo cards, so to speak.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I mean, we’re seeing races too close to call in places like Huntington Beach, which was not even on anyone’s radar, right? And so I think that this blue wave, blue tsunami — I’m going to call it a blue El Niño here in California — is really kind of sweeping up even races, I think, folks didn’t have on their bingo cards, so to speak.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I was just looking at a tweet from Rob Piers, who’s a very smart analyst on the right, and he was talking about Jay Obernolte, who would be only one of four Republican members of Congress left from our 52-seat delegation. He’s only up at this point, and there’s more votes to count, by 2.7%. That district was redrawn to shift 3% to the right under Prop 50.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I was just looking at a tweet from Rob Piers, who’s a very smart analyst on the right, and he was talking about Jay Obernolte, who would be only one of four Republican members of Congress left from our 52-seat delegation. He’s only up at this point, and there’s more votes to count, by 2.7%. That district was redrawn to shift 3% to the right under Prop 50.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So there’s a chance that, actually, California House Republicans would have lost more seats if Prop 50 hadn’t passed, just because of those dynamics of when you take voters away from one district, you have to put them somewhere else. So I think it’s really fascinating. And I know my colleague Guy Marzorati already has been talking about this a lot: Was Prop 50 even necessary at this point? It may not have been, but I still don’t think that’s going to prevent folks like Newsom from taking a victory lap on it, especially given how the redistricting war has really backfired for Republicans in places like Texas and Florida.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So there’s a chance that, actually, California House Republicans would have lost more seats if Prop 50 hadn’t passed, just because of those dynamics of when you take voters away from one district, you have to put them somewhere else. So I think it’s really fascinating. And I know my colleague Guy Marzorati already has been talking about this a lot: Was Prop 50 even necessary at this point? It may not have been, but I still don’t think that’s going to prevent folks like Newsom from taking a victory lap on it, especially given how the redistricting war has really backfired for Republicans in places like Texas and Florida.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think you’re answering listener John’s question. He writes, “Is there any way to tell how gerrymandering worked out? Did it do what it was supposed to do?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think you’re answering listener John’s question. He writes, “Is there any way to tell how gerrymandering worked out? Did it do what it was supposed to do?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And speaking of that supermajority, we have a clip from Steve Hilton vowing to continue the fight for a Republican to hold the state’s highest office. Let’s hear it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And speaking of that supermajority, we have a clip from Steve Hilton vowing to continue the fight for a Republican to hold the state’s highest office. Let’s hear it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Hilton:\u003c/strong> The fight goes on. And here’s the game plan: 2028, we end the Democrat supermajority in the state legislature. 2030, we elect a Republican governor in California.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Hilton:\u003c/strong> The fight goes on. And here’s the game plan: 2028, we end the Democrat supermajority in the state legislature. 2030, we elect a Republican governor in California.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, The Sister on Bluesky writes, “One thing that should be clear from last night’s results: establishment Democrats are losing popularity. They were too silent, too compliant, too cowardly during Trump’s reign of terror. We have too many ‘comfortable Dems’ in California, e.g., Mike Thompson. Time for change.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, The Sister on Bluesky writes, “One thing that should be clear from last night’s results: establishment Democrats are losing popularity. They were too silent, too compliant, too cowardly during Trump’s reign of terror. We have too many ‘comfortable Dems’ in California, e.g., Mike Thompson. Time for change.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> That’s so fascinating. I will tell you, we had Javier Becerra in here last week, and I said to him, “You should hire Steve Hilton. Bring in a team of rivals. See what happens.” He didn’t seem very open to that, but I’m still hoping we could see that happen.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> That’s so fascinating. I will tell you, we had Javier Becerra in here last week, and I said to him, “You should hire Steve Hilton. Bring in a team of rivals. See what happens.” He didn’t seem very open to that, but I’m still hoping we could see that happen.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> But do you think that’s true, sort of that energy, that desire for change? And maybe that is what you were both mentioning with the insurance commissioner’s race, and seeing Jane Kim right now, who, of course, is seen as the progressive, more change-agent-type candidate, leading in what is still a very tight race and too close to call. Tell me quickly what your impressions are of that sort of energy.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> But do you think that’s true, sort of that energy, that desire for change? And maybe that is what you were both mentioning with the insurance commissioner’s race, and seeing Jane Kim right now, who, of course, is seen as the progressive, more change-agent-type candidate, leading in what is still a very tight race and too close to call. Tell me quickly what your impressions are of that sort of energy.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> I mean, look, I think that we are in an era where there’s a lot of pushback against the establishment on both sides of the aisle, this rise of populism. I don’t know, though, that we can say there’s clean results yet. I mean, Mike Thompson has not lost that race yet. Doris Matsui, it looks like, might have consolidated Republican votes if she’s going to take out her challenger, Mai Vang.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> I mean, look, I think that we are in an era where there’s a lot of pushback against the establishment on both sides of the aisle, this rise of populism. I don’t know, though, that we can say there’s clean results yet. I mean, Mike Thompson has not lost that race yet. Doris Matsui, it looks like, might have consolidated Republican votes if she’s going to take out her challenger, Mai Vang.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But yes, this is going to be a very large majority, which I think potential Speaker Hakeem Jeffries is probably breathing a sigh of relief over, because it will make some of the left-wing, DSA-aligned candidates a little less potent for his speakership.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But yes, this is going to be a very large majority, which I think potential Speaker Hakeem Jeffries is probably breathing a sigh of relief over, because it will make some of the left-wing, DSA-aligned candidates a little less potent for his speakership.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I do think we’re in a moment here, and it’s going to be a challenge for Democrats to figure out, in some ways, how to balance the things they promised around affordability, around changing people’s lives, with the other things they promised around holding Trump accountable.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But I do think we’re in a moment here, and it’s going to be a challenge for Democrats to figure out, in some ways, how to balance the things they promised around affordability, around changing people’s lives, with the other things they promised around holding Trump accountable.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I know folks like James Talarico in Texas are saying those are the same sides of the same coin — that the corruption they see is really one of the reasons Americans are struggling. But putting that into practice and into policy, and then how does it turn into 2028? What is the conversation around taxing billionaires and Medicare for All in a Democratic primary? I mean, it’s a big tent, and it’s always messy.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I know folks like James Talarico in Texas are saying those are the same sides of the same coin — that the corruption they see is really one of the reasons Americans are struggling. But putting that into practice and into policy, and then how does it turn into 2028? What is the conversation around taxing billionaires and Medicare for All in a Democratic primary? I mean, it’s a big tent, and it’s always messy.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Let me go to caller Douglas in San Francisco, who’s on the line. Douglas, go ahead. You’re on.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Let me go to caller Douglas in San Francisco, who’s on the line. Douglas, go ahead. You’re on.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Douglas:\u003c/strong> Hi, thank you very much. Listen, you guys are talking micro. I’m going to go a little macro here. Trump said, “Put me on the ballot.” We all did. Everybody throughout the country, Republican or Democrat, this is absolutely an anti-Trump vote. It wasn’t a pro-policy or referendum or pro-candidate vote.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Douglas:\u003c/strong> Hi, thank you very much. Listen, you guys are talking micro. I’m going to go a little macro here. Trump said, “Put me on the ballot.” We all did. Everybody throughout the country, Republican or Democrat, this is absolutely an anti-Trump vote. It wasn’t a pro-policy or referendum or pro-candidate vote.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This was an anti-gerrymandering vote. Voters got together and said, “Don’t rob me. Whatever you do, we’re going to come out and we’re going to destroy your gerrymandering lines.”\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>This was an anti-gerrymandering vote. Voters got together and said, “Don’t rob me. Whatever you do, we’re going to come out and we’re going to destroy your gerrymandering lines.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It was also an issue in which the GOP does not quickly recover and decide they’re going to participate in the situation with Democrats in Congress. All those people that choose not to demonstrate cooperation are going to be voted out in two years.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>It was also an issue in which the GOP does not quickly recover and decide they’re going to participate in the situation with Democrats in Congress. All those people that choose not to demonstrate cooperation are going to be voted out in two years.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s also an issue that Democrats have got to get off of social issues and get on to people issues and policy issues, just like gay marriage.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>It’s also an issue that Democrats have got to get off of social issues and get on to people issues and policy issues, just like gay marriage.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, let me get Jeanne’s impressions of what Douglas is saying. What do you think, Jeanne?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, let me get Jeanne’s impressions of what Douglas is saying. What do you think, Jeanne?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Well, certainly, watching these races in California, watching these House races, I think you’re right. I mean, everyone treated it like Donald Trump is on the ballot. I mean, even in the governor’s race, which was already going to be pretty favored for the Democrat, Javier Becerra said Donald Trump is on this ballot. Obviously, he wasn’t. But, you know, it was very easy this year in particular for Democrats to tie their opponents to Trump at every single turn.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Well, certainly, watching these races in California, watching these House races, I think you’re right. I mean, everyone treated it like Donald Trump is on the ballot. I mean, even in the governor’s race, which was already going to be pretty favored for the Democrat, Javier Becerra said Donald Trump is on this ballot. Obviously, he wasn’t. But, you know, it was very easy this year in particular for Democrats to tie their opponents to Trump at every single turn.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> This is special election coverage from the California Newsroom and \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. We’ll hear more from our guests, Jeanne Kuang and Marisa Lagos, and from you, our listeners, after the break. This is \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> with Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> This is special election coverage from the California Newsroom and \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. We’ll hear more from our guests, Jeanne Kuang and Marisa Lagos, and from you, our listeners, after the break. This is \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> with Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> in the California Newsroom. This is special election coverage. We’re talking about the message California voters sent in these midterm elections, the decisive races and propositions, and the ones that remain too close to call.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> in the California Newsroom. This is special election coverage. We’re talking about the message California voters sent in these midterm elections, the decisive races and propositions, and the ones that remain too close to call.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’re talking about it with Jeanne Kuang, capital reporter at CalMatters, and Marisa Lagos, politics correspondent for KQED and co-host of \u003cem>Political Breakdown\u003c/em>. And with you, our listeners: How are you feeling about last night’s election results? What questions do you have about them? What results surprised you or differed from what you hoped for in California? And are you feeling more or less hopeful now about California’s future?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>We’re talking about it with Jeanne Kuang, capital reporter at CalMatters, and Marisa Lagos, politics correspondent for KQED and co-host of \u003cem>Political Breakdown\u003c/em>. And with you, our listeners: How are you feeling about last night’s election results? What questions do you have about them? What results surprised you or differed from what you hoped for in California? And are you feeling more or less hopeful now about California’s future?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The email address is \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. Find us on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum. Call us at 866-733-6786, 866-733-6786.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>The email address is \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. Find us on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum. Call us at 866-733-6786, 866-733-6786.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Brian writes, “I’m surprised Prop 40 is not doing better. I know billionaires spent a ton of money campaigning against it, but it seems in most people’s interest to put this excess wealth to work for all. I feel like I’m missing something.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Brian writes, “I’m surprised Prop 40 is not doing better. I know billionaires spent a ton of money campaigning against it, but it seems in most people’s interest to put this excess wealth to work for all. I feel like I’m missing something.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Jeanne, I’ll start with you. Prop 40 would have assessed — or maybe would — a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of the state’s roughly 200 or so billionaires. It has not been called yet, but it’s trailing. Why?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Jeanne, I’ll start with you. Prop 40 would have assessed — or maybe would — a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of the state’s roughly 200 or so billionaires. It has not been called yet, but it’s trailing. Why?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, you know, it was interesting talking to the proponents last night, when they kind of early started to concede that this was probably not going to pass. They’re blaming the massive amounts of money that their opponents spent. I think we tallied up something like $380 million being spent against Prop 40 by mostly billionaire opponents. So that’s definitely a major factor.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, you know, it was interesting talking to the proponents last night, when they kind of early started to concede that this was probably not going to pass. They’re blaming the massive amounts of money that their opponents spent. I think we tallied up something like $380 million being spent against Prop 40 by mostly billionaire opponents. So that’s definitely a major factor.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s also pretty hard to pass ballot measures to begin with. And when you have things that are kind of confusing or have caveats, like, “Oh, this is one-time, and it’s just for this one program,” in this case health care, you know, these are just all things that you have to overcome as a proponent of a ballot proposition at the ballot box, with voters who are not necessarily that aware of what’s going on.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It’s also pretty hard to pass ballot measures to begin with. And when you have things that are kind of confusing or have caveats, like, “Oh, this is one-time, and it’s just for this one program,” in this case health care, you know, these are just all things that you have to overcome as a proponent of a ballot proposition at the ballot box, with voters who are not necessarily that aware of what’s going on.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So it’s already going to be headwinds, and then you’ve got the spending against you. You also had a lot of confusion amongst Democrats because most of the prominent Democratic leaders in the state were against it, and a lot of influential groups like Planned Parenthood were also against it. So I think that confuses liberal voters. I’m not sure where, you know, they don’t know where to align themselves.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So it’s already going to be headwinds, and then you’ve got the spending against you. You also had a lot of confusion amongst Democrats because most of the prominent Democratic leaders in the state were against it, and a lot of influential groups like Planned Parenthood were also against it. So I think that confuses liberal voters. I’m not sure where, you know, they don’t know where to align themselves.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> What would you add with regard to the forces that have caused this right now to be trailing Proposition 40, and also what this means for any future effort, potentially, Marisa, to be able to introduce a new one in the state? Or even, as Gavin Newsom claimed was the reason he was not behind it, he wanted a nationwide one.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> What would you add with regard to the forces that have caused this right now to be trailing Proposition 40, and also what this means for any future effort, potentially, Marisa, to be able to introduce a new one in the state? Or even, as Gavin Newsom claimed was the reason he was not behind it, he wanted a nationwide one.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, this is something I’m going to be watching carefully. I agree with Jeanne 100%. I mean, when voters have doubts, they vote no. And, you know, there was literally almost no money on the yes side to push this. There was $388 million on the other side. Almost a quarter or a third of it came from one man, Sergey Brin, the Google co-founder.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, this is something I’m going to be watching carefully. I agree with Jeanne 100%. I mean, when voters have doubts, they vote no. And, you know, there was literally almost no money on the yes side to push this. There was $388 million on the other side. Almost a quarter or a third of it came from one man, Sergey Brin, the Google co-founder.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think when you add that with the sort of institutional Democratic and left-wing opposition, we saw folks making this claim — and, you know, one that I think has always been sort of anxiety-inducing for the left — which is, is the tax structure in California pushing innovation and money out of state? That’s a debate we’ve been having for a long time. I think that all added up to a really tough environment.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think when you add that with the sort of institutional Democratic and left-wing opposition, we saw folks making this claim — and, you know, one that I think has always been sort of anxiety-inducing for the left — which is, is the tax structure in California pushing innovation and money out of state? That’s a debate we’ve been having for a long time. I think that all added up to a really tough environment.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But to your point about what’s next, I mean, I’m going to be watching this really carefully. I think it’s going to be fascinating. You know, I think that no matter what lessons are being taken — and let’s be clear, both sides saw this as a litmus test and something that they could use as a model elsewhere, right? So it’s not to say that the backers of this are in any way cheering — but I do think that there is so much anger over inequality, the wealth of billionaires, the rate at which it’s growing, and the way our tax system really does not capture that wealth, that this will be an issue come the 2028 state Democratic primary.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But to your point about what’s next, I mean, I’m going to be watching this really carefully. I think it’s going to be fascinating. You know, I think that no matter what lessons are being taken — and let’s be clear, both sides saw this as a litmus test and something that they could use as a model elsewhere, right? So it’s not to say that the backers of this are in any way cheering — but I do think that there is so much anger over inequality, the wealth of billionaires, the rate at which it’s growing, and the way our tax system really does not capture that wealth, that this will be an issue come the 2028 state Democratic primary.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But how do people like Newsom thread that needle? I mean, he is going to have to make the case to voters in other states who don’t know all the details on the ground that he is somehow for taxing the Elon Musks of the world nationally, but not in California. Does that fly? Is it a vulnerability? Or can he turn around and say, “Look, I’m not a crazy liberal from California. I pushed back when there was a bad policy, but I support taxes”? You know what I’m saying? So I think it’s going to be really interesting to see how this is framed.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But how do people like Newsom thread that needle? I mean, he is going to have to make the case to voters in other states who don’t know all the details on the ground that he is somehow for taxing the Elon Musks of the world nationally, but not in California. Does that fly? Is it a vulnerability? Or can he turn around and say, “Look, I’m not a crazy liberal from California. I pushed back when there was a bad policy, but I support taxes”? You know what I’m saying? So I think it’s going to be really interesting to see how this is framed.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And then we’re already seeing Dave Regan, the union leader who put this on the ballot, saying they’re going to come back with another one in a couple of years. So this fight may not be over.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And then we’re already seeing Dave Regan, the union leader who put this on the ballot, saying they’re going to come back with another one in a couple of years. So this fight may not be over.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, with Proposition 42 getting more yes votes at the moment — and that was, of course, going to prohibit the state from taxing financial assets, right, the very wealth of billionaires — is that going to make it a lot harder for Regan to do that?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, with Proposition 42 getting more yes votes at the moment — and that was, of course, going to prohibit the state from taxing financial assets, right, the very wealth of billionaires — is that going to make it a lot harder for Regan to do that?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Well, no, because it’s a ballot measure, so it prevents the legislature from doing that. But voters can overturn their own will at any moment.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Well, no, because it’s a ballot measure, so it prevents the legislature from doing that. But voters can overturn their own will at any moment.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Now, I mean, are the fundamentals going to be difficult if they try to run the same playbook? I think they will, because voters are already skeptical of this. So I would be looking at what sort of details they might bring back if they indeed try this again, which we’ll have to see.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Now, I mean, are the fundamentals going to be difficult if they try to run the same playbook? I think they will, because voters are already skeptical of this. So I would be looking at what sort of details they might bring back if they indeed try this again, which we’ll have to see.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And can there be a bigger coalition? I mean, Dave Regan himself is very controversial. A lot of people in the union world particularly really dislike him. That certainly didn’t help them build a coalition on the yes side. So there’s a lot of uniqueness to this particular campaign.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And can there be a bigger coalition? I mean, Dave Regan himself is very controversial. A lot of people in the union world particularly really dislike him. That certainly didn’t help them build a coalition on the yes side. So there’s a lot of uniqueness to this particular campaign.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But yes, Prop 42 will prevent the legislature from doing any sort of wealth tax. But let’s not forget, we can always overturn our own will as voters.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But yes, Prop 42 will prevent the legislature from doing any sort of wealth tax. But let’s not forget, we can always overturn our own will as voters.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Direct democracy. This is our Discord. They want to know, Jeanne, what are your thoughts on Prop 3 passing, which extended the tax on high-income earners, but Prop 40 going down?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Direct democracy. This is our Discord. They want to know, Jeanne, what are your thoughts on Prop 3 passing, which extended the tax on high-income earners, but Prop 40 going down?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Prop 3 passed pretty easily. I mean, it’s just extending a tax that already exists — higher income taxes on the highest earners. This was originally passed by the teachers union to shore up state revenues for schools.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Prop 3 passed pretty easily. I mean, it’s just extending a tax that already exists — higher income taxes on the highest earners. This was originally passed by the teachers union to shore up state revenues for schools.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think this just shows that a lot of Californians, at the end of the day — we have this reputation of being highly taxed, but it’s a liberal state. People support the progressive tax system. You know, if you earn more, you should pay more.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think this just shows that a lot of Californians, at the end of the day — we have this reputation of being highly taxed, but it’s a liberal state. People support the progressive tax system. You know, if you earn more, you should pay more.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think, I guess it’s an interesting one, but it doesn’t, I don’t think, really say anything about whether or not people are interested in taxing wealth, which was such a new and untested idea. And at the end of the day, you know, we do rely on the wealthiest residents for a lot of our income tax revenue, and I think people are generally supportive of that structure.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think, I guess it’s an interesting one, but it doesn’t, I don’t think, really say anything about whether or not people are interested in taxing wealth, which was such a new and untested idea. And at the end of the day, you know, we do rely on the wealthiest residents for a lot of our income tax revenue, and I think people are generally supportive of that structure.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Okay, Mina, I do have some breaking news. Congressional District 13 — this is Adam Gray’s seat in Modesto and that area — has just been called for him. This is notable because it’s one of only three swing districts left. Last time, in 2022, when he won this seat, he won by 187 votes. This time, he’s up by more than 20,000 votes. So if there was ever evidence of this blue tsunami, that is one of the districts we will be looking at.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Okay, Mina, I do have some breaking news. Congressional District 13 — this is Adam Gray’s seat in Modesto and that area — has just been called for him. This is notable because it’s one of only three swing districts left. Last time, in 2022, when he won this seat, he won by 187 votes. This time, he’s up by more than 20,000 votes. So if there was ever evidence of this blue tsunami, that is one of the districts we will be looking at.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yes, for sure. Right, 187 votes — that was the one that lasted several days. Let me go to Dorian in Marin, who’s on the line. Dorian, go ahead.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yes, for sure. Right, 187 votes — that was the one that lasted several days. Let me go to Dorian in Marin, who’s on the line. Dorian, go ahead.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dorian:\u003c/strong> I, first of all, I just want to thank you all for giving me the opportunity. As I mentioned to the caller, I’m not one that gets involved with politics, but I will tell you that I am proud that this country and the people have a common decency. I mean, my wife is from another country, and I know the struggle that she had to get here, and I’m just grateful for how things turned out, and I hope —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dorian:\u003c/strong> I, first of all, I just want to thank you all for giving me the opportunity. As I mentioned to the caller, I’m not one that gets involved with politics, but I will tell you that I am proud that this country and the people have a common decency. I mean, my wife is from another country, and I know the struggle that she had to get here, and I’m just grateful for how things turned out, and I hope —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Thank you, Dorian. Thanks for sharing where you’re at.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Thank you, Dorian. Thanks for sharing where you’re at.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Dan says, “This was a vote against Trump’s administration and not necessarily for Democrats. Now Democrats need to deliver on health care and the economy if they want this to be a long-term shift.” What do you think about that?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Dan says, “This was a vote against Trump’s administration and not necessarily for Democrats. Now Democrats need to deliver on health care and the economy if they want this to be a long-term shift.” What do you think about that?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, it’s funny because you can also point back to 2024. A lot of people were not, as it turns out, necessarily voting for Republicans or Trump, but rather against the incumbents and the status quo and the higher cost of living that they were seeing with Joe Biden in charge.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, it’s funny because you can also point back to 2024. A lot of people were not, as it turns out, necessarily voting for Republicans or Trump, but rather against the incumbents and the status quo and the higher cost of living that they were seeing with Joe Biden in charge.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think that’s often the lesson when it comes to these very swingy elections that we see. But it’s true that, especially here in California, especially with the governor’s race, Democrats do have to own the cost-of-living issue. They have to own the affordability issue. And I think that’s going to be one of the biggest tests for Becerra going forward.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think that’s often the lesson when it comes to these very swingy elections that we see. But it’s true that, especially here in California, especially with the governor’s race, Democrats do have to own the cost-of-living issue. They have to own the affordability issue. And I think that’s going to be one of the biggest tests for Becerra going forward.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Let me go to caller Bill in San Bernardino. Bill, go ahead. You’re on.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Let me go to caller Bill in San Bernardino. Bill, go ahead. You’re on.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bill:\u003c/strong> Hi there. Thanks for having me. I wanted to comment on the discussion about Prop 40, the billionaire tax, and say that, you know, I think the points you all made about the billionaire spending against the tax are a really important one. And just to talk about the context a little more, I think that voters across the country are really susceptible to these claims that their assets, even if they’re not billionaires, will be taxed.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bill:\u003c/strong> Hi there. Thanks for having me. I wanted to comment on the discussion about Prop 40, the billionaire tax, and say that, you know, I think the points you all made about the billionaire spending against the tax are a really important one. And just to talk about the context a little more, I think that voters across the country are really susceptible to these claims that their assets, even if they’re not billionaires, will be taxed.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I saw that a lot in the anti-messaging, you know, because we don’t live in a society where you can rely on social systems to take care of you, right? So if you’re a homeowner, your biggest asset is your home, and that’s a process that’s been socially constructed since the ’50s, since the end of World War II.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I saw that a lot in the anti-messaging, you know, because we don’t live in a society where you can rely on social systems to take care of you, right? So if you’re a homeowner, your biggest asset is your home, and that’s a process that’s been socially constructed since the ’50s, since the end of World War II.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so people are susceptible to these scare tactics, saying, like, “Well, the government’s not just going to stop at the billionaires. They’re going to come for you, too.” And if we had a social safety net that really protected people, if we had health care, if we had the right to education, if you had the right housing, people who are not billionaires would not feel so much threat by this claim that they’re going to come for everybody’s assets.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so people are susceptible to these scare tactics, saying, like, “Well, the government’s not just going to stop at the billionaires. They’re going to come for you, too.” And if we had a social safety net that really protected people, if we had health care, if we had the right to education, if you had the right housing, people who are not billionaires would not feel so much threat by this claim that they’re going to come for everybody’s assets.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Bill, thanks. I want to share that perspective. Thank you. Marisa, I have heard that sentiment, too.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Bill, thanks. I want to share that perspective. Thank you. Marisa, I have heard that sentiment, too.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Oh, 100%. I think that was a really potent argument. I think it is why Prop 42 looks like it’s going to pass, which is the one that would prohibit any taxation of assets like this, but for anybody. And Prop 41, the other measure that was sort of complicated and related to the state spending limit and special taxes, looks like it’s going down.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Oh, 100%. I think that was a really potent argument. I think it is why Prop 42 looks like it’s going to pass, which is the one that would prohibit any taxation of assets like this, but for anybody. And Prop 41, the other measure that was sort of complicated and related to the state spending limit and special taxes, looks like it’s going down.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Billionaires put both of those on the ballot in order to undercut Prop 40, the billionaire tax. And yeah, I mean, I think, look, it makes sense, too. It’s a very smart political argument in a moment when everyone is anxious about their own checkbook, about their bottom line, when gas prices are high, milk prices are higher, beef prices — you know, all the things. And so it was sort of this perfect storm.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Billionaires put both of those on the ballot in order to undercut Prop 40, the billionaire tax. And yeah, I mean, I think, look, it makes sense, too. It’s a very smart political argument in a moment when everyone is anxious about their own checkbook, about their bottom line, when gas prices are high, milk prices are higher, beef prices — you know, all the things. And so it was sort of this perfect storm.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, again, I think that the broader politics right now around inequality and anger at it are not necessarily going to disappear just because of the defeat of Prop 40. And so, you know, this is a fight that might just move to the national level in a different manner. And I think it’s really fascinating.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, again, I think that the broader politics right now around inequality and anger at it are not necessarily going to disappear just because of the defeat of Prop 40. And so, you know, this is a fight that might just move to the national level in a different manner. And I think it’s really fascinating.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, I’ve pushed Becerra on this. I talked to billionaire Chris Larsen, who helped fund opposition to Prop 40. And I think there’s agreement that the tax system itself needs to be reformed in a broader way. Maybe, if you didn’t like Prop 40, even if you’re somebody who thinks billionaires should be taxed more, there should be a bigger conversation. Is there the political will for that, Mina? Either in Sacramento or D.C., we’ll have to wait and see.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, I’ve pushed Becerra on this. I talked to billionaire Chris Larsen, who helped fund opposition to Prop 40. And I think there’s agreement that the tax system itself needs to be reformed in a broader way. Maybe, if you didn’t like Prop 40, even if you’re somebody who thinks billionaires should be taxed more, there should be a bigger conversation. Is there the political will for that, Mina? Either in Sacramento or D.C., we’ll have to wait and see.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> I think this is what Mitko is actually saying. Mitko writes, “I voted against Prop 40 because it was just a quick, one-time fix. My vote had nothing to do with tech people spending money on ads. We need long-term fiscal change in California, mainly revising the unfair Prop 13, which nowadays penalizes people with super-high taxes based on the sky-high real estate.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> I think this is what Mitko is actually saying. Mitko writes, “I voted against Prop 40 because it was just a quick, one-time fix. My vote had nothing to do with tech people spending money on ads. We need long-term fiscal change in California, mainly revising the unfair Prop 13, which nowadays penalizes people with super-high taxes based on the sky-high real estate.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, another listener, Mick, writes something sort of similar with regard to the significant Democratic Party majority in California: “Why has reforming or repealing Prop 13 taken so long? This seems an obvious choice for equitable tax reform compared to a billionaire tax.”\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>You know, another listener, Mick, writes something sort of similar with regard to the significant Democratic Party majority in California: “Why has reforming or repealing Prop 13 taken so long? This seems an obvious choice for equitable tax reform compared to a billionaire tax.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I mean, certainly there are some really important things that you all have been bringing up. Our last caller, Bill, brought up, too, which is, yes, people are very frustrated with our tax system, but it’s also very much about concerns with regard to whether you can afford things moving forward as well.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I mean, certainly there are some really important things that you all have been bringing up. Our last caller, Bill, brought up, too, which is, yes, people are very frustrated with our tax system, but it’s also very much about concerns with regard to whether you can afford things moving forward as well.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think this concern is really what played out in some of the congressional races that we thought would be close, but that ended up being more decisive initially — or at least the results being more lopsided initially — than a lot of people remembered.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think this concern is really what played out in some of the congressional races that we thought would be close, but that ended up being more decisive initially — or at least the results being more lopsided initially — than a lot of people remembered.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>One of the ones I’m talking about, of course, is District 22. This is in the Central Valley, David Valadao and Randy Villegas. We have Amaray Alvarez on the line with us, a Kern County reporter for KVPR. Amaray, welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>One of the ones I’m talking about, of course, is District 22. This is in the Central Valley, David Valadao and Randy Villegas. We have Amaray Alvarez on the line with us, a Kern County reporter for KVPR. Amaray, welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amaray Alvarez:\u003c/strong> Hi. Good morning.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amaray Alvarez:\u003c/strong> Hi. Good morning.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So talk to us. I understand the Associated Press has not called this race yet for Randy Villegas, but he declared a victory last night as initial returns showed him with a sizable lead. What does that tell you about what Central Valley voters wanted?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So talk to us. I understand the Associated Press has not called this race yet for Randy Villegas, but he declared a victory last night as initial returns showed him with a sizable lead. What does that tell you about what Central Valley voters wanted?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amaray Alvarez:\u003c/strong> Yes, he did declare victory last night, I believe. It may have been declared a few minutes ago in his favor, but yes, he declared victory ahead of time, and now I believe he is our new congressman in District 22.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amaray Alvarez:\u003c/strong> Yes, he did declare victory last night, I believe. It may have been declared a few minutes ago in his favor, but yes, he declared victory ahead of time, and now I believe he is our new congressman in District 22.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> What do you think it was about Villegas’ message that resonated when Valadao has enjoyed a long incumbency, winning so many of the last several elections?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> What do you think it was about Villegas’ message that resonated when Valadao has enjoyed a long incumbency, winning so many of the last several elections?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amaray Alvarez:\u003c/strong> Yes, well, the district was redistricted with Prop 50, so that made a shift. But also, a lot of the constituents that I spoke to were upset with David Valadao. He voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill, which cut aid to Medicare and Medicaid. And this is one of the districts with the most people on it, so a lot of people were upset about that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amaray Alvarez:\u003c/strong> Yes, well, the district was redistricted with Prop 50, so that made a shift. But also, a lot of the constituents that I spoke to were upset with David Valadao. He voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill, which cut aid to Medicare and Medicaid. And this is one of the districts with the most people on it, so a lot of people were upset about that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Affordability, gas prices, and immigration — this is a largely Latino area as well. And people really resonated with Randy Villegas. He’s the son of Latino farmworkers, immigrants, and they just felt like he had their best interests at heart.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Affordability, gas prices, and immigration — this is a largely Latino area as well. And people really resonated with Randy Villegas. He’s the son of Latino farmworkers, immigrants, and they just felt like he had their best interests at heart.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> What work, though, do you think is ahead for Randy to show that he deserves this opportunity?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> What work, though, do you think is ahead for Randy to show that he deserves this opportunity?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amaray Alvarez:\u003c/strong> I feel like he really was out there and showed up for people. A lot of people said it’s been hard to talk to David Valadao, that he’s been their congressman for so long, but they really have never seen him, have never met him, and have never talked to him.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amaray Alvarez:\u003c/strong> I feel like he really was out there and showed up for people. A lot of people said it’s been hard to talk to David Valadao, that he’s been their congressman for so long, but they really have never seen him, have never met him, and have never talked to him.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Randy Villegas had a lot of events. He was out even for Dolores Huerta, who passed away last week. He was there at events for her, just showing up for the community in a way that they haven’t seen a congressman do for them in the past few years.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Randy Villegas had a lot of events. He was out even for Dolores Huerta, who passed away last week. He was there at events for her, just showing up for the community in a way that they haven’t seen a congressman do for them in the past few years.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Amaray Alvarez, Kern County reporter for KVPR, Valley Public Radio, really appreciate hearing from you. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Amaray Alvarez, Kern County reporter for KVPR, Valley Public Radio, really appreciate hearing from you. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Marisa, I know this is a race that you’ve watched very closely. Tell me what you think of where this stands. And yes, confirmation came less than 15 minutes ago or so that this has been called for Randy Villegas.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Marisa, I know this is a race that you’ve watched very closely. Tell me what you think of where this stands. And yes, confirmation came less than 15 minutes ago or so that this has been called for Randy Villegas.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Randy Villegas will be the next congressman from the Central Valley. And I mean, first, it’s so important to know — this is a seat, like, it’s a cliché, but I keep saying it’s like Lucy in the football for Democrats. I mean, there was one time in 2018 that they managed to beat David Valadao, only for him to come back and win again in 2020.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Randy Villegas will be the next congressman from the Central Valley. And I mean, first, it’s so important to know — this is a seat, like, it’s a cliché, but I keep saying it’s like Lucy in the football for Democrats. I mean, there was one time in 2018 that they managed to beat David Valadao, only for him to come back and win again in 2020.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>He was the only sitting Republican in Congress who had voted for the impeachment of President Trump in 2020, and he really, sort of, for years, has risen above the partisan fray and been able to keep that seat.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>He was the only sitting Republican in Congress who had voted for the impeachment of President Trump in 2020, and he really, sort of, for years, has risen above the partisan fray and been able to keep that seat.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And Villegas — I mean, what is so interesting is Villegas really sort of prosecuted a different theory of the case for Democrats. You know, in the past, everyone who’s run against Valadao has come from the center-left. They’ve really tried to stress their credentials as being more moderate.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And Villegas — I mean, what is so interesting is Villegas really sort of prosecuted a different theory of the case for Democrats. You know, in the past, everyone who’s run against Valadao has come from the center-left. They’ve really tried to stress their credentials as being more moderate.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We see this in the neighboring District 13, where Adam Gray just won. He’s a Blue Dog Democrat, very much known as a moderate both in Sacramento and D.C. Villegas is a progressive. Bernie Sanders came to campaign with him. AOC was there. He is running unabashedly on Medicare for All.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We see this in the neighboring District 13, where Adam Gray just won. He’s a Blue Dog Democrat, very much known as a moderate both in Sacramento and D.C. Villegas is a progressive. Bernie Sanders came to campaign with him. AOC was there. He is running unabashedly on Medicare for All.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And it’s going to be really fascinating to see, to your point, what can he deliver around some of the priorities he campaigned on? And is this just part of a blue tsunami, or is he really a candidate who reflects the district and has excited voters who may not have shown up in cycles past? We may not know that for a couple of years, right, when he’s back on the ballot. But I think it’s really interesting to see someone like him win in this area, especially given all the issues there that were just laid out, including how things like not just the war on Iran and gas prices, but tariffs, beef imports, all of that were such big issues, and, of course, immigration. I mean, you really can’t understate how much that sort of bleeds into these other, bigger anxieties.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And it’s going to be really fascinating to see, to your point, what can he deliver around some of the priorities he campaigned on? And is this just part of a blue tsunami, or is he really a candidate who reflects the district and has excited voters who may not have shown up in cycles past? We may not know that for a couple of years, right, when he’s back on the ballot. But I think it’s really interesting to see someone like him win in this area, especially given all the issues there that were just laid out, including how things like not just the war on Iran and gas prices, but tariffs, beef imports, all of that were such big issues, and, of course, immigration. I mean, you really can’t understate how much that sort of bleeds into these other, bigger anxieties.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Let’s hear a little bit, actually, from Randy Villegas, who spoke with KGET after he declared victory, though the AP had not yet called the race.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Let’s hear a little bit, actually, from Randy Villegas, who spoke with KGET after he declared victory, though the AP had not yet called the race.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Randy Villegas:\u003c/strong> My parents came to this country with nothing but hopes and dreams for a better future for their children. And to know that in one generation, their son is going to be a member of Congress advocating for other families across this country means the world to me. To know that we’re going to have somebody who’s going to stand up and champion the working class in every decision that we make, and we’re going to have somebody that works just as hard as the Central Valley does.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Randy Villegas:\u003c/strong> My parents came to this country with nothing but hopes and dreams for a better future for their children. And to know that in one generation, their son is going to be a member of Congress advocating for other families across this country means the world to me. To know that we’re going to have somebody who’s going to stand up and champion the working class in every decision that we make, and we’re going to have somebody that works just as hard as the Central Valley does.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re talking about the races and propositions — the ones that were decisive, the ones that still have not quite been called — and the message that California voters sent in these midterm elections. We’re talking about it with Marisa Lagos of KQED, Jeanne Kuang of CalMatters, and with you, our listeners.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re talking about the races and propositions — the ones that were decisive, the ones that still have not quite been called — and the message that California voters sent in these midterm elections. We’re talking about it with Marisa Lagos of KQED, Jeanne Kuang of CalMatters, and with you, our listeners.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>866-733-6786 is the number to call. Again, 866-733-6786. Find us on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum, or email your comments and questions to \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>866-733-6786 is the number to call. Again, 866-733-6786. Find us on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum, or email your comments and questions to \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>From the California Newsroom and \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, this is special election coverage. Stay with us!\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>From the California Newsroom and \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, this is special election coverage. Stay with us!\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You’re listening to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> in the California Newsroom with special election coverage. Last night’s blue tsunami is being felt in California on some statewide ballot propositions and in some key races.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>You’re listening to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> in the California Newsroom with special election coverage. Last night’s blue tsunami is being felt in California on some statewide ballot propositions and in some key races.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’re talking about how Californians cast their ballots in these midterm elections with Jeanne Kuang, a capital reporter for CalMatters, and Marisa Lagos, politics correspondent for KQED and co-host of \u003cem>Political Breakdown\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>We’re talking about how Californians cast their ballots in these midterm elections with Jeanne Kuang, a capital reporter for CalMatters, and Marisa Lagos, politics correspondent for KQED and co-host of \u003cem>Political Breakdown\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And just before the break, we heard from Amaray Alvarez of KVPR. Listeners, how are you feeling about the election results? What questions do you have about the propositions and races? What results have surprised you or differed from what you hoped? And are you feeling more or less hopeful about California’s future? Do you feel like the people in charge are getting the message you want to send?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>And just before the break, we heard from Amaray Alvarez of KVPR. Listeners, how are you feeling about the election results? What questions do you have about the propositions and races? What results have surprised you or differed from what you hoped? And are you feeling more or less hopeful about California’s future? Do you feel like the people in charge are getting the message you want to send?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The email address is \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. Find us on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum. Or you can call us at 866-733-6786, 866-733-6786.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>The email address is \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. Find us on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum. Or you can call us at 866-733-6786, 866-733-6786.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>One of the propositions that listeners are wanting us to talk about, Marisa, is Proposition 45. This one, of course, was the CEQA reform proposition. There has definitely been some evidence of an appetite to reform CEQA to get development projects off the ground. What do you think is happening here with these results?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>One of the propositions that listeners are wanting us to talk about, Marisa, is Proposition 45. This one, of course, was the CEQA reform proposition. There has definitely been some evidence of an appetite to reform CEQA to get development projects off the ground. What do you think is happening here with these results?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Yeah, this one was really interesting. You know, it was polling really high a few months ago. And then, once the opposition campaign really started in earnest, it fell quickly.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Yeah, this one was really interesting. You know, it was polling really high a few months ago. And then, once the opposition campaign really started in earnest, it fell quickly.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think there are a few things going on here. One is that there were real efforts to tie this to President Trump’s attacks on environmental policies here in California. I think that might have resonated with people saying, “Well, why would we sort of weaken our environmental protection laws more at this time?”\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>I think there are a few things going on here. One is that there were real efforts to tie this to President Trump’s attacks on environmental policies here in California. I think that might have resonated with people saying, “Well, why would we sort of weaken our environmental protection laws more at this time?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You can make the argument that those are pretty different issues, like oil drilling versus a review. Basically, what this would have done is shorten the timeline for courts to review challenges to construction projects.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>You can make the argument that those are pretty different issues, like oil drilling versus a review. Basically, what this would have done is shorten the timeline for courts to review challenges to construction projects.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There also was this narrative that this could sort of speed up the construction of data centers, the approval of data centers. That’s something that proponents of Prop 45 rejected outright. But there was no real way to know unless this got litigated, because it wasn’t spelled out in plain terms in the text. And I think that was probably a challenge, too.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There also was this narrative that this could sort of speed up the construction of data centers, the approval of data centers. That’s something that proponents of Prop 45 rejected outright. But there was no real way to know unless this got litigated, because it wasn’t spelled out in plain terms in the text. And I think that was probably a challenge, too.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And then I also just think that we have seen a lot of CEQA reform at the state level in the legislature in recent years. So you had some people casting doubt on whether this was even needed for housing, sort of arguing that this would really only benefit big-scale corporate projects, infrastructure things that maybe aren’t at the top of voters’ minds when you think of the abundance movement.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And then I also just think that we have seen a lot of CEQA reform at the state level in the legislature in recent years. So you had some people casting doubt on whether this was even needed for housing, sort of arguing that this would really only benefit big-scale corporate projects, infrastructure things that maybe aren’t at the top of voters’ minds when you think of the abundance movement.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, you know, I think this was a rare miscalculation for the California Chamber of Commerce. They have only put a few ballot measures on the ballot themselves in recent years and, until now, have had a pretty good track record.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>So, you know, I think this was a rare miscalculation for the California Chamber of Commerce. They have only put a few ballot measures on the ballot themselves in recent years and, until now, have had a pretty good track record.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I think what I’ll be watching moving forward is whether there’s still an appetite for more CEQA reform in Sacramento, or, with a supermajority and more progressives coming in potentially, whether there are attempts to roll back some of the reforms. That would definitely give the chamber a stronger hand if they wanted to move forward with something similar in the future.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But I think what I’ll be watching moving forward is whether there’s still an appetite for more CEQA reform in Sacramento, or, with a supermajority and more progressives coming in potentially, whether there are attempts to roll back some of the reforms. That would definitely give the chamber a stronger hand if they wanted to move forward with something similar in the future.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Jeanne, The Sister writes about Prop 39, “California voters saw this for what it was, an attempt to disenfranchise voters in the state.” That was, of course, the voter ID measure. Do you think that’s true? Is that what drove its defeat, essentially?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Jeanne, The Sister writes about Prop 39, “California voters saw this for what it was, an attempt to disenfranchise voters in the state.” That was, of course, the voter ID measure. Do you think that’s true? Is that what drove its defeat, essentially?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> I think this is another one where the opponents were just very eager and happy to tie the campaign to Trump, especially with the past couple of months of the Trump administration trying to intervene in California elections, trying to get ballots not to be counted, alleging that certain voters were not really citizens, things like that.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> I think this is another one where the opponents were just very eager and happy to tie the campaign to Trump, especially with the past couple of months of the Trump administration trying to intervene in California elections, trying to get ballots not to be counted, alleging that certain voters were not really citizens, things like that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I mean, I think the environment was just really set for the opponents to call this a Trump measure, and that’s what they did.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>I mean, I think the environment was just really set for the opponents to call this a Trump measure, and that’s what they did.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Listener Tom writes, “I’m hoping the newly elected officials can forget that they’re politicians and, instead of crowing over victory and pushing a partisan agenda, dedicate themselves to restoring faith in government, faith that it can be fair.”\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Listener Tom writes, “I’m hoping the newly elected officials can forget that they’re politicians and, instead of crowing over victory and pushing a partisan agenda, dedicate themselves to restoring faith in government, faith that it can be fair.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Well, let’s talk about somebody who would like to be a newly elected official, but the race is still too close to call. And that’s, of course, in the L.A. mayor’s race, Karen Bass and Nithya Raman.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Well, let’s talk about somebody who would like to be a newly elected official, but the race is still too close to call. And that’s, of course, in the L.A. mayor’s race, Karen Bass and Nithya Raman.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>For that, I want to bring into the conversation Frank Stoltze, reporter for KPCC. Frank, thanks so much for being with us.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>For that, I want to bring into the conversation Frank Stoltze, reporter for KPCC. Frank, thanks so much for being with us.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze:\u003c/strong> Good to be with you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze:\u003c/strong> Good to be with you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So tell us where things stand right now in the L.A. mayor’s race.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So tell us where things stand right now in the L.A. mayor’s race.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze:\u003c/strong> Too close to call. The city council member and challenger to the incumbent, Nithya Raman, has about 51% of the vote, and the incumbent, Karen Bass, has about 49%. So there’s a very close race going on here, lots of votes to count.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze:\u003c/strong> Too close to call. The city council member and challenger to the incumbent, Nithya Raman, has about 51% of the vote, and the incumbent, Karen Bass, has about 49%. So there’s a very close race going on here, lots of votes to count.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The trend from last night to the latest vote count released early this morning was in favor of Nithya Raman, the progressive backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The trend from last night to the latest vote count released early this morning was in favor of Nithya Raman, the progressive backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, we actually have a clip from Karen Bass touting the many years that she has dedicated herself to the city of Los Angeles. Let’s hear it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, we actually have a clip from Karen Bass touting the many years that she has dedicated herself to the city of Los Angeles. Let’s hear it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karen Bass:\u003c/strong> Four years ago, you gave me the honor of a lifetime to serve as the mayor of the city that raised me, the city my parents chose to build a life in, and the city I have spent my entire life fighting for.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karen Bass:\u003c/strong> Four years ago, you gave me the honor of a lifetime to serve as the mayor of the city that raised me, the city my parents chose to build a life in, and the city I have spent my entire life fighting for.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Frank, Bass has been in the game a long time. Why is this so close?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Frank, Bass has been in the game a long time. Why is this so close?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze:\u003c/strong> She’s an icon in Democratic Party politics in Los Angeles. She was a community organizer in South L.A. She went on to become speaker of the state Assembly and then served in Congress before getting elected mayor four years ago.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze:\u003c/strong> She’s an icon in Democratic Party politics in Los Angeles. She was a community organizer in South L.A. She went on to become speaker of the state Assembly and then served in Congress before getting elected mayor four years ago.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But in the mayor’s position, she’s not performed all that well. She’s had a hard time bringing down the homelessness numbers. She’s struggled with the response to the Palisades fire of last year, and people are not happy in Los Angeles. There’s discontent.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But in the mayor’s position, she’s not performed all that well. She’s had a hard time bringing down the homelessness numbers. She’s struggled with the response to the Palisades fire of last year, and people are not happy in Los Angeles. There’s discontent.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And what we see here is a rejection of some of the major institutions of Los Angeles. The Democratic Party backed Bass. The Chamber of Commerce backed Bass. Big labor, for the most part, backed Bass. And now Bass is losing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And what we see here is a rejection of some of the major institutions of Los Angeles. The Democratic Party backed Bass. The Chamber of Commerce backed Bass. Big labor, for the most part, backed Bass. And now Bass is losing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> It’s a sentiment that we’ve heard so far, even on this show, and also something it sounds like Nithya Raman tried to capitalize on in her messaging. Let’s hear a clip from her.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> It’s a sentiment that we’ve heard so far, even on this show, and also something it sounds like Nithya Raman tried to capitalize on in her messaging. Let’s hear a clip from her.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nithya Raman:\u003c/strong> Here in Los Angeles, this election is about change, too. A city that was engineered over the last few decades to resist change. And the people right here who said, “Enough is enough,” because for too long, our broken and unjust status quo has convinced Angelenos that this is the best that we can do.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nithya Raman:\u003c/strong> Here in Los Angeles, this election is about change, too. A city that was engineered over the last few decades to resist change. And the people right here who said, “Enough is enough,” because for too long, our broken and unjust status quo has convinced Angelenos that this is the best that we can do.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Hmm. So do you think that Nithya is right? Do you think it is anger at the establishment, too? Or what do you think this race was really about for voters, Frank?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Hmm. So do you think that Nithya is right? Do you think it is anger at the establishment, too? Or what do you think this race was really about for voters, Frank?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze:\u003c/strong> Karen Bass had very high unfavorability ratings, and more prominent people who were going to enter the race way back in January dropped out — billionaire Rick Caruso, county supervisor Lindsey Horvath. They declined to challenge the mayor.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze:\u003c/strong> Karen Bass had very high unfavorability ratings, and more prominent people who were going to enter the race way back in January dropped out — billionaire Rick Caruso, county supervisor Lindsey Horvath. They declined to challenge the mayor.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Nithya Raman, seeing the unpopularity of this mayor, jumped into the race and has, you know, apparently succeeded in ousting her. We’ll see where the trend goes. But I think people, again, are not happy with the direction of Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Nithya Raman, seeing the unpopularity of this mayor, jumped into the race and has, you know, apparently succeeded in ousting her. We’ll see where the trend goes. But I think people, again, are not happy with the direction of Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The streetlights — just take that as an example. Many streetlights are broken. You know, just basic city services are not getting delivered.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The streetlights — just take that as an example. Many streetlights are broken. You know, just basic city services are not getting delivered.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Right. A lot of challenges in Los Angeles that the next mayor will have to address. And, of course, L.A. is going to play host on the world stage in the Olympics. Tell us about what’s ahead, Frank.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Right. A lot of challenges in Los Angeles that the next mayor will have to address. And, of course, L.A. is going to play host on the world stage in the Olympics. Tell us about what’s ahead, Frank.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze:\u003c/strong> Well, the mayor said that she should get reelected in part because she’s been planning the Olympics and that Nithya Raman would be too new to get on board. Really, the issue here is the police department.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze:\u003c/strong> Well, the mayor said that she should get reelected in part because she’s been planning the Olympics and that Nithya Raman would be too new to get on board. Really, the issue here is the police department.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Nithya Raman is saying that she’d like to remove the police chief ahead of the Olympics. Karen Bass is saying that would put the department in disarray ahead of such an important event. So the Olympics have played a role in this election.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Nithya Raman is saying that she’d like to remove the police chief ahead of the Olympics. Karen Bass is saying that would put the department in disarray ahead of such an important event. So the Olympics have played a role in this election.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Frank Stoltze, reporter for KPCC, Los Angeles public radio station. Thank you so much for being with us. Really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Frank Stoltze, reporter for KPCC, Los Angeles public radio station. Thank you so much for being with us. Really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Daniel asks, “Can you review the results of the redistricted seats in California?” We were touching on those a little bit, but let’s go down to 48, Marisa, with Marty von Wilpert in the San Diego area as well. Talk about what’s happening there.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Daniel asks, “Can you review the results of the redistricted seats in California?” We were touching on those a little bit, but let’s go down to 48, Marisa, with Marty von Wilpert in the San Diego area as well. Talk about what’s happening there.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Well, this race hasn’t been called yet, but this district, which is definitely evidence of a gerrymander, includes parts of northern San Diego County and Riverside, stretching out to Palm Springs. She is leading with almost 60% of the vote against Jim Desmond, who is a Republican member of the Board of Supervisors in San Diego. He’s around 40%.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Well, this race hasn’t been called yet, but this district, which is definitely evidence of a gerrymander, includes parts of northern San Diego County and Riverside, stretching out to Palm Springs. She is leading with almost 60% of the vote against Jim Desmond, who is a Republican member of the Board of Supervisors in San Diego. He’s around 40%.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So it really looks like her message resonated there. I mean, she definitely ran as a very sort of swing-district candidate. She talked about gas prices a lot. She talked about her family’s military service, her work abroad doing humanitarian work, and her desire to bring back USAID, things like that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So it really looks like her message resonated there. I mean, she definitely ran as a very sort of swing-district candidate. She talked about gas prices a lot. She talked about her family’s military service, her work abroad doing humanitarian work, and her desire to bring back USAID, things like that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And yeah, I mean, this was one of the districts drawn to be flipped by a Democrat. It does appear that Prop 50 has done what it intended to do, but I think the question is, was it even necessary? I mean, some of these margins are so big, you can see a world where they wouldn’t have needed to change the district lines in order to flip them.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And yeah, I mean, this was one of the districts drawn to be flipped by a Democrat. It does appear that Prop 50 has done what it intended to do, but I think the question is, was it even necessary? I mean, some of these margins are so big, you can see a world where they wouldn’t have needed to change the district lines in order to flip them.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so I think that’s going to be interesting. Again, I’m not sure that’s something Democrats are going to spend a lot of time worrying about, but it sort of speaks to the weirdness of last night in that way. What we saw in other states was this really backfired on Republicans. Latinos swung so far back to Democrats that a bunch of districts drawn in places like Texas and Florida, which were aimed at getting more GOP seats, didn’t do that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so I think that’s going to be interesting. Again, I’m not sure that’s something Democrats are going to spend a lot of time worrying about, but it sort of speaks to the weirdness of last night in that way. What we saw in other states was this really backfired on Republicans. Latinos swung so far back to Democrats that a bunch of districts drawn in places like Texas and Florida, which were aimed at getting more GOP seats, didn’t do that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And it’s just really fascinating. I think it speaks to the challenge of these pendulum swings and how you do politics if one election is so different from the next.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And it’s just really fascinating. I think it speaks to the challenge of these pendulum swings and how you do politics if one election is so different from the next.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> It is an interesting question with regard to whether redistricting was necessary. But, Jeanne, of course, these maps are going to hold in ’28 and ’30 as well.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> It is an interesting question with regard to whether redistricting was necessary. But, Jeanne, of course, these maps are going to hold in ’28 and ’30 as well.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, actually, as you were talking, Marisa, it made me think: I wonder if that argument could also be used by the proponents of the Independent Redistricting Commission. Like, hey, this is why you should revert back to the way we did it before in 2030. You know, if you didn’t even need it this time around.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, actually, as you were talking, Marisa, it made me think: I wonder if that argument could also be used by the proponents of the Independent Redistricting Commission. Like, hey, this is why you should revert back to the way we did it before in 2030. You know, if you didn’t even need it this time around.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Because I think that was something that came up a bit last year during Prop 50. Maybe you should just run races in these independently drawn seats based on policy, based on principles. And, you know, those people might have been right.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Because I think that was something that came up a bit last year during Prop 50. Maybe you should just run races in these independently drawn seats based on policy, based on principles. And, you know, those people might have been right.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, let me remind listeners, you are listening to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> and the California Newsroom. I’m Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, let me remind listeners, you are listening to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> and the California Newsroom. I’m Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s very interesting what has happened, regardless of whether the question about whether it’s necessary or not is one to be debated. You’ve got a situation now where you have Democrats having flipped at least three or four seats, maybe at this point, depending on how many have been called as this show has gone on.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It’s very interesting what has happened, regardless of whether the question about whether it’s necessary or not is one to be debated. You’ve got a situation now where you have Democrats having flipped at least three or four seats, maybe at this point, depending on how many have been called as this show has gone on.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Down in the San Bernardino area, in Northern California, the seat that Senator Mike McGuire handily defeated Republican James Gallagher for. And then you also have the situation with Richard Pan defeating Kevin Kiley, who moved to be an independent after he was sort of shuffled out with his district lines.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Down in the San Bernardino area, in Northern California, the seat that Senator Mike McGuire handily defeated Republican James Gallagher for. And then you also have the situation with Richard Pan defeating Kevin Kiley, who moved to be an independent after he was sort of shuffled out with his district lines.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>When all is said and done, Jeanne, how many seats do you think California will contribute — flip seats, flip seats, I should say?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>When all is said and done, Jeanne, how many seats do you think California will contribute — flip seats, flip seats, I should say?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> The purpose was to contribute five flipped seats, and it definitely looks like they’re on track — the Democrats are on track to do that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> The purpose was to contribute five flipped seats, and it definitely looks like they’re on track — the Democrats are on track to do that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> So, yeah, go ahead, Marisa. To put it in perspective, we will likely have only four Republican members of the state delegation. There’s 52 all told in California, so 48 Democrats, four Republicans, if my math is correct after very little sleep. Yeah, I mean, and the six —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> So, yeah, go ahead, Marisa. To put it in perspective, we will likely have only four Republican members of the state delegation. There’s 52 all told in California, so 48 Democrats, four Republicans, if my math is correct after very little sleep. Yeah, I mean, and the six —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Of that, Marisa, I mean, what do you think?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Of that, Marisa, I mean, what do you think?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Well, you know, I think this is where how Democrats choose to govern matters, because if there are voters who really feel like they’re not being represented by their current members of Congress, that could backfire in future elections.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Well, you know, I think this is where how Democrats choose to govern matters, because if there are voters who really feel like they’re not being represented by their current members of Congress, that could backfire in future elections.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think this is where the rubber meets the road in terms of how do you actually put your majority into action? And we’ve already seen the president sound pretty conciliatory, saying he would be willing to work with Democrats. I think it’s going to be fascinating to see if there are actually areas where they can get some things done.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think this is where the rubber meets the road in terms of how do you actually put your majority into action? And we’ve already seen the president sound pretty conciliatory, saying he would be willing to work with Democrats. I think it’s going to be fascinating to see if there are actually areas where they can get some things done.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Lynn has some thoughts about what you’d like to see congressional representatives do. Lynn in Beaumont, go ahead. Join us. You’re on.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Lynn has some thoughts about what you’d like to see congressional representatives do. Lynn in Beaumont, go ahead. Join us. You’re on.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lynn:\u003c/strong> Hi. Thanks for this. I love this discussion. I’d just called in really to remind people that the election is just the beginning. It’s really the start of our work, and that constituents need to talk to the members of Congress about what they want.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lynn:\u003c/strong> Hi. Thanks for this. I love this discussion. I’d just called in really to remind people that the election is just the beginning. It’s really the start of our work, and that constituents need to talk to the members of Congress about what they want.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>That 52 number that you just talked about really resonates with me. We have 52 members of the House of Representatives right here in California. We need to tell them things we care about. For example, the SNAP policy that the Republicans put forward will expect state government, including California, to cover part of the cost of the federally mandated SNAP program, formerly called food stamps. And it’s going to cost California an estimated $3.1 billion to take the portion of SNAP up into our state budget.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>That 52 number that you just talked about really resonates with me. We have 52 members of the House of Representatives right here in California. We need to tell them things we care about. For example, the SNAP policy that the Republicans put forward will expect state government, including California, to cover part of the cost of the federally mandated SNAP program, formerly called food stamps. And it’s going to cost California an estimated $3.1 billion to take the portion of SNAP up into our state budget.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And California, being a rich state, can pull it off with only minimal cuts to other programs. But some states across the country are really going to be harmed by that requirement that their state pays for part of this federal program.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And California, being a rich state, can pull it off with only minimal cuts to other programs. But some states across the country are really going to be harmed by that requirement that their state pays for part of this federal program.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>If that’s something we care about, we should be letting our members of Congress know immediately. And all these things that callers have talked about — you can’t just let the lobbyists and the rich friends of members of Congress speak to them and tell them what we care about. Citizens, constituents, need to tell the members of Congress, “Here’s what we really want you to work on.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>If that’s something we care about, we should be letting our members of Congress know immediately. And all these things that callers have talked about — you can’t just let the lobbyists and the rich friends of members of Congress speak to them and tell them what we care about. Citizens, constituents, need to tell the members of Congress, “Here’s what we really want you to work on.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And it sounds like you guys are all queued up to have a program about that even tomorrow, if I’m right.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And it sounds like you guys are all queued up to have a program about that even tomorrow, if I’m right.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We are. Thank you, Lynn. Let me go next to Chris in Santa Clara. Chris, you’re on.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We are. Thank you, Lynn. Let me go next to Chris in Santa Clara. Chris, you’re on.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks. I think the one item I’m not hearing your team mention is that it is very likely in the next two years that not one piece of legislation at the federal level is signed into law. And we’re not recognizing that a member of the House of Representatives is likely the least powerful elected official in the country. A volunteer library board member in a suburban city has more power than a member of Congress.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks. I think the one item I’m not hearing your team mention is that it is very likely in the next two years that not one piece of legislation at the federal level is signed into law. And we’re not recognizing that a member of the House of Representatives is likely the least powerful elected official in the country. A volunteer library board member in a suburban city has more power than a member of Congress.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Chris, I think I get your point. Sorry, your line is clicking just a tad there. But, Jeanne, give me a reaction to what Chris is saying here.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Chris, I think I get your point. Sorry, your line is clicking just a tad there. But, Jeanne, give me a reaction to what Chris is saying here.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, it’s an interesting point. I think that’s fair. That being said, Trump has said that he plans to work with the Democrats on this. And I do think that there are a number of issues that the Democrats identified this election cycle that do have bipartisan support.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, it’s an interesting point. I think that’s fair. That being said, Trump has said that he plans to work with the Democrats on this. And I do think that there are a number of issues that the Democrats identified this election cycle that do have bipartisan support.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I mean, there’s widespread anxiety around artificial intelligence, around data center construction, things like that. And I do think the Democrats also have — we’ll see how long it holds — but it seems like they learned a lesson about the cost of living in 2024 and were able to use it across party lines this time around. So I think there’s potentially ways where everyone could come together.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I mean, there’s widespread anxiety around artificial intelligence, around data center construction, things like that. And I do think the Democrats also have — we’ll see how long it holds — but it seems like they learned a lesson about the cost of living in 2024 and were able to use it across party lines this time around. So I think there’s potentially ways where everyone could come together.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And it’s a good setup, as the listener was mentioning, with regard to our show for tomorrow. We want to hear from you, listeners, what you want Democrats to do with their power and where Californians will be prominent in Congress now that they will be able to lead the committees.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And it’s a good setup, as the listener was mentioning, with regard to our show for tomorrow. We want to hear from you, listeners, what you want Democrats to do with their power and where Californians will be prominent in Congress now that they will be able to lead the committees.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But, Marisa, finish us off with what threads you are going to continue to follow after this midterm election.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But, Marisa, finish us off with what threads you are going to continue to follow after this midterm election.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, look, I think it’s a valid point that this could just be gridlock in Washington. But also, this is the most unpredictable president of my lifetime. Who knows what deals he could cut with Democrats?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, look, I think it’s a valid point that this could just be gridlock in Washington. But also, this is the most unpredictable president of my lifetime. Who knows what deals he could cut with Democrats?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And to the earlier caller’s point, 52 is a lot of people. The Democratic delegation here — or 48, rather — has a lot of power in a body of 435.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And to the earlier caller’s point, 52 is a lot of people. The Democratic delegation here — or 48, rather — has a lot of power in a body of 435.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think, in that regard, we’re going to be watching to see what happens with the speakership vote. Can Hakeem Jeffries — likely he will be the speaker — but does he get any challenges from some of these more progressive, left-leaning members who are going to want to flex their muscle? How does Trump respond to all of this? What are the final numbers around Prop 40?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think, in that regard, we’re going to be watching to see what happens with the speakership vote. Can Hakeem Jeffries — likely he will be the speaker — but does he get any challenges from some of these more progressive, left-leaning members who are going to want to flex their muscle? How does Trump respond to all of this? What are the final numbers around Prop 40?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And then what happens in the next few months ahead of Becerra coming into office? When Governor Newsom was Governor-elect Newsom, the Paradise Fire occurred, and we had horrible flooding and a huge mass shooting. El Niño is headed here. How much is the governor-elect involved in decisions with the governor’s office in the next few months, and then what does he tackle once he’s in there?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And then what happens in the next few months ahead of Becerra coming into office? When Governor Newsom was Governor-elect Newsom, the Paradise Fire occurred, and we had horrible flooding and a huge mass shooting. El Niño is headed here. How much is the governor-elect involved in decisions with the governor’s office in the next few months, and then what does he tackle once he’s in there?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> KQED’s Marisa Lagos, CalMatters’ Jeanne Kuang, thank you both. KPCC’s Frank Stoltze, KVPR’s Amaray Alvarez, thank you as well. And thank you, listeners, for listening to special coverage from the California Newsroom and \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> KQED’s Marisa Lagos, CalMatters’ Jeanne Kuang, thank you both. KPCC’s Frank Stoltze, KVPR’s Amaray Alvarez, thank you as well. And thank you, listeners, for listening to special coverage from the California Newsroom and \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n"
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Wednesday, November 3, 2026 at 10 am\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We discuss post-election results, analysis and what to expect as major California races are finalized. With reporters from across the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/californianewsroom\">California Newsroom\u003c/a>, we’ll talk about the contest for governor and key congressional seats, along with statewide ballot propositions and consequential local races. And we’ll answer your questions about what the election results mean for the future of California and national politics.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos,\u003c/strong> politics correspondent and co-host of Political Breakdown, KQED\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang, \u003c/strong>capitol reporter, CalMatters\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze,\u003c/strong> reporter, KPCC – Los Angeles Public Radio Station\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Amaray Alvarez,\u003c/strong> Kern County reporter, KVPR – Valley Public Radio\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Welcome to special coverage of midterm election results from the California Newsroom and \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. As Democrats swept critical races across the country last night to seize control of Congress, the blue wave was also felt in California, flipping at least three seats, with more likely adding to the Democrats’ substantial majority in the House. The party also continued its hold on California’s governor’s office with the widely expected early win of Javier Becerra.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Javier Becerra:\u003c/strong> As governor, my mission is straightforward, but not simple: deliver a California we can afford and defend a California we can’t afford to lose.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Listeners, tell us what results so far from candidate races and propositions have surprised you most, and whether you’re feeling more or less hopeful about California’s future. Here’s Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Nithya Raman:\u003c/strong> There are still a lot of ballots to count, and we’re going to let that count finish. I’m hopeful. I’m hopeful.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Listeners, 866-733-6786 is the number to call. Again, 866-733-6786. You can also post on our social channels — Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum — or you can email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Joining me is Marisa Lagos, politics correspondent for KQED and co-host of \u003cem>Political Breakdown\u003c/em>. Hi, Marisa. Morning. Also with us is Jeanne Kuang, capital reporter for CalMatters. Glad to have you, too, Jeanne.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So I want to get from both of you your top-line reactions to these midterm elections. Marisa, what were you thinking and feeling as national and then California results rolled in?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Well, I mean, I think as a California reporter, I am relieved at the decisive nature of these results, if only so we don’t have to relive what happened in June, with this sort of national outcry over our slow vote counting. Not all the races have been called, obviously, but we do know that a lot of results seem pretty clear, even if they’re not final yet.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then I think, after the many attacks by the president on our election system, on California in particular, again, I think the decisive nature of the national and California results really would make it a challenge for him to push back on these. And we’ve already seen him really concede that he will accept these results. So I think that’s a relief. I know that we came into Tuesday with a lot of concerns about how things could play out, not just on Election Day, but in the days after. And it seems like, as of now, those fears are unfounded.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jeanne, what stood out to you about last night?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, absolutely. I agree. I’m surprised at just how decisive some of these results were, especially in what is projecting to be victories for the Democrats in the Central Valley, where traditionally these races have been so close. And I’m sure we all remember these races being decided by a handful of votes weeks after the election ended.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To see those results now — I mean, obviously the districts are different now, having been gerrymandered — but it was still, I think, pretty striking. You know, it’s interesting, the different ways that the progressive challengers and the Democratic Party have held up. I mean, we’re seeing — it looks like the billionaire tax is going to pass, but at the same time, the more DSA-aligned candidate for insurance commissioner appears ahead. And so, you know, it’s been interesting seeing the way those have broken down.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re going to dig into all of that. With regard to probably the most widely expected result, Jeanne, let’s start with the state’s highest office. That winner, of course, is Javier Becerra, declared immediately after polls closed last night. And though he’s downplayed the historic significance of being the first elected Latino governor — we had a Latino governor in the seat a century and a half ago — it is quite a milestone for California, the nation’s most populous state, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and it is, I think, kind of surprising that it took this long. But it makes sense that it’s someone like Javier Becerra. He had kind of risen to power in East L.A. during a period of Latino political activism, during this great anti-immigrant sentiment in the early ’90s. And he just kind of was a longtime Democratic workhorse, sort of oftentimes in the background of things, but rose up steadily through Democratic politics.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And, you know, this year, obviously, so many Latino voters were concerned about ICE raids, were concerned about what Trump was doing, and he came in at the right moment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> What do you think voters want to see from him, Jeanne?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Well, he has a lot of big challenges to deal with right off the bat. I mean, obviously, the state has a really high cost of living, and he’s committed to trying to lower that, to trying to restore that California dream, as he often says his parents were able to achieve when they immigrated to the state.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You know, there’s questions about how committed the state will be to its clean energy transition. You know, he wants to keep gas prices low, or as low as he can, while continuing the clean energy transition. So there’s going to be questions about the state’s environmental policies along the way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And there’s just lots of big, sort of looming crises. There’s the issue of how much utility customers should pay for the risks of wildfires. That’s something that has so far been unresolved in the state capital, and he’ll have to deal with that right off the bat, too, if it doesn’t get fixed in the next couple of months.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Marisa, feel free to add what you think his passions and priorities will be and how well they line up with what California wants to see from its governor. But I also want to ask you about the challenger, Steve Hilton, who lost by a very significant margin, and what that means for the chances of Republicans to hold the state’s highest office.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Well, I mean, it’s been 20 years. And Steve Hilton, who I think ran a very energetic, hard campaign, even given the uphill battle, still lost by just huge margins. And not just that, but Becerra may be coming in with an even stronger supermajority of Democrats in the state legislature.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I mean, we’re seeing races too close to call in places like Huntington Beach, which was not even on anyone’s radar, right? And so I think that this blue wave, blue tsunami — I’m going to call it a blue El Niño here in California — is really kind of sweeping up even races, I think, folks didn’t have on their bingo cards, so to speak.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I was just looking at a tweet from Rob Piers, who’s a very smart analyst on the right, and he was talking about Jay Obernolte, who would be only one of four Republican members of Congress left from our 52-seat delegation. He’s only up at this point, and there’s more votes to count, by 2.7%. That district was redrawn to shift 3% to the right under Prop 50.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So there’s a chance that, actually, California House Republicans would have lost more seats if Prop 50 hadn’t passed, just because of those dynamics of when you take voters away from one district, you have to put them somewhere else. So I think it’s really fascinating. And I know my colleague Guy Marzorati already has been talking about this a lot: Was Prop 50 even necessary at this point? It may not have been, but I still don’t think that’s going to prevent folks like Newsom from taking a victory lap on it, especially given how the redistricting war has really backfired for Republicans in places like Texas and Florida.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think you’re answering listener John’s question. He writes, “Is there any way to tell how gerrymandering worked out? Did it do what it was supposed to do?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And speaking of that supermajority, we have a clip from Steve Hilton vowing to continue the fight for a Republican to hold the state’s highest office. Let’s hear it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Steve Hilton:\u003c/strong> The fight goes on. And here’s the game plan: 2028, we end the Democrat supermajority in the state legislature. 2030, we elect a Republican governor in California.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, The Sister on Bluesky writes, “One thing that should be clear from last night’s results: establishment Democrats are losing popularity. They were too silent, too compliant, too cowardly during Trump’s reign of terror. We have too many ‘comfortable Dems’ in California, e.g., Mike Thompson. Time for change.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> That’s so fascinating. I will tell you, we had Javier Becerra in here last week, and I said to him, “You should hire Steve Hilton. Bring in a team of rivals. See what happens.” He didn’t seem very open to that, but I’m still hoping we could see that happen.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> But do you think that’s true, sort of that energy, that desire for change? And maybe that is what you were both mentioning with the insurance commissioner’s race, and seeing Jane Kim right now, who, of course, is seen as the progressive, more change-agent-type candidate, leading in what is still a very tight race and too close to call. Tell me quickly what your impressions are of that sort of energy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> I mean, look, I think that we are in an era where there’s a lot of pushback against the establishment on both sides of the aisle, this rise of populism. I don’t know, though, that we can say there’s clean results yet. I mean, Mike Thompson has not lost that race yet. Doris Matsui, it looks like, might have consolidated Republican votes if she’s going to take out her challenger, Mai Vang.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But yes, this is going to be a very large majority, which I think potential Speaker Hakeem Jeffries is probably breathing a sigh of relief over, because it will make some of the left-wing, DSA-aligned candidates a little less potent for his speakership.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I do think we’re in a moment here, and it’s going to be a challenge for Democrats to figure out, in some ways, how to balance the things they promised around affordability, around changing people’s lives, with the other things they promised around holding Trump accountable.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I know folks like James Talarico in Texas are saying those are the same sides of the same coin — that the corruption they see is really one of the reasons Americans are struggling. But putting that into practice and into policy, and then how does it turn into 2028? What is the conversation around taxing billionaires and Medicare for All in a Democratic primary? I mean, it’s a big tent, and it’s always messy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Let me go to caller Douglas in San Francisco, who’s on the line. Douglas, go ahead. You’re on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Douglas:\u003c/strong> Hi, thank you very much. Listen, you guys are talking micro. I’m going to go a little macro here. Trump said, “Put me on the ballot.” We all did. Everybody throughout the country, Republican or Democrat, this is absolutely an anti-Trump vote. It wasn’t a pro-policy or referendum or pro-candidate vote.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This was an anti-gerrymandering vote. Voters got together and said, “Don’t rob me. Whatever you do, we’re going to come out and we’re going to destroy your gerrymandering lines.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was also an issue in which the GOP does not quickly recover and decide they’re going to participate in the situation with Democrats in Congress. All those people that choose not to demonstrate cooperation are going to be voted out in two years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s also an issue that Democrats have got to get off of social issues and get on to people issues and policy issues, just like gay marriage.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, let me get Jeanne’s impressions of what Douglas is saying. What do you think, Jeanne?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Well, certainly, watching these races in California, watching these House races, I think you’re right. I mean, everyone treated it like Donald Trump is on the ballot. I mean, even in the governor’s race, which was already going to be pretty favored for the Democrat, Javier Becerra said Donald Trump is on this ballot. Obviously, he wasn’t. But, you know, it was very easy this year in particular for Democrats to tie their opponents to Trump at every single turn.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> This is special election coverage from the California Newsroom and \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. We’ll hear more from our guests, Jeanne Kuang and Marisa Lagos, and from you, our listeners, after the break. This is \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> with Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> in the California Newsroom. This is special election coverage. We’re talking about the message California voters sent in these midterm elections, the decisive races and propositions, and the ones that remain too close to call.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re talking about it with Jeanne Kuang, capital reporter at CalMatters, and Marisa Lagos, politics correspondent for KQED and co-host of \u003cem>Political Breakdown\u003c/em>. And with you, our listeners: How are you feeling about last night’s election results? What questions do you have about them? What results surprised you or differed from what you hoped for in California? And are you feeling more or less hopeful now about California’s future?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The email address is \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. Find us on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum. Call us at 866-733-6786, 866-733-6786.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Brian writes, “I’m surprised Prop 40 is not doing better. I know billionaires spent a ton of money campaigning against it, but it seems in most people’s interest to put this excess wealth to work for all. I feel like I’m missing something.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jeanne, I’ll start with you. Prop 40 would have assessed — or maybe would — a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of the state’s roughly 200 or so billionaires. It has not been called yet, but it’s trailing. Why?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, you know, it was interesting talking to the proponents last night, when they kind of early started to concede that this was probably not going to pass. They’re blaming the massive amounts of money that their opponents spent. I think we tallied up something like $380 million being spent against Prop 40 by mostly billionaire opponents. So that’s definitely a major factor.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s also pretty hard to pass ballot measures to begin with. And when you have things that are kind of confusing or have caveats, like, “Oh, this is one-time, and it’s just for this one program,” in this case health care, you know, these are just all things that you have to overcome as a proponent of a ballot proposition at the ballot box, with voters who are not necessarily that aware of what’s going on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So it’s already going to be headwinds, and then you’ve got the spending against you. You also had a lot of confusion amongst Democrats because most of the prominent Democratic leaders in the state were against it, and a lot of influential groups like Planned Parenthood were also against it. So I think that confuses liberal voters. I’m not sure where, you know, they don’t know where to align themselves.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> What would you add with regard to the forces that have caused this right now to be trailing Proposition 40, and also what this means for any future effort, potentially, Marisa, to be able to introduce a new one in the state? Or even, as Gavin Newsom claimed was the reason he was not behind it, he wanted a nationwide one.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, this is something I’m going to be watching carefully. I agree with Jeanne 100%. I mean, when voters have doubts, they vote no. And, you know, there was literally almost no money on the yes side to push this. There was $388 million on the other side. Almost a quarter or a third of it came from one man, Sergey Brin, the Google co-founder.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I think when you add that with the sort of institutional Democratic and left-wing opposition, we saw folks making this claim — and, you know, one that I think has always been sort of anxiety-inducing for the left — which is, is the tax structure in California pushing innovation and money out of state? That’s a debate we’ve been having for a long time. I think that all added up to a really tough environment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But to your point about what’s next, I mean, I’m going to be watching this really carefully. I think it’s going to be fascinating. You know, I think that no matter what lessons are being taken — and let’s be clear, both sides saw this as a litmus test and something that they could use as a model elsewhere, right? So it’s not to say that the backers of this are in any way cheering — but I do think that there is so much anger over inequality, the wealth of billionaires, the rate at which it’s growing, and the way our tax system really does not capture that wealth, that this will be an issue come the 2028 state Democratic primary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But how do people like Newsom thread that needle? I mean, he is going to have to make the case to voters in other states who don’t know all the details on the ground that he is somehow for taxing the Elon Musks of the world nationally, but not in California. Does that fly? Is it a vulnerability? Or can he turn around and say, “Look, I’m not a crazy liberal from California. I pushed back when there was a bad policy, but I support taxes”? You know what I’m saying? So I think it’s going to be really interesting to see how this is framed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then we’re already seeing Dave Regan, the union leader who put this on the ballot, saying they’re going to come back with another one in a couple of years. So this fight may not be over.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, with Proposition 42 getting more yes votes at the moment — and that was, of course, going to prohibit the state from taxing financial assets, right, the very wealth of billionaires — is that going to make it a lot harder for Regan to do that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Well, no, because it’s a ballot measure, so it prevents the legislature from doing that. But voters can overturn their own will at any moment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, I mean, are the fundamentals going to be difficult if they try to run the same playbook? I think they will, because voters are already skeptical of this. So I would be looking at what sort of details they might bring back if they indeed try this again, which we’ll have to see.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And can there be a bigger coalition? I mean, Dave Regan himself is very controversial. A lot of people in the union world particularly really dislike him. That certainly didn’t help them build a coalition on the yes side. So there’s a lot of uniqueness to this particular campaign.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But yes, Prop 42 will prevent the legislature from doing any sort of wealth tax. But let’s not forget, we can always overturn our own will as voters.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Direct democracy. This is our Discord. They want to know, Jeanne, what are your thoughts on Prop 3 passing, which extended the tax on high-income earners, but Prop 40 going down?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Prop 3 passed pretty easily. I mean, it’s just extending a tax that already exists — higher income taxes on the highest earners. This was originally passed by the teachers union to shore up state revenues for schools.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I think this just shows that a lot of Californians, at the end of the day — we have this reputation of being highly taxed, but it’s a liberal state. People support the progressive tax system. You know, if you earn more, you should pay more.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I think, I guess it’s an interesting one, but it doesn’t, I don’t think, really say anything about whether or not people are interested in taxing wealth, which was such a new and untested idea. And at the end of the day, you know, we do rely on the wealthiest residents for a lot of our income tax revenue, and I think people are generally supportive of that structure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Okay, Mina, I do have some breaking news. Congressional District 13 — this is Adam Gray’s seat in Modesto and that area — has just been called for him. This is notable because it’s one of only three swing districts left. Last time, in 2022, when he won this seat, he won by 187 votes. This time, he’s up by more than 20,000 votes. So if there was ever evidence of this blue tsunami, that is one of the districts we will be looking at.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yes, for sure. Right, 187 votes — that was the one that lasted several days. Let me go to Dorian in Marin, who’s on the line. Dorian, go ahead.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Dorian:\u003c/strong> I, first of all, I just want to thank you all for giving me the opportunity. As I mentioned to the caller, I’m not one that gets involved with politics, but I will tell you that I am proud that this country and the people have a common decency. I mean, my wife is from another country, and I know the struggle that she had to get here, and I’m just grateful for how things turned out, and I hope —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Thank you, Dorian. Thanks for sharing where you’re at.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dan says, “This was a vote against Trump’s administration and not necessarily for Democrats. Now Democrats need to deliver on health care and the economy if they want this to be a long-term shift.” What do you think about that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, it’s funny because you can also point back to 2024. A lot of people were not, as it turns out, necessarily voting for Republicans or Trump, but rather against the incumbents and the status quo and the higher cost of living that they were seeing with Joe Biden in charge.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I think that’s often the lesson when it comes to these very swingy elections that we see. But it’s true that, especially here in California, especially with the governor’s race, Democrats do have to own the cost-of-living issue. They have to own the affordability issue. And I think that’s going to be one of the biggest tests for Becerra going forward.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Let me go to caller Bill in San Bernardino. Bill, go ahead. You’re on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Bill:\u003c/strong> Hi there. Thanks for having me. I wanted to comment on the discussion about Prop 40, the billionaire tax, and say that, you know, I think the points you all made about the billionaire spending against the tax are a really important one. And just to talk about the context a little more, I think that voters across the country are really susceptible to these claims that their assets, even if they’re not billionaires, will be taxed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I saw that a lot in the anti-messaging, you know, because we don’t live in a society where you can rely on social systems to take care of you, right? So if you’re a homeowner, your biggest asset is your home, and that’s a process that’s been socially constructed since the ’50s, since the end of World War II.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so people are susceptible to these scare tactics, saying, like, “Well, the government’s not just going to stop at the billionaires. They’re going to come for you, too.” And if we had a social safety net that really protected people, if we had health care, if we had the right to education, if you had the right housing, people who are not billionaires would not feel so much threat by this claim that they’re going to come for everybody’s assets.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Bill, thanks. I want to share that perspective. Thank you. Marisa, I have heard that sentiment, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Oh, 100%. I think that was a really potent argument. I think it is why Prop 42 looks like it’s going to pass, which is the one that would prohibit any taxation of assets like this, but for anybody. And Prop 41, the other measure that was sort of complicated and related to the state spending limit and special taxes, looks like it’s going down.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Billionaires put both of those on the ballot in order to undercut Prop 40, the billionaire tax. And yeah, I mean, I think, look, it makes sense, too. It’s a very smart political argument in a moment when everyone is anxious about their own checkbook, about their bottom line, when gas prices are high, milk prices are higher, beef prices — you know, all the things. And so it was sort of this perfect storm.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You know, again, I think that the broader politics right now around inequality and anger at it are not necessarily going to disappear just because of the defeat of Prop 40. And so, you know, this is a fight that might just move to the national level in a different manner. And I think it’s really fascinating.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You know, I’ve pushed Becerra on this. I talked to billionaire Chris Larsen, who helped fund opposition to Prop 40. And I think there’s agreement that the tax system itself needs to be reformed in a broader way. Maybe, if you didn’t like Prop 40, even if you’re somebody who thinks billionaires should be taxed more, there should be a bigger conversation. Is there the political will for that, Mina? Either in Sacramento or D.C., we’ll have to wait and see.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> I think this is what Mitko is actually saying. Mitko writes, “I voted against Prop 40 because it was just a quick, one-time fix. My vote had nothing to do with tech people spending money on ads. We need long-term fiscal change in California, mainly revising the unfair Prop 13, which nowadays penalizes people with super-high taxes based on the sky-high real estate.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You know, another listener, Mick, writes something sort of similar with regard to the significant Democratic Party majority in California: “Why has reforming or repealing Prop 13 taken so long? This seems an obvious choice for equitable tax reform compared to a billionaire tax.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I mean, certainly there are some really important things that you all have been bringing up. Our last caller, Bill, brought up, too, which is, yes, people are very frustrated with our tax system, but it’s also very much about concerns with regard to whether you can afford things moving forward as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I think this concern is really what played out in some of the congressional races that we thought would be close, but that ended up being more decisive initially — or at least the results being more lopsided initially — than a lot of people remembered.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the ones I’m talking about, of course, is District 22. This is in the Central Valley, David Valadao and Randy Villegas. We have Amaray Alvarez on the line with us, a Kern County reporter for KVPR. Amaray, welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Amaray Alvarez:\u003c/strong> Hi. Good morning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So talk to us. I understand the Associated Press has not called this race yet for Randy Villegas, but he declared a victory last night as initial returns showed him with a sizable lead. What does that tell you about what Central Valley voters wanted?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Amaray Alvarez:\u003c/strong> Yes, he did declare victory last night, I believe. It may have been declared a few minutes ago in his favor, but yes, he declared victory ahead of time, and now I believe he is our new congressman in District 22.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> What do you think it was about Villegas’ message that resonated when Valadao has enjoyed a long incumbency, winning so many of the last several elections?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Amaray Alvarez:\u003c/strong> Yes, well, the district was redistricted with Prop 50, so that made a shift. But also, a lot of the constituents that I spoke to were upset with David Valadao. He voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill, which cut aid to Medicare and Medicaid. And this is one of the districts with the most people on it, so a lot of people were upset about that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Affordability, gas prices, and immigration — this is a largely Latino area as well. And people really resonated with Randy Villegas. He’s the son of Latino farmworkers, immigrants, and they just felt like he had their best interests at heart.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> What work, though, do you think is ahead for Randy to show that he deserves this opportunity?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Amaray Alvarez:\u003c/strong> I feel like he really was out there and showed up for people. A lot of people said it’s been hard to talk to David Valadao, that he’s been their congressman for so long, but they really have never seen him, have never met him, and have never talked to him.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Randy Villegas had a lot of events. He was out even for Dolores Huerta, who passed away last week. He was there at events for her, just showing up for the community in a way that they haven’t seen a congressman do for them in the past few years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Amaray Alvarez, Kern County reporter for KVPR, Valley Public Radio, really appreciate hearing from you. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Marisa, I know this is a race that you’ve watched very closely. Tell me what you think of where this stands. And yes, confirmation came less than 15 minutes ago or so that this has been called for Randy Villegas.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Randy Villegas will be the next congressman from the Central Valley. And I mean, first, it’s so important to know — this is a seat, like, it’s a cliché, but I keep saying it’s like Lucy in the football for Democrats. I mean, there was one time in 2018 that they managed to beat David Valadao, only for him to come back and win again in 2020.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He was the only sitting Republican in Congress who had voted for the impeachment of President Trump in 2020, and he really, sort of, for years, has risen above the partisan fray and been able to keep that seat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And Villegas — I mean, what is so interesting is Villegas really sort of prosecuted a different theory of the case for Democrats. You know, in the past, everyone who’s run against Valadao has come from the center-left. They’ve really tried to stress their credentials as being more moderate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We see this in the neighboring District 13, where Adam Gray just won. He’s a Blue Dog Democrat, very much known as a moderate both in Sacramento and D.C. Villegas is a progressive. Bernie Sanders came to campaign with him. AOC was there. He is running unabashedly on Medicare for All.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it’s going to be really fascinating to see, to your point, what can he deliver around some of the priorities he campaigned on? And is this just part of a blue tsunami, or is he really a candidate who reflects the district and has excited voters who may not have shown up in cycles past? We may not know that for a couple of years, right, when he’s back on the ballot. But I think it’s really interesting to see someone like him win in this area, especially given all the issues there that were just laid out, including how things like not just the war on Iran and gas prices, but tariffs, beef imports, all of that were such big issues, and, of course, immigration. I mean, you really can’t understate how much that sort of bleeds into these other, bigger anxieties.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Let’s hear a little bit, actually, from Randy Villegas, who spoke with KGET after he declared victory, though the AP had not yet called the race.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Randy Villegas:\u003c/strong> My parents came to this country with nothing but hopes and dreams for a better future for their children. And to know that in one generation, their son is going to be a member of Congress advocating for other families across this country means the world to me. To know that we’re going to have somebody who’s going to stand up and champion the working class in every decision that we make, and we’re going to have somebody that works just as hard as the Central Valley does.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re talking about the races and propositions — the ones that were decisive, the ones that still have not quite been called — and the message that California voters sent in these midterm elections. We’re talking about it with Marisa Lagos of KQED, Jeanne Kuang of CalMatters, and with you, our listeners.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">866-733-6786 is the number to call. Again, 866-733-6786. Find us on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum, or email your comments and questions to \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From the California Newsroom and \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, this is special election coverage. Stay with us!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You’re listening to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> in the California Newsroom with special election coverage. Last night’s blue tsunami is being felt in California on some statewide ballot propositions and in some key races.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re talking about how Californians cast their ballots in these midterm elections with Jeanne Kuang, a capital reporter for CalMatters, and Marisa Lagos, politics correspondent for KQED and co-host of \u003cem>Political Breakdown\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And just before the break, we heard from Amaray Alvarez of KVPR. Listeners, how are you feeling about the election results? What questions do you have about the propositions and races? What results have surprised you or differed from what you hoped? And are you feeling more or less hopeful about California’s future? Do you feel like the people in charge are getting the message you want to send?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The email address is \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. Find us on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum. Or you can call us at 866-733-6786, 866-733-6786.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the propositions that listeners are wanting us to talk about, Marisa, is Proposition 45. This one, of course, was the CEQA reform proposition. There has definitely been some evidence of an appetite to reform CEQA to get development projects off the ground. What do you think is happening here with these results?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Yeah, this one was really interesting. You know, it was polling really high a few months ago. And then, once the opposition campaign really started in earnest, it fell quickly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think there are a few things going on here. One is that there were real efforts to tie this to President Trump’s attacks on environmental policies here in California. I think that might have resonated with people saying, “Well, why would we sort of weaken our environmental protection laws more at this time?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You can make the argument that those are pretty different issues, like oil drilling versus a review. Basically, what this would have done is shorten the timeline for courts to review challenges to construction projects.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There also was this narrative that this could sort of speed up the construction of data centers, the approval of data centers. That’s something that proponents of Prop 45 rejected outright. But there was no real way to know unless this got litigated, because it wasn’t spelled out in plain terms in the text. And I think that was probably a challenge, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then I also just think that we have seen a lot of CEQA reform at the state level in the legislature in recent years. So you had some people casting doubt on whether this was even needed for housing, sort of arguing that this would really only benefit big-scale corporate projects, infrastructure things that maybe aren’t at the top of voters’ minds when you think of the abundance movement.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, you know, I think this was a rare miscalculation for the California Chamber of Commerce. They have only put a few ballot measures on the ballot themselves in recent years and, until now, have had a pretty good track record.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I think what I’ll be watching moving forward is whether there’s still an appetite for more CEQA reform in Sacramento, or, with a supermajority and more progressives coming in potentially, whether there are attempts to roll back some of the reforms. That would definitely give the chamber a stronger hand if they wanted to move forward with something similar in the future.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Jeanne, The Sister writes about Prop 39, “California voters saw this for what it was, an attempt to disenfranchise voters in the state.” That was, of course, the voter ID measure. Do you think that’s true? Is that what drove its defeat, essentially?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> I think this is another one where the opponents were just very eager and happy to tie the campaign to Trump, especially with the past couple of months of the Trump administration trying to intervene in California elections, trying to get ballots not to be counted, alleging that certain voters were not really citizens, things like that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I mean, I think the environment was just really set for the opponents to call this a Trump measure, and that’s what they did.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Listener Tom writes, “I’m hoping the newly elected officials can forget that they’re politicians and, instead of crowing over victory and pushing a partisan agenda, dedicate themselves to restoring faith in government, faith that it can be fair.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Well, let’s talk about somebody who would like to be a newly elected official, but the race is still too close to call. And that’s, of course, in the L.A. mayor’s race, Karen Bass and Nithya Raman.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For that, I want to bring into the conversation Frank Stoltze, reporter for KPCC. Frank, thanks so much for being with us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze:\u003c/strong> Good to be with you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So tell us where things stand right now in the L.A. mayor’s race.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze:\u003c/strong> Too close to call. The city council member and challenger to the incumbent, Nithya Raman, has about 51% of the vote, and the incumbent, Karen Bass, has about 49%. So there’s a very close race going on here, lots of votes to count.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The trend from last night to the latest vote count released early this morning was in favor of Nithya Raman, the progressive backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, we actually have a clip from Karen Bass touting the many years that she has dedicated herself to the city of Los Angeles. Let’s hear it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Karen Bass:\u003c/strong> Four years ago, you gave me the honor of a lifetime to serve as the mayor of the city that raised me, the city my parents chose to build a life in, and the city I have spent my entire life fighting for.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Frank, Bass has been in the game a long time. Why is this so close?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze:\u003c/strong> She’s an icon in Democratic Party politics in Los Angeles. She was a community organizer in South L.A. She went on to become speaker of the state Assembly and then served in Congress before getting elected mayor four years ago.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But in the mayor’s position, she’s not performed all that well. She’s had a hard time bringing down the homelessness numbers. She’s struggled with the response to the Palisades fire of last year, and people are not happy in Los Angeles. There’s discontent.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And what we see here is a rejection of some of the major institutions of Los Angeles. The Democratic Party backed Bass. The Chamber of Commerce backed Bass. Big labor, for the most part, backed Bass. And now Bass is losing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> It’s a sentiment that we’ve heard so far, even on this show, and also something it sounds like Nithya Raman tried to capitalize on in her messaging. Let’s hear a clip from her.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Nithya Raman:\u003c/strong> Here in Los Angeles, this election is about change, too. A city that was engineered over the last few decades to resist change. And the people right here who said, “Enough is enough,” because for too long, our broken and unjust status quo has convinced Angelenos that this is the best that we can do.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Hmm. So do you think that Nithya is right? Do you think it is anger at the establishment, too? Or what do you think this race was really about for voters, Frank?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze:\u003c/strong> Karen Bass had very high unfavorability ratings, and more prominent people who were going to enter the race way back in January dropped out — billionaire Rick Caruso, county supervisor Lindsey Horvath. They declined to challenge the mayor.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nithya Raman, seeing the unpopularity of this mayor, jumped into the race and has, you know, apparently succeeded in ousting her. We’ll see where the trend goes. But I think people, again, are not happy with the direction of Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The streetlights — just take that as an example. Many streetlights are broken. You know, just basic city services are not getting delivered.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Right. A lot of challenges in Los Angeles that the next mayor will have to address. And, of course, L.A. is going to play host on the world stage in the Olympics. Tell us about what’s ahead, Frank.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Frank Stoltze:\u003c/strong> Well, the mayor said that she should get reelected in part because she’s been planning the Olympics and that Nithya Raman would be too new to get on board. Really, the issue here is the police department.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nithya Raman is saying that she’d like to remove the police chief ahead of the Olympics. Karen Bass is saying that would put the department in disarray ahead of such an important event. So the Olympics have played a role in this election.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Frank Stoltze, reporter for KPCC, Los Angeles public radio station. Thank you so much for being with us. Really appreciate it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Daniel asks, “Can you review the results of the redistricted seats in California?” We were touching on those a little bit, but let’s go down to 48, Marisa, with Marty von Wilpert in the San Diego area as well. Talk about what’s happening there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Well, this race hasn’t been called yet, but this district, which is definitely evidence of a gerrymander, includes parts of northern San Diego County and Riverside, stretching out to Palm Springs. She is leading with almost 60% of the vote against Jim Desmond, who is a Republican member of the Board of Supervisors in San Diego. He’s around 40%.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So it really looks like her message resonated there. I mean, she definitely ran as a very sort of swing-district candidate. She talked about gas prices a lot. She talked about her family’s military service, her work abroad doing humanitarian work, and her desire to bring back USAID, things like that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And yeah, I mean, this was one of the districts drawn to be flipped by a Democrat. It does appear that Prop 50 has done what it intended to do, but I think the question is, was it even necessary? I mean, some of these margins are so big, you can see a world where they wouldn’t have needed to change the district lines in order to flip them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so I think that’s going to be interesting. Again, I’m not sure that’s something Democrats are going to spend a lot of time worrying about, but it sort of speaks to the weirdness of last night in that way. What we saw in other states was this really backfired on Republicans. Latinos swung so far back to Democrats that a bunch of districts drawn in places like Texas and Florida, which were aimed at getting more GOP seats, didn’t do that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it’s just really fascinating. I think it speaks to the challenge of these pendulum swings and how you do politics if one election is so different from the next.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> It is an interesting question with regard to whether redistricting was necessary. But, Jeanne, of course, these maps are going to hold in ’28 and ’30 as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, actually, as you were talking, Marisa, it made me think: I wonder if that argument could also be used by the proponents of the Independent Redistricting Commission. Like, hey, this is why you should revert back to the way we did it before in 2030. You know, if you didn’t even need it this time around.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Because I think that was something that came up a bit last year during Prop 50. Maybe you should just run races in these independently drawn seats based on policy, based on principles. And, you know, those people might have been right.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, let me remind listeners, you are listening to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> and the California Newsroom. I’m Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s very interesting what has happened, regardless of whether the question about whether it’s necessary or not is one to be debated. You’ve got a situation now where you have Democrats having flipped at least three or four seats, maybe at this point, depending on how many have been called as this show has gone on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Down in the San Bernardino area, in Northern California, the seat that Senator Mike McGuire handily defeated Republican James Gallagher for. And then you also have the situation with Richard Pan defeating Kevin Kiley, who moved to be an independent after he was sort of shuffled out with his district lines.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When all is said and done, Jeanne, how many seats do you think California will contribute — flip seats, flip seats, I should say?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> The purpose was to contribute five flipped seats, and it definitely looks like they’re on track — the Democrats are on track to do that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> So, yeah, go ahead, Marisa. To put it in perspective, we will likely have only four Republican members of the state delegation. There’s 52 all told in California, so 48 Democrats, four Republicans, if my math is correct after very little sleep. Yeah, I mean, and the six —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Of that, Marisa, I mean, what do you think?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Well, you know, I think this is where how Democrats choose to govern matters, because if there are voters who really feel like they’re not being represented by their current members of Congress, that could backfire in future elections.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I think this is where the rubber meets the road in terms of how do you actually put your majority into action? And we’ve already seen the president sound pretty conciliatory, saying he would be willing to work with Democrats. I think it’s going to be fascinating to see if there are actually areas where they can get some things done.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Lynn has some thoughts about what you’d like to see congressional representatives do. Lynn in Beaumont, go ahead. Join us. You’re on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Lynn:\u003c/strong> Hi. Thanks for this. I love this discussion. I’d just called in really to remind people that the election is just the beginning. It’s really the start of our work, and that constituents need to talk to the members of Congress about what they want.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That 52 number that you just talked about really resonates with me. We have 52 members of the House of Representatives right here in California. We need to tell them things we care about. For example, the SNAP policy that the Republicans put forward will expect state government, including California, to cover part of the cost of the federally mandated SNAP program, formerly called food stamps. And it’s going to cost California an estimated $3.1 billion to take the portion of SNAP up into our state budget.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And California, being a rich state, can pull it off with only minimal cuts to other programs. But some states across the country are really going to be harmed by that requirement that their state pays for part of this federal program.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If that’s something we care about, we should be letting our members of Congress know immediately. And all these things that callers have talked about — you can’t just let the lobbyists and the rich friends of members of Congress speak to them and tell them what we care about. Citizens, constituents, need to tell the members of Congress, “Here’s what we really want you to work on.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it sounds like you guys are all queued up to have a program about that even tomorrow, if I’m right.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We are. Thank you, Lynn. Let me go next to Chris in Santa Clara. Chris, you’re on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Chris:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks. I think the one item I’m not hearing your team mention is that it is very likely in the next two years that not one piece of legislation at the federal level is signed into law. And we’re not recognizing that a member of the House of Representatives is likely the least powerful elected official in the country. A volunteer library board member in a suburban city has more power than a member of Congress.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Chris, I think I get your point. Sorry, your line is clicking just a tad there. But, Jeanne, give me a reaction to what Chris is saying here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jeanne Kuang:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, it’s an interesting point. I think that’s fair. That being said, Trump has said that he plans to work with the Democrats on this. And I do think that there are a number of issues that the Democrats identified this election cycle that do have bipartisan support.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I mean, there’s widespread anxiety around artificial intelligence, around data center construction, things like that. And I do think the Democrats also have — we’ll see how long it holds — but it seems like they learned a lesson about the cost of living in 2024 and were able to use it across party lines this time around. So I think there’s potentially ways where everyone could come together.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And it’s a good setup, as the listener was mentioning, with regard to our show for tomorrow. We want to hear from you, listeners, what you want Democrats to do with their power and where Californians will be prominent in Congress now that they will be able to lead the committees.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, Marisa, finish us off with what threads you are going to continue to follow after this midterm election.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Marisa Lagos:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, look, I think it’s a valid point that this could just be gridlock in Washington. But also, this is the most unpredictable president of my lifetime. Who knows what deals he could cut with Democrats?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And to the earlier caller’s point, 52 is a lot of people. The Democratic delegation here — or 48, rather — has a lot of power in a body of 435.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I think, in that regard, we’re going to be watching to see what happens with the speakership vote. Can Hakeem Jeffries — likely he will be the speaker — but does he get any challenges from some of these more progressive, left-leaning members who are going to want to flex their muscle? How does Trump respond to all of this? What are the final numbers around Prop 40?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then what happens in the next few months ahead of Becerra coming into office? When Governor Newsom was Governor-elect Newsom, the Paradise Fire occurred, and we had horrible flooding and a huge mass shooting. El Niño is headed here. How much is the governor-elect involved in decisions with the governor’s office in the next few months, and then what does he tackle once he’s in there?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> KQED’s Marisa Lagos, CalMatters’ Jeanne Kuang, thank you both. KPCC’s Frank Stoltze, KVPR’s Amaray Alvarez, thank you as well. And thank you, listeners, for listening to special coverage from the California Newsroom and \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Wednesday, October 28, 2026 at 9 am\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anthropic has filed to go public in what could become the largest IPO in history. The San Francisco-based AI company’s 335-page filing offers the first detailed look at its finances, growth ambitions and stated risk factors, including the possibility of catastrophic incidents. We’ll talk with San Francisco-based tech and business reporters about what Anthropic’s filing can tell us about the future of the AI economy and what the expected huge influx of money could mean for the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin,\u003c/strong> AI enterprise reporter, The Wall Street Journal\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi,\u003c/strong> business and technology reporter, New York Times and DealBook\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan,\u003c/strong> editor in chief, MIT Technology Review\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Anthropic is one of those San Francisco stories that’s hard to believe. A group of researchers, including two siblings, a former journalist, and a handful of others, broke off from OpenAI to found their own AI company in 2021. Five years later, the company has grown its revenue faster than any company ever. To take one example, in the second quarter of last year, the company brought in $787 million — not bad for a startup. But in the second quarter of this year, Anthropic brought in $11.6 billion. That’s nearly 15 times year-over-year growth. To put that in perspective, Google, which was the hottest tech company on Earth from 2002 to 2005, grew revenue from $400 million in 2002 to $6 billion in 2005. Sure, there’s been inflation, et cetera, but Anthropic’s growth has been absolutely absurd, unprecedented, and, for many people, unexpected.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Oh, and they made almost a billion dollars in the second quarter, their first profitable quarter. So here we are now: this company, which believes itself to be building toward artificial general intelligence, has money pouring in and revenue from corporations that use its tools. But because it needs to keep competing at the frontier of AI, it needs even more money to keep growing, and hence the IPO, which could raise $100 billion — the most ever.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here to break down what the IPO tells us about Anthropic, the state of AI, and the tidal wave of wealth cresting over our fair city, we’re joined by Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter at \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re joined by Sri Muppidi, who’s business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. Welcome, Sri.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Thanks so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve got Mat Honan, editor-in-chief of \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Welcome, Mat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Thanks, Alexis.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Was Casey Newton busy?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Kevin Roose and Kate Snow are building something new. So, Mat, you’ve been in the tech journalism game here in San Francisco a long time, and you’re looking at this Anthropic document. What are you thinking?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, first of all, I’m thinking this is the longest S-1 I’ve ever seen. You know, you see a lot of these things over the years, and they’re always dense, but there’s often really entertaining stuff in there. This one was so long that I didn’t — I, at best, could skim it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> He’s got a summary from Claude.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I actually — I was about to say, I used Claude to get a summary of some of the high points there. But it was, you know, it’s a staggering document, and what it means, I think, is kind of unprecedented for San Francisco. I think we’re going to sit here and talk today about what’s going to happen in San Francisco, but one of my takeaways from that 335-page document is that nobody knows what’s going to happen in San Francisco or anywhere else because of just the scale of it. The scale of it is, you know, like when we talk about the Uber IPO or Slack or Facebook or anything else that’s come before, they’re all so much smaller.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sri, can you just walk us through some of the numbers here? You know, how much is Anthropic hoping to raise? What could the company be worth, that kind of stuff?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. So the company is aiming to raise, or is expected to raise, about $100 billion as part of its IPO. And the valuation that’s been touted around is between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion. That really comes down to what investors expect the company to be worth.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I love it. It’s just like, it’s so much money, and yet that’s a $500 billion difference. If you were like 1.5, 2, you know, it’s like a house in San Francisco. You’re like, “You know…”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. What’s the over-asking price in terms of how much the company can actually go raise in the public offering? And so I think that’s really striking, just because Anthropic already has $130 billion-plus in cash and other investments that it can turn into cash. And so the fact that the company could raise, or is hoping to raise, $100 billion more really shows the size and scale, as we were just chatting about. And I think that really comes down to this figure of more than $807 billion in commitments that the company has in terms of being able to build out data centers, as well as have more computing power to actually run and build its AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s like, yeah, if you looked at a table of all the people they owe money to and you added it up, it’s like $800 billion.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And I love, in the S-1, they say at some point, it may seem crazy that we’re spending all this money, but it’s because we really believe that there’s exponential growth necessary in what we spend so that we also can get exponential growth in what we make. There’s also this interesting figure, and maybe, Berber, I don’t know if you want to take this one. The company says they lost $80 billion in the first half of the year, but a lot of people have — some people have quoted that number. But it’s this really kind of odd convertible-debt thing where, essentially, Amazon invested. Can you talk a little bit about that? They didn’t really lose $80 billion, did they?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> No, they didn’t. Actually, Sri might know the specifics of this better than me. But my understanding is that that $80 billion net loss isn’t part of the core business. So it’s not like they’re losing $80 billion from their core operations, building and selling Claude. That would be very bad and would make the company much less attractive as a business to invest in. So I think it’s a little bit technical. They raised a lot of money through convertible notes, which eventually convert into equity but haven’t yet. And so, for some tricky, complicated, wonky accounting reasons, that shows up as a net loss. And the reason why that number is so inflated is because, actually, as Anthropic’s valuation has gone up, I guess the liabilities or the losses tied to those convertible notes have also gone up. So I think a lot of investors are also kind of not really looking at that. There are a lot of debates about profitability — how do AI companies calculate profitability? Is Anthropic kind of taking shortcuts to claim this profitability number from Q2? Because it is very impressive.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Um, but I think — I think I feel like it’s safe to say that that $80 billion—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Well, and even they say at the same time, right, that they have something like — they were saying 85% gross margins for serving up Claude and Claude Code specifically, right? They’re able to make that much money there. But there are some questions about that, too, right? Sri, do you want to talk about how — what does this business look like?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. So the questions about gross margins — that basically means revenue minus the direct cost to produce that revenue. And so Anthropic accounts for that as what’s called inference cost, so essentially running its AI models to actually serve customers. So 85% gross margins is actually great for an AI lab, particularly because the company had, I think, negative margins even just two years ago, and very, very low margins even just last year. And so the fact that it’s been able to really improve its efficiency shows that they’ve been focused on this. And just for context, to put it alongside other software companies, that’s in line with software-as-a-service companies, anyway. So I think that’s quite impressive.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think what folks are really indexing on now, in terms of where the company can go in the future, is that Q2 was really impressive. But the company actually shared some of its unaudited Q3 financials at an investor day a few weeks ago. And revenue growth increased, I believe, 45% between Q2 and Q3. But it shows that it actually decelerated compared with earlier this year. And so that kind of raises questions for some investors about whether Anthropic can actually continue sustaining that growth, particularly as you think about the threat of Chinese open-weight models.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What I’m hearing anecdotally is that businesses, especially large enterprise companies, are starting to adopt more open-weight models or turn to OpenAI for its Astra model, just because it’s gotten more competitive. OpenAI is also noting that this is an opportune moment to maybe cut prices, and so they’re gaining competitive share that way. I think there are a lot of questions around whether Anthropic can continue growing, just because the scale, as Mat was alluding to, is so large.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Law of large numbers, as I feel like they like to say. Mat, what do you think about the big question here? People have been trying to ask, “Is AI for real? Is this a boom that’s going to bust?” What do you think this document says about that larger question — where the whole industry is likely to land and its overall importance?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I think you can answer the “Is AI for real?” question in two ways. One is: Is the technology real? Clearly, it is. There’s no question. If you’re doubting that AI technology is real at this point—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It’s a question from—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> —a few years ago.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I don’t know what to tell you. Is the stock market overinflated? Is there a bubble? Is that the question about whether AI is for real? Is AI really going to be able to generate these returns? You know, I mean, I hate to be cautious in this way, the way that I was at the top of the show, but I don’t think anybody knows. I mean, I think anybody who’s really projecting what you’re going to do with the — to use the SpaceX term — largest addressable market on Earth—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Which is all human labor, apparently.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> It’s a great unknown, and I guess I personally, just because I’ve been reporting for however many years now, tend not to like to put my chips on the table about that kind of stuff. But if I had to guess, it seems like a not-bad business.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, it certainly seems more real than a year ago. If we were having the same conversation and had somehow gotten access to these numbers last summer, we’d be like, “Hmm, they seem to be losing a ton of money.” They’re growing fast, but of course it’s not that much money against the idea of this massive — you know, even back then they were talking about a valuation that was hundreds of billions of dollars. What do you think, Berber, about the larger question?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I would tend to agree with what Mat said. I think, based on this document, Anthropic is an extraordinarily good business. And I think the fact that they were able to turn an operating profit in Q2 defies a lot of the narrative that people have had about just how AI businesses work. The narrative around the labs in particular is that they are money pits, that they’ll never achieve profitability. They spend all this money training the models, but it’s very unclear whether they’ll ever get an ROI from it. So I think the fact that Anthropic’s business is so good is something that, a year or two ago, you’d be very surprised by. I think everyone would be surprised to see the numbers coming out of the company.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another statistic that really popped out to me in the S-1 was that they’ve raised $141 billion, and they still have around $120 billion on their balance sheet. Those are extraordinary numbers. Normally, we would expect them to be burning through the money they raised.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> And that’s what OpenAI is doing, by the way. We can talk about how much of a better business Anthropic is than OpenAI right now. But I do think there are a lot of weird things about the business that should give some people pause. For example, I think they said 5% to 7% of their revenue comes from users who violate their terms of service. They’re alluding to Chinese companies that are just distilling their models, trying to hack into the models to train their own models. A lot of their revenue comes from one or two big customers, so there are still a lot of question marks that should make us cautious about putting all our chips into Anthropic.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re talking about the Anthropic IPO with Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter at \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>; Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook; and Mat Honan, editor-in-chief at \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Are you more scared of a bust or a boom? 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’re talking about the Anthropic IPO. We’ve got a little roundtable of technology reporters here from \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. We’ve got Sri Muppidi, Berber Jin, and, from \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>, Mat Honan. And we want to hear from you. You know, you’re a Bay Area person listening to this. Are you more scared of the tech boom here, or the tech bust that could come at some point in AI? 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on social media, Bluesky, Instagram, and Discord. We’re KQED Forum. So, Mat, do you think we’re going to feel this IPO?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, I think we’re already feeling it a little bit in real estate. There’s been a bunch of great reporting about the ways it’s — something, including in the Journal. Maybe, Berber, this is one of your stories. Forgive me if it was. But there was a story recently about how there are 600 or so employees who’ve already been able to pull money out, and they’ve been investing it heavily in real estate. If you look at some of the home prices, look at how much they’ve gone up year over year, you’re definitely already seeing it. They’re definitely really feeling it. Like, what’s that going to mean for the corner stores and the small businesses in the city? I don’t know, but it’s showing up in real estate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, normally, when I’ve talked about IPOs in the past, there are all these lockups on the options and all this stuff that’s happening. But it seems to me like Anthropic has made it unusually easy for their employees to trade, basically from the very beginning, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Yes, exactly. So typically there’s like a 180-day lockup where companies’ early employees or others in the company have to wait. You might see an adjustment in the IPO price after, for example, that first pop. What’s unusual about Anthropic is that some shares can actually be traded right away, and then it’s staggered across a set of 37- or 60-second periods, I believe, in terms of when others can also start trading. And so that makes it possible for employees and other shareholders to start trading immediately. You’re going to see the impact of that right away.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What’s expected is that the company would actually start trading in the week of November 16, I believe, so right before Thanksgiving. Maybe if you’re making any big purchases — if you’re trying to buy a house, maybe do it right now. But you’re already seeing that impact, as Mat was saying, because there were these share sales that employees had already participated in, and they were able to sell some of their existing shares — for example, to buy a house. So I think you’re starting to see a trickle of it already, and it will continue to get worse.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, when we’ve done real estate shows, it seemed like the major impact was at the ultra-luxury level. You know, it’s hard to feel bad for people who might be getting priced out of Pacific Heights mansions. But I suppose in this case it’s going to spread to some — what do we think, 1,500 or 2,000 people or something like that around here? Do we know the exact number of employees in San Francisco?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> I think it’s about 3,000, but you’d have to fact-check me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And most of them are here, though, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Most of them are here. It’s San Francisco headquarters. The other note I’d add to that is that rent prices have also gotten so crazy because Anthropic and other AI companies are all in San Francisco now. So when, for example, a young 20-something is moving to San Francisco and sees that rents are like $6,000 for a two-bedroom, they might as well just buy an apartment if the mortgage costs about the same as rent. What I’m hearing, even anecdotally, is that people are willing to buy not just those uber-rich mansions, but also a two-bedroom apartment or condo, because rents are so crazy as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Alexis, I live in it. This is totally anecdotal. I live in the Outer Sunset, though. These neighborhoods are full of these things called doldrums, which are, you know, like this guy — Doldrum built, like, four guys on the first floor. They’re all pretty much the same floor plan, you know, two bedrooms with the garage downstairs. When I moved in there, they were selling for under a million dollars. There have been several in my immediate neighborhood that have sold recently for $900,000 over asking. And you can’t say, “Oh, well, is that because of Anthropic?” But it certainly seems like it. I mean, these are not high-end homes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> What’s wild is, you and I, in years past, were talking about the doom loop. I don’t think either of us were believers in this so-called doom loop, that San Francisco was going down in flames. And here we are, just a few years later, and this has happened now. Do you think this is a net good for the city, to get this massive injection of money into what is a tiny percentage of the city’s population?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s not going to show up in our list — the city’s not going to get a whole lot of tax revenue from it, right? There’s no income tax, and it’s questionable to me how much of that is actually going to go to the city. They are going to have this huge philanthropic division — LLC, what is it? Is it separate?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Long-term trust.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> That’s going to be giving away all this money to philanthropic causes, but that’s probably not going to be local stuff, right? That’s going to be national, international, global health.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Right, right. More Gates Foundation-y level and scope, yeah. So how’s it going to benefit the city? I don’t know. Yeah. All right, let’s ask Jay in Palo Alto. What do you think, Jay?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jay:\u003c/strong> Hey, good, good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I love that you guys talked about the housing issue a little bit, but I think that one thing — there have been several news articles about this recently — that’s united the whole country is that everybody hates data centers, right? And that’s exactly what this is. When we try to have this objective conversation about how cool it is, the ins and outs, and talk about it in a very matter-of-fact tone, I think there’s a tremendous disconnect between these facts you’re talking about and the fact that this represents something that almost everybody hates. I think we’re doing a real disservice when we neglect that. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thanks for that, Jay. I mean, if you look at the polling on data centers, it’s sort of the inverse of support for marriage equality. It is just a fast, hard move against data centers. This actually does — I mean, they address it in the risks in the S-1, but I think maybe it’s a little underplayed, right? Because, at least from my read on the data center industry, they’re already having a lot of problems. Do you want to talk a little bit about that, Berber?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think it’s been really interesting to see, in the last few months, how data center build-outs have become a real political hot-button issue. It’s really turned into a liability for candidates who have supported data center build-outs in the midterms. It’s a great point to raise because they’re not building data centers in San Francisco. They’re building them in the rest of the country, oftentimes in communities that don’t really see the benefits of AI up front.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think there’s this weird thing where it is a huge risk, right? Because if Anthropic can’t get the political goodwill to build data centers, they don’t have the compute needed to build and serve their models. But they’ve also been behind this very weird messaging around AI. I feel like they’ve marketed it as scary technology that already is having all these cyber risks and could potentially cause extinction. They have a lot of employees who are doomers. So there’s this weird cultural disconnect where they have a vested business and financial interest in trying to get the country to come around to this vision of building hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars’ worth of data centers. But they have this weird ideology around—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> They’re like, “Don’t worry, we hate AI so much that we must build it and become trillionaires from it.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And it might kill you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> And in case anyone else builds it—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, they do try to explain this in the S-1, right? They call it — and this has been, I do think, fairly consistent about this idea. It’s just a question of whether this idea makes any sense at all — what they call the “race to the top.” Okay, we have to build it first because then we will have built it the right way, with the right safeguards, and it won’t be Chinese tyranny running things, and it won’t be Sam Altman — whatever, even San Franciscan Sam Altman. What do you think? Does the “race to the top” idea make sense, Mat? How have you evaluated that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I think the “race to the top” idea is sort of a self-serving idea. I really do. And I think there are people at OpenAI who would tell you that they’re racing to the top as well. I think there are people at Google who would say they’re racing to the top — DeepMind, for sure. And I don’t know. To go back to that caller’s point about data centers, do you remember, probably around 2010 to 2012, there were all those protests against the Google buses?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> The Google bus is a physical thing that you can stand in front of, right? And I feel like the data center thing is much the same. You don’t want it in your neighborhood because it’s going to make your rates go up. It’s going to be loud. All that kind of stuff is true. But it’s also something that you could stop. And I think a lot of people right now feel sort of powerless and uneasy about the advent of the age of AI. You can stand in front of a data center and make it not be there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you can go to the permitting hearing and slow it down. You can do all these things. It has been truly, truly amazing to look at that. One of our listeners, RJ Wrights, asks — and Berber, maybe we’ll come to you on this — can you talk about Anthropic’s commitment to social causes, specifically around income disparity? Of course, in the AI and automation conversations of 10 years ago, people were talking about this stuff all the time: universal basic income and all these kinds of things. Where does AI — where does Anthropic — stand on these things?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s an interesting question, because a lot of the business proposition behind Claude is, “We will have Claude be able to save companies a lot of money by automating your workforce.” Anthropic Works has this big project with a bunch of private equity firms to implement Claude in legacy industries, like accounting, to cut head counts and improve efficiency.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, to start off, I think it’s important to be clear that the financial interest of this company is to herald an economic revolution that will result — they will not contest this — in massive transformations to the labor force. I think Anthropic has also been intentional in trying to find ways to offset that. They produce a lot of papers about how economic transformation will come, and they also have a lot of money earmarked for philanthropic causes. I think — I forget the name — but there’s a vehicle that exists where some of the money they have is specifically directed toward reducing the impact they will have on society.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a normal denizen of the world, it’s a little bit uncomfortable, right? Because you’re handing this company so much power to say, “We are automating away your jobs, but we will also find ways to try to smooth it over.” And I think that goes to that sense of powerlessness Mat was talking about, where they just have so much power and control. I feel like a lot of people feel like it’s kind of out of their hands, the concentration of influence this company has. Yeah, it’s really quite extraordinary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, one of the reasons I think people have come to believe in Anthropic as a business, if not in all these other things, is basically Claude Code, right? So, Sri, I want to come to you on this. This is Claude Code, and then the sort of harness they’ve put around their product so that you can ask Claude to do all kinds of things and build all kinds of things. Anything a computer can do, it could do it for you, basically. And this has turned out to be kind of the magic of the business, right, Sri? Because they’ve rolled this out to companies, and it has not only transformed Anthropic itself — where I think they say 90% of the lines of code committed to their code base are made by Claude Code — but also all these developers and business software makers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. Claude Code has been pivotal to Anthropic’s growth. They released it last year at some point. While OpenAI, the bigger rival at the time, was focused on consumer AI with its ChatGPT product, Anthropic really bet big on serving businesses. By focusing on Claude Code, they were able to automate software engineering work, which allows enterprises to do more with AI but also cut labor and save on costs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think Anthropic was smart about focusing on that. Over time, OpenAI has tried to follow by focusing more on Codex, for example, its competing coding product. But I don’t think Anthropic expected Claude Code to be so popular. At the start of this year, it was a little flat-footed in terms of how much computing power it needed to serve Claude Code. A lot of folks were complaining about their usage limits being affected if they were using the chatbot, and developers were scrambling to get more tokens to use Claude Code.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Eventually, Anthropic went on a deal spree to strike so many deals. That goes back to the $807 billion commitment they have for more computing power, chips, and data center work. Claude Code really was — and is — a huge driver for Anthropic’s business.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But now, as part of their S-1 and what they’ve been pitching to potential investors, they’re saying, “Hey, we’re going to save the world not just through software engineering, but we’re going to focus on life sciences and help you discover new drugs and cure cancer.” I think that’s also part of what Berber was saying earlier: the rejiggering of its mission to be maybe more of a safety-conscious company, because they’re countering the doomerism that their founders and employees feel. But also, “Hey, we actually have an IPO and need to raise $100 billion. How are we going to do that?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What’s also interesting, when I was reading the S-1, is that there was a phrase where the risk of humanity ending was written in the passive voice, versus, “There have been claims…” I don’t remember the exact wording, but it was very much like people, or it’s like—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’d be like, “See if all of our executives…” Yes, exactly. Say that we’re going to have a lot of—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> It’s like, not Dario saying it, but it’s like, “Claims have been made.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. I mean, the strange thing — and I think it’s a real question for the business in an interesting way — is that Claude Code reached ubiquity among software developers. It seemed like more or less overnight, from the end of 2025 into 2026.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, you know, my wife and I have a small business. I used Claude Code to automate the back end of this thing, and it works really well. I did it one time, used some tokens, and sort of that was it. I think one of my questions is whether they’ve had to start talking about biology and some of these really data-intensive realms because you could automate most white-collar work with a free plan, practically. These tools have gotten so good that you don’t actually need to pay Anthropic all that much money to do most of the white-collar information work that people do in normal jobs that aren’t coding.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I think there’s a real question. You’ve seen this incredible wave of adoption inside companies by the coders, but do the rest of us, Mat, even need as many tokens as it would take? They could totally wipe out white-collar work, and it still might not be a good business if you have to pay $800 billion for data centers and chips.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I’m sorry, I’m not quite sure—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Oh, the question is just, do you think there are going to be enough people who need to use these tools the way coders have?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Oh, I don’t know. I mean, I will say, just on a personal level, I’ve now started paying for Fable upgrades, which is their most capable model, which was surprising to me — that I actually hit the point where I wanted to do that. And, like you, I’ve done a ton of personal projects and things like that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think, again, a lot of what I’m talking about today is anecdotal, but our development team — our team of devs — has become so much more productive because of Claude Code. I do think businesses are going to be willing to pay for that. It’s clear that all kinds of businesses, such as your small business, are going to be able to use these tools in the same way that a larger customer is. And Anthropic clearly has some really large enterprise customers, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Right, and that’s where, like—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Most of the revenues are right now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We are talking about Anthropic as a business, and we’re also talking about what the Anthropic IPO could mean for the Bay Area and what it says about the state of the AI industry. We’ve got \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em> Editor-in-Chief Mat Honan. We’ve got Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook, and Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter with \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re going to get to more of your calls. I promise, in the next segment. What about you? Are you planning to invest in Anthropic? Why or why not? You can give us a call, 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. How do you feel about this economy that’s solidifying here in the Bay Area? You can find us on Bluesky, Instagram, and Discord. We’re KQED Forum, all those places. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Here we are talking about the Anthropic IPO. We’ve got \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>’s Mat Honan, the New York Times and DealBook’s Sri Muppidi, and Berber Jin from \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Let’s bring in — oh, we just lost the caller I was going to go to. All right, here we go. Let’s bring in Michael on data centers. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Michael:\u003c/strong> Hello, thanks for taking my call. What I wanted to bring up is this notion that data centers are evil, data centers are awful, and we should rise against the data centers. That’s really an inaccurate view. Data centers are no worse than any of the other things that we seem to be okay with: pollution from cars, pollution from nuclear power, pollution, pollution, pollution. What people don’t seem to realize is that many states bent the rules to get data centers into their states because they needed the revenue, right? So I think this is basically a straw man. It really is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And if you think about what you’re getting from these data centers, you’re giving power to people who normally wouldn’t have it. Here’s what I mean: take medical technology and medical information. It used to be, “Okay, I’ve just got to listen to this doctor and hope that they’re right, because I have no other resource to validate what they’re saying.” You can actually use Claude to do that. “Hey, here are my test results.” You can feed them into Claude. Claude will give you plain-English explanations of what this means and the kinds of questions you need to be asking your doctor.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Well, I want to take the data center question, though, because I think it’s an interesting point. I think part of it is, in exchange for the data centers, you also get to lose your job. That seems to be sort of the rhetoric, you know? People previously didn’t have a lot of opposition to data centers. Santa Clara County, for example, has tons of data centers, and there was virtually no opposition to them. Mat, do you think that’s because — essentially, people are using the tools of, say, environmental justice to raise questions about pollution or other things, but what people are really objecting to is, as you put it, this is a physical manifestation of the AI-driven economy?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, that’s definitely my opinion. A lot of it is about the physical manifestation. I do think people have legitimate concerns about their rates. They have legitimate concerns about power plants being built. To power these data centers, a lot of the energy sources they’ll have to use may even include natural gas.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> One is natural gas, yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> And I think people have legitimate concerns about that. The data center pushback is older than the AI boom if you think about it from a purely power or energy perspective. Texas did a lot to bring in data centers during the crypto boom, right? Then they had a bunch of brownouts, and they started peeling back the rules they’d put in place to make it easier to bring in data centers. And they’re back because there are concerns about energy usage that are—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think if you look at Virginia, where a huge chunk of data centers are, and you look at their power prices, I also think people are responding to the other idea of power — the other definition of power. In a lot of these Virginia places, so much of their property tax revenue is now dependent on these data centers, which makes you wonder, what are they going to do politically in that circumstance? Let’s bring in Todd in San Francisco. Welcome, Todd.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Todd:\u003c/strong> Hi there. Since Anthropic and these IPOs are going to generate a lot of money, and there’s already been a lot of money generated in the Bay Area by investments, I’d like the cognoscenti of the AI world on your show right now to speculate about why these millionaires and billionaires are so much different from San Francisco’s previous set of millionaires and billionaires — like the gold miners who struck it rich. Famously, cultured gold miners would build opera houses and import famous authors to read out loud. But living in the Bay Area, one would have to say they’re rather hermetic. What’s up?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> This is really — I mean, Berber, why don’t we go to you? Anthropic specifically was deeply aligned with a movement. I don’t know if I want to call it a philosophical movement, but I suppose it is: effective altruism. In fact, one of their earliest backers, Sam Bankman-Fried, was one of their largest investors at the point when he went down. So what do we think? This seems to deeply inform the culture of Anthropic. Can you give us a little summary of effective altruism and its application to Anthropic?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so effective altruism is deeply ingrained, particularly among the co-founders and the very early set of employees, who also happen to be the richest in the IPO. EAs care a lot about how to maximize the amount of good in the world, which leads to a lot of conclusions that most normal people would consider esoteric. For example, if we want to minimize suffering in the world, we should all be vegans. And you take that argument to the extreme — a lot of anti-EA people like to make this argument to make fun of EAs — and you get shrimp farming, because billions of shrimp are farmed every year and they can experience pain.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So apply that to AI. A lot of the early employees, a lot of people who became very interested in AI, became interested in AI because they felt like here’s a technology that could cause extinction, and extinction would be the worst kind of outcome. It would maximize the amount of suffering in the world, so we have to prevent it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anyway, to apply that to the question, which I think is really interesting, about what values will animate this new billionaire class: I think an interesting litmus test will be to see how much of their money goes toward funding cultural and artistic institutions in San Francisco and the Bay Area, and toward funding civic institutions that I think a lot of normal people could really get on board with.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The early employees at Anthropic — a lot of them have pledged sometimes half of their wealth to philanthropic causes. But because effective altruism is so deeply ingrained in their worldviews, the chatter right now among employees is, “We should donate this money to fund AI safety nonprofits that are focused on how to use AI to prevent human extinction. We should use it to back animal welfare nonprofits.” Berkeley’s going to get rich.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is this interesting countercultural element where a lot of these people are in Berkeley. One dig against EAs is that they famously don’t care about art and culture. A lot of people who are anti-EA will make that argument. But I think it will be interesting to see how they spend this money. Will it just go to these kind of wacky causes? How much of it will go toward institutions like SFMOMA or supporting the opera? That will be a way to see the relationship between this new billionaire class and the rest of San Francisco. What that looks like will depend in large part on how these employees and founders choose to spend the philanthropic wealth they’ll gain from the IPO.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, having followed some EA stuff — not closely, but sort of a little bit from the outside — it feels like a real kind of hothouse-flower thing. This started out as a very small group of people all talking to each other about this stuff, and now, of course, it’s become a global, massive discussion about whether the kinds of ideas they had about the world and AI make any sense at all. But, of course, they will have massive wealth, and they also have the proof of this company they’ve built on their side of the ledger, I suppose.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mat, what about you? We’ve seen plenty of weird ideologies flow through San Francisco. I would not have bet, 12 years ago, that effective altruism would be associated with one of the fastest-growing capitalist companies ever. Think about the philosophical underpinnings of this place.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, you want to talk about the rationalists a little bit when you talk about effective altruism, a lot of which is headquartered out in the East Bay. I do think it’s had a profound effect on the way a lot of people, especially those working in tech, think about the world and about what’s the most effective way to make the world a better place.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think Berber’s exactly right, though. It’s really unclear whether the people who have come up in that scene or movement — whatever you want to call it, philosophy — are going to donate to the opera versus places that are more globally oriented, or AI safety organizations. I don’t know how much we’re going to see of this in the Bay Area. And I think if they wanted to generate an enormous amount of goodwill, they could effectively solve the housing problem in San Francisco instead of making it worse. There are all kinds of ways to put that money to use locally.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. We’ve got a couple of comments here. Eric writes in to say, “As with the microchip boom of the ’90s and the dot-com boom, it’s real. We might see a bit — a lot — of volatility as profitability catches up with valuation, but the smart money has already spoken.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then Steve on Discord has this question. News came out recently about China’s AI companies really suffering, with half a trillion dollars of valuation gone. Steve notes that — what do you think is going on there? It’s seemed like two different worlds to me that kind of come together, I suppose, in the American market. But, Berber, do you think the fact that these Chinese AI companies are struggling in their stock market says anything about Anthropic or what’s happening here?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> That’s a really good question. The whole Chinese AI ecosystem really puzzles me. I mean, I think — maybe this isn’t a direct answer to your question — a lot of the Chinese companies, it’s unclear to me what their modus operandi is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What we do kind of know is that they somehow don’t have enough — they can’t raise as much money as Anthropic and OpenAI. I’ve always been confused about why the government doesn’t just subsidize and pour tens of billions of dollars into these companies. They’re famous for distilling Anthropic’s models. They’ll use the outputs from Claude to train a cheaper, hacked-in version of Fable or Opus or the Anthropic-class models, which Anthropic hates. But then they also give away a lot of their technology for free. They make it open source, so none of the companies really have a business model, which is why I think there’s been all this volatility in the Chinese stock market with those names.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s all kind of perplexing to me, how the Chinese AI ecosystem works. I don’t think American policymakers or lab leaders have a great sense of it either. So that’s how I would answer the question. It’s all very confusing to me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, no, I don’t disagree. And I think it has confused American AI leaders a lot. When you started to see these Chinese models come out with training numbers that were teensy-tiny on the cost side, it made it seem like, well, why are Anthropic and OpenAI spending $800 billion over the next five or 10 years when these Chinese model makers seem to be able to do more with less? Which I think remains an open question. It feels like there are some variables missing there. James in Larkspur, welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>James:\u003c/strong> Yeah, hi. Good morning. I wanted to shift the conversation just a little bit to the control of information that’s coming out of Anthropic, for instance. Traditionally, on the internet, we were shown sites that we could go to and ultimately make our own decision about whether the information was good or bad.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What’s happening now with AI is that they’re synthesizing all of that information, writing it, and feeding it to you. We have to remember that this is really based on algorithms that are originally being written and controlled by a certain entity. To release information, to control it and manipulate it, leads to what’s happening, for instance, right now with a pump-and-dump scheme on one hand, where they’re saying only we can control this information. It’s rogue computers that only we know how to tame the monster. So they’re generating a great deal of scare tactics and technological advancement to raise money through these IPOs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>James:\u003c/strong> But at the same time, what we have to be careful of is that, ultimately, at the end of the day, they will be decreasing — as they are now — the sites that you can see on the internet, and increasing their interpretation of that information and controlling it. Lastly—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Wait, James, I want to take this, though, because we only have a couple of minutes, so I want to throw this to Sri. This is really interesting. It’s basically changing the shape of the internet, and I think that’s really true. Now, instead, Google would have presented some set of options for most people, and you could have moved freely through that, although most people didn’t. Now you’re filtering all that information through Claude or through — what do you think, not just as a business proposition but as a cultural proposition, Sri? Is that a good idea or not?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. You’re already seeing it, as we just discussed, where businesses and advertisers are trying to cater to being surfaced through these chatbots. I’ve heard anecdotes about people trying to add so much slop to Reddit because chatbots index Reddit answers really quickly to surface suggestions or whatever it is. So there’s now a whole set of startups trying to do AI-like SEO so that their companies will be recommended.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These labs, Anthropic and OpenAI, are striking partnerships with Walmart or whoever so that those businesses are recommended first. I totally agree that it will shape how information continues to be shared. Businesses are recognizing that and trying to invest money so they aren’t left behind.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think it will be an issue from a societal standpoint as well, just because AI is now being shared with students on their Chrome laptops or whatever. It’s really educating our next generation of students and workers. So I think it will be quite interesting to see. I don’t have, like, a—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Something about the way we get information and things that was really interesting to me: there was a study from MIT last year, or in the past year, on financial literacy. A lot of people are now going to a chatbot and saying, “Where do I put my $1,000?” or “How should I invest my money?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What this study found was that people who have a higher degree of financial sophistication, and can ask a more financially sophisticated question — a more financially sophisticated prompt — get much better advice. If you just go in and say, “Where do I invest?” you’re going to get some really basic advice, and you’ll get advice that will yield you lower returns.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They also found that it was very gender-specific. Women were getting basically worse financial advice — or worse long-term financial advice, I should say — being told to put more money into savings accounts than men were. I think that’s one of the real things we haven’t really started to think about or address yet: your ability to interact with the chatbot is going to become increasingly important. You’re going to have to develop a literacy about how you interact with these things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I have a somewhat heterodox position on this, only in the sense that if I look up rose quartz or some mineral, you just can’t find the facts about a mineral on the internet anymore because so many people want to sell you rose quartz for ritualistic purposes. I just think the baseline level of what you were finding on the internet has gotten so bad that I feel like Claude’s synthesis of it is better than what most people would do for themselves. Sorry, unpopular opinion from the room.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nancy writes in to say, “Looking forward to the burst of this AI bubble. I’m so sick of hearing about thousands of people losing their jobs because of software forced upon us that hallucinates. Going into the city makes me depressed because every billboard is about someone’s new AI tool. It’s so dystopian.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There it is — counterarguments to the whole show. We’ve been talking about what an Anthropic IPO would mean for the Bay Area. We’ve had Mat Honan, editor-in-chief of \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Thank you, Mat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. Thank you, Sri.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter with \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Anthropic has filed to go public in what could become the largest IPO in history. The San Francisco-based AI company’s 335-page filing offers the first detailed look at its finances, growth ambitions and stated risk factors, including the possibility of catastrophic incidents. We’ll talk with San Francisco-based tech and business reporters about what Anthropic’s filing can tell us about the future of the AI economy and what the expected huge influx of money could mean for the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Anthropic is one of those San Francisco stories that’s hard to believe. A group of researchers, including two siblings, a former journalist, and a handful of others, broke off from OpenAI to found their own AI company in 2021. Five years later, the company has grown its revenue faster than any company ever. To take one example, in the second quarter of last year, the company brought in $787 million — not bad for a startup. But in the second quarter of this year, Anthropic brought in $11.6 billion. That’s nearly 15 times year-over-year growth. To put that in perspective, Google, which was the hottest tech company on Earth from 2002 to 2005, grew revenue from $400 million in 2002 to $6 billion in 2005. Sure, there’s been inflation, et cetera, but Anthropic’s growth has been absolutely absurd, unprecedented, and, for many people, unexpected.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Anthropic is one of those San Francisco stories that’s hard to believe. A group of researchers, including two siblings, a former journalist, and a handful of others, broke off from OpenAI to found their own AI company in 2021. Five years later, the company has grown its revenue faster than any company ever. To take one example, in the second quarter of last year, the company brought in $787 million — not bad for a startup. But in the second quarter of this year, Anthropic brought in $11.6 billion. That’s nearly 15 times year-over-year growth. To put that in perspective, Google, which was the hottest tech company on Earth from 2002 to 2005, grew revenue from $400 million in 2002 to $6 billion in 2005. Sure, there’s been inflation, et cetera, but Anthropic’s growth has been absolutely absurd, unprecedented, and, for many people, unexpected.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Oh, and they made almost a billion dollars in the second quarter, their first profitable quarter. So here we are now: this company, which believes itself to be building toward artificial general intelligence, has money pouring in and revenue from corporations that use its tools. But because it needs to keep competing at the frontier of AI, it needs even more money to keep growing, and hence the IPO, which could raise $100 billion — the most ever.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Oh, and they made almost a billion dollars in the second quarter, their first profitable quarter. So here we are now: this company, which believes itself to be building toward artificial general intelligence, has money pouring in and revenue from corporations that use its tools. But because it needs to keep competing at the frontier of AI, it needs even more money to keep growing, and hence the IPO, which could raise $100 billion — the most ever.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Here to break down what the IPO tells us about Anthropic, the state of AI, and the tidal wave of wealth cresting over our fair city, we’re joined by Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter at \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Here to break down what the IPO tells us about Anthropic, the state of AI, and the tidal wave of wealth cresting over our fair city, we’re joined by Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter at \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re joined by Sri Muppidi, who’s business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. Welcome, Sri.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve got Mat Honan, editor-in-chief of \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Welcome, Mat.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve got Mat Honan, editor-in-chief of \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Welcome, Mat.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Kevin Roose and Kate Snow are building something new. So, Mat, you’ve been in the tech journalism game here in San Francisco a long time, and you’re looking at this Anthropic document. What are you thinking?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, first of all, I’m thinking this is the longest S-1 I’ve ever seen. You know, you see a lot of these things over the years, and they’re always dense, but there’s often really entertaining stuff in there. This one was so long that I didn’t — I, at best, could skim it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I actually — I was about to say, I used Claude to get a summary of some of the high points there. But it was, you know, it’s a staggering document, and what it means, I think, is kind of unprecedented for San Francisco. I think we’re going to sit here and talk today about what’s going to happen in San Francisco, but one of my takeaways from that 335-page document is that nobody knows what’s going to happen in San Francisco or anywhere else because of just the scale of it. The scale of it is, you know, like when we talk about the Uber IPO or Slack or Facebook or anything else that’s come before, they’re all so much smaller.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I actually — I was about to say, I used Claude to get a summary of some of the high points there. But it was, you know, it’s a staggering document, and what it means, I think, is kind of unprecedented for San Francisco. I think we’re going to sit here and talk today about what’s going to happen in San Francisco, but one of my takeaways from that 335-page document is that nobody knows what’s going to happen in San Francisco or anywhere else because of just the scale of it. The scale of it is, you know, like when we talk about the Uber IPO or Slack or Facebook or anything else that’s come before, they’re all so much smaller.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sri, can you just walk us through some of the numbers here? You know, how much is Anthropic hoping to raise? What could the company be worth, that kind of stuff?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sri, can you just walk us through some of the numbers here? You know, how much is Anthropic hoping to raise? What could the company be worth, that kind of stuff?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. So the company is aiming to raise, or is expected to raise, about $100 billion as part of its IPO. And the valuation that’s been touted around is between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion. That really comes down to what investors expect the company to be worth.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. So the company is aiming to raise, or is expected to raise, about $100 billion as part of its IPO. And the valuation that’s been touted around is between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion. That really comes down to what investors expect the company to be worth.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I love it. It’s just like, it’s so much money, and yet that’s a $500 billion difference. If you were like 1.5, 2, you know, it’s like a house in San Francisco. You’re like, “You know…”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. What’s the over-asking price in terms of how much the company can actually go raise in the public offering? And so I think that’s really striking, just because Anthropic already has $130 billion-plus in cash and other investments that it can turn into cash. And so the fact that the company could raise, or is hoping to raise, $100 billion more really shows the size and scale, as we were just chatting about. And I think that really comes down to this figure of more than $807 billion in commitments that the company has in terms of being able to build out data centers, as well as have more computing power to actually run and build its AI.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. What’s the over-asking price in terms of how much the company can actually go raise in the public offering? And so I think that’s really striking, just because Anthropic already has $130 billion-plus in cash and other investments that it can turn into cash. And so the fact that the company could raise, or is hoping to raise, $100 billion more really shows the size and scale, as we were just chatting about. And I think that really comes down to this figure of more than $807 billion in commitments that the company has in terms of being able to build out data centers, as well as have more computing power to actually run and build its AI.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s like, yeah, if you looked at a table of all the people they owe money to and you added it up, it’s like $800 billion.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s like, yeah, if you looked at a table of all the people they owe money to and you added it up, it’s like $800 billion.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And I love, in the S-1, they say at some point, it may seem crazy that we’re spending all this money, but it’s because we really believe that there’s exponential growth necessary in what we spend so that we also can get exponential growth in what we make. There’s also this interesting figure, and maybe, Berber, I don’t know if you want to take this one. The company says they lost $80 billion in the first half of the year, but a lot of people have — some people have quoted that number. But it’s this really kind of odd convertible-debt thing where, essentially, Amazon invested. Can you talk a little bit about that? They didn’t really lose $80 billion, did they?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And I love, in the S-1, they say at some point, it may seem crazy that we’re spending all this money, but it’s because we really believe that there’s exponential growth necessary in what we spend so that we also can get exponential growth in what we make. There’s also this interesting figure, and maybe, Berber, I don’t know if you want to take this one. The company says they lost $80 billion in the first half of the year, but a lot of people have — some people have quoted that number. But it’s this really kind of odd convertible-debt thing where, essentially, Amazon invested. Can you talk a little bit about that? They didn’t really lose $80 billion, did they?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> No, they didn’t. Actually, Sri might know the specifics of this better than me. But my understanding is that that $80 billion net loss isn’t part of the core business. So it’s not like they’re losing $80 billion from their core operations, building and selling Claude. That would be very bad and would make the company much less attractive as a business to invest in. So I think it’s a little bit technical. They raised a lot of money through convertible notes, which eventually convert into equity but haven’t yet. And so, for some tricky, complicated, wonky accounting reasons, that shows up as a net loss. And the reason why that number is so inflated is because, actually, as Anthropic’s valuation has gone up, I guess the liabilities or the losses tied to those convertible notes have also gone up. So I think a lot of investors are also kind of not really looking at that. There are a lot of debates about profitability — how do AI companies calculate profitability? Is Anthropic kind of taking shortcuts to claim this profitability number from Q2? Because it is very impressive.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> No, they didn’t. Actually, Sri might know the specifics of this better than me. But my understanding is that that $80 billion net loss isn’t part of the core business. So it’s not like they’re losing $80 billion from their core operations, building and selling Claude. That would be very bad and would make the company much less attractive as a business to invest in. So I think it’s a little bit technical. They raised a lot of money through convertible notes, which eventually convert into equity but haven’t yet. And so, for some tricky, complicated, wonky accounting reasons, that shows up as a net loss. And the reason why that number is so inflated is because, actually, as Anthropic’s valuation has gone up, I guess the liabilities or the losses tied to those convertible notes have also gone up. So I think a lot of investors are also kind of not really looking at that. There are a lot of debates about profitability — how do AI companies calculate profitability? Is Anthropic kind of taking shortcuts to claim this profitability number from Q2? Because it is very impressive.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Um, but I think — I think I feel like it’s safe to say that that $80 billion—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Um, but I think — I think I feel like it’s safe to say that that $80 billion—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Well, and even they say at the same time, right, that they have something like — they were saying 85% gross margins for serving up Claude and Claude Code specifically, right? They’re able to make that much money there. But there are some questions about that, too, right? Sri, do you want to talk about how — what does this business look like?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Well, and even they say at the same time, right, that they have something like — they were saying 85% gross margins for serving up Claude and Claude Code specifically, right? They’re able to make that much money there. But there are some questions about that, too, right? Sri, do you want to talk about how — what does this business look like?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. So the questions about gross margins — that basically means revenue minus the direct cost to produce that revenue. And so Anthropic accounts for that as what’s called inference cost, so essentially running its AI models to actually serve customers. So 85% gross margins is actually great for an AI lab, particularly because the company had, I think, negative margins even just two years ago, and very, very low margins even just last year. And so the fact that it’s been able to really improve its efficiency shows that they’ve been focused on this. And just for context, to put it alongside other software companies, that’s in line with software-as-a-service companies, anyway. So I think that’s quite impressive.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. So the questions about gross margins — that basically means revenue minus the direct cost to produce that revenue. And so Anthropic accounts for that as what’s called inference cost, so essentially running its AI models to actually serve customers. So 85% gross margins is actually great for an AI lab, particularly because the company had, I think, negative margins even just two years ago, and very, very low margins even just last year. And so the fact that it’s been able to really improve its efficiency shows that they’ve been focused on this. And just for context, to put it alongside other software companies, that’s in line with software-as-a-service companies, anyway. So I think that’s quite impressive.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think what folks are really indexing on now, in terms of where the company can go in the future, is that Q2 was really impressive. But the company actually shared some of its unaudited Q3 financials at an investor day a few weeks ago. And revenue growth increased, I believe, 45% between Q2 and Q3. But it shows that it actually decelerated compared with earlier this year. And so that kind of raises questions for some investors about whether Anthropic can actually continue sustaining that growth, particularly as you think about the threat of Chinese open-weight models.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think what folks are really indexing on now, in terms of where the company can go in the future, is that Q2 was really impressive. But the company actually shared some of its unaudited Q3 financials at an investor day a few weeks ago. And revenue growth increased, I believe, 45% between Q2 and Q3. But it shows that it actually decelerated compared with earlier this year. And so that kind of raises questions for some investors about whether Anthropic can actually continue sustaining that growth, particularly as you think about the threat of Chinese open-weight models.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What I’m hearing anecdotally is that businesses, especially large enterprise companies, are starting to adopt more open-weight models or turn to OpenAI for its Astra model, just because it’s gotten more competitive. OpenAI is also noting that this is an opportune moment to maybe cut prices, and so they’re gaining competitive share that way. I think there are a lot of questions around whether Anthropic can continue growing, just because the scale, as Mat was alluding to, is so large.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What I’m hearing anecdotally is that businesses, especially large enterprise companies, are starting to adopt more open-weight models or turn to OpenAI for its Astra model, just because it’s gotten more competitive. OpenAI is also noting that this is an opportune moment to maybe cut prices, and so they’re gaining competitive share that way. I think there are a lot of questions around whether Anthropic can continue growing, just because the scale, as Mat was alluding to, is so large.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Law of large numbers, as I feel like they like to say. Mat, what do you think about the big question here? People have been trying to ask, “Is AI for real? Is this a boom that’s going to bust?” What do you think this document says about that larger question — where the whole industry is likely to land and its overall importance?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Law of large numbers, as I feel like they like to say. Mat, what do you think about the big question here? People have been trying to ask, “Is AI for real? Is this a boom that’s going to bust?” What do you think this document says about that larger question — where the whole industry is likely to land and its overall importance?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I think you can answer the “Is AI for real?” question in two ways. One is: Is the technology real? Clearly, it is. There’s no question. If you’re doubting that AI technology is real at this point—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I think you can answer the “Is AI for real?” question in two ways. One is: Is the technology real? Clearly, it is. There’s no question. If you’re doubting that AI technology is real at this point—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It’s a question from—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It’s a question from—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> —a few years ago.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> —a few years ago.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I don’t know what to tell you. Is the stock market overinflated? Is there a bubble? Is that the question about whether AI is for real? Is AI really going to be able to generate these returns? You know, I mean, I hate to be cautious in this way, the way that I was at the top of the show, but I don’t think anybody knows. I mean, I think anybody who’s really projecting what you’re going to do with the — to use the SpaceX term — largest addressable market on Earth—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I don’t know what to tell you. Is the stock market overinflated? Is there a bubble? Is that the question about whether AI is for real? Is AI really going to be able to generate these returns? You know, I mean, I hate to be cautious in this way, the way that I was at the top of the show, but I don’t think anybody knows. I mean, I think anybody who’s really projecting what you’re going to do with the — to use the SpaceX term — largest addressable market on Earth—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Which is all human labor, apparently.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Which is all human labor, apparently.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> It’s a great unknown, and I guess I personally, just because I’ve been reporting for however many years now, tend not to like to put my chips on the table about that kind of stuff. But if I had to guess, it seems like a not-bad business.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> It’s a great unknown, and I guess I personally, just because I’ve been reporting for however many years now, tend not to like to put my chips on the table about that kind of stuff. But if I had to guess, it seems like a not-bad business.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, it certainly seems more real than a year ago. If we were having the same conversation and had somehow gotten access to these numbers last summer, we’d be like, “Hmm, they seem to be losing a ton of money.” They’re growing fast, but of course it’s not that much money against the idea of this massive — you know, even back then they were talking about a valuation that was hundreds of billions of dollars. What do you think, Berber, about the larger question?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, it certainly seems more real than a year ago. If we were having the same conversation and had somehow gotten access to these numbers last summer, we’d be like, “Hmm, they seem to be losing a ton of money.” They’re growing fast, but of course it’s not that much money against the idea of this massive — you know, even back then they were talking about a valuation that was hundreds of billions of dollars. What do you think, Berber, about the larger question?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I would tend to agree with what Mat said. I think, based on this document, Anthropic is an extraordinarily good business. And I think the fact that they were able to turn an operating profit in Q2 defies a lot of the narrative that people have had about just how AI businesses work. The narrative around the labs in particular is that they are money pits, that they’ll never achieve profitability. They spend all this money training the models, but it’s very unclear whether they’ll ever get an ROI from it. So I think the fact that Anthropic’s business is so good is something that, a year or two ago, you’d be very surprised by. I think everyone would be surprised to see the numbers coming out of the company.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I would tend to agree with what Mat said. I think, based on this document, Anthropic is an extraordinarily good business. And I think the fact that they were able to turn an operating profit in Q2 defies a lot of the narrative that people have had about just how AI businesses work. The narrative around the labs in particular is that they are money pits, that they’ll never achieve profitability. They spend all this money training the models, but it’s very unclear whether they’ll ever get an ROI from it. So I think the fact that Anthropic’s business is so good is something that, a year or two ago, you’d be very surprised by. I think everyone would be surprised to see the numbers coming out of the company.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Another statistic that really popped out to me in the S-1 was that they’ve raised $141 billion, and they still have around $120 billion on their balance sheet. Those are extraordinary numbers. Normally, we would expect them to be burning through the money they raised.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Another statistic that really popped out to me in the S-1 was that they’ve raised $141 billion, and they still have around $120 billion on their balance sheet. Those are extraordinary numbers. Normally, we would expect them to be burning through the money they raised.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> And that’s what OpenAI is doing, by the way. We can talk about how much of a better business Anthropic is than OpenAI right now. But I do think there are a lot of weird things about the business that should give some people pause. For example, I think they said 5% to 7% of their revenue comes from users who violate their terms of service. They’re alluding to Chinese companies that are just distilling their models, trying to hack into the models to train their own models. A lot of their revenue comes from one or two big customers, so there are still a lot of question marks that should make us cautious about putting all our chips into Anthropic.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> And that’s what OpenAI is doing, by the way. We can talk about how much of a better business Anthropic is than OpenAI right now. But I do think there are a lot of weird things about the business that should give some people pause. For example, I think they said 5% to 7% of their revenue comes from users who violate their terms of service. They’re alluding to Chinese companies that are just distilling their models, trying to hack into the models to train their own models. A lot of their revenue comes from one or two big customers, so there are still a lot of question marks that should make us cautious about putting all our chips into Anthropic.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re talking about the Anthropic IPO with Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter at \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>; Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook; and Mat Honan, editor-in-chief at \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Are you more scared of a bust or a boom? 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re talking about the Anthropic IPO with Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter at \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>; Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook; and Mat Honan, editor-in-chief at \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Are you more scared of a bust or a boom? 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’re talking about the Anthropic IPO. We’ve got a little roundtable of technology reporters here from \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. We’ve got Sri Muppidi, Berber Jin, and, from \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>, Mat Honan. And we want to hear from you. You know, you’re a Bay Area person listening to this. Are you more scared of the tech boom here, or the tech bust that could come at some point in AI? 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on social media, Bluesky, Instagram, and Discord. We’re KQED Forum. So, Mat, do you think we’re going to feel this IPO?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’re talking about the Anthropic IPO. We’ve got a little roundtable of technology reporters here from \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. We’ve got Sri Muppidi, Berber Jin, and, from \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>, Mat Honan. And we want to hear from you. You know, you’re a Bay Area person listening to this. Are you more scared of the tech boom here, or the tech bust that could come at some point in AI? 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on social media, Bluesky, Instagram, and Discord. We’re KQED Forum. So, Mat, do you think we’re going to feel this IPO?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, I think we’re already feeling it a little bit in real estate. There’s been a bunch of great reporting about the ways it’s — something, including in the Journal. Maybe, Berber, this is one of your stories. Forgive me if it was. But there was a story recently about how there are 600 or so employees who’ve already been able to pull money out, and they’ve been investing it heavily in real estate. If you look at some of the home prices, look at how much they’ve gone up year over year, you’re definitely already seeing it. They’re definitely really feeling it. Like, what’s that going to mean for the corner stores and the small businesses in the city? I don’t know, but it’s showing up in real estate.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, I think we’re already feeling it a little bit in real estate. There’s been a bunch of great reporting about the ways it’s — something, including in the Journal. Maybe, Berber, this is one of your stories. Forgive me if it was. But there was a story recently about how there are 600 or so employees who’ve already been able to pull money out, and they’ve been investing it heavily in real estate. If you look at some of the home prices, look at how much they’ve gone up year over year, you’re definitely already seeing it. They’re definitely really feeling it. Like, what’s that going to mean for the corner stores and the small businesses in the city? I don’t know, but it’s showing up in real estate.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, normally, when I’ve talked about IPOs in the past, there are all these lockups on the options and all this stuff that’s happening. But it seems to me like Anthropic has made it unusually easy for their employees to trade, basically from the very beginning, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, normally, when I’ve talked about IPOs in the past, there are all these lockups on the options and all this stuff that’s happening. But it seems to me like Anthropic has made it unusually easy for their employees to trade, basically from the very beginning, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Yes, exactly. So typically there’s like a 180-day lockup where companies’ early employees or others in the company have to wait. You might see an adjustment in the IPO price after, for example, that first pop. What’s unusual about Anthropic is that some shares can actually be traded right away, and then it’s staggered across a set of 37- or 60-second periods, I believe, in terms of when others can also start trading. And so that makes it possible for employees and other shareholders to start trading immediately. You’re going to see the impact of that right away.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Yes, exactly. So typically there’s like a 180-day lockup where companies’ early employees or others in the company have to wait. You might see an adjustment in the IPO price after, for example, that first pop. What’s unusual about Anthropic is that some shares can actually be traded right away, and then it’s staggered across a set of 37- or 60-second periods, I believe, in terms of when others can also start trading. And so that makes it possible for employees and other shareholders to start trading immediately. You’re going to see the impact of that right away.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What’s expected is that the company would actually start trading in the week of November 16, I believe, so right before Thanksgiving. Maybe if you’re making any big purchases — if you’re trying to buy a house, maybe do it right now. But you’re already seeing that impact, as Mat was saying, because there were these share sales that employees had already participated in, and they were able to sell some of their existing shares — for example, to buy a house. So I think you’re starting to see a trickle of it already, and it will continue to get worse.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What’s expected is that the company would actually start trading in the week of November 16, I believe, so right before Thanksgiving. Maybe if you’re making any big purchases — if you’re trying to buy a house, maybe do it right now. But you’re already seeing that impact, as Mat was saying, because there were these share sales that employees had already participated in, and they were able to sell some of their existing shares — for example, to buy a house. So I think you’re starting to see a trickle of it already, and it will continue to get worse.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, when we’ve done real estate shows, it seemed like the major impact was at the ultra-luxury level. You know, it’s hard to feel bad for people who might be getting priced out of Pacific Heights mansions. But I suppose in this case it’s going to spread to some — what do we think, 1,500 or 2,000 people or something like that around here? Do we know the exact number of employees in San Francisco?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, when we’ve done real estate shows, it seemed like the major impact was at the ultra-luxury level. You know, it’s hard to feel bad for people who might be getting priced out of Pacific Heights mansions. But I suppose in this case it’s going to spread to some — what do we think, 1,500 or 2,000 people or something like that around here? Do we know the exact number of employees in San Francisco?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> I think it’s about 3,000, but you’d have to fact-check me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> I think it’s about 3,000, but you’d have to fact-check me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And most of them are here, though, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And most of them are here, though, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Most of them are here. It’s San Francisco headquarters. The other note I’d add to that is that rent prices have also gotten so crazy because Anthropic and other AI companies are all in San Francisco now. So when, for example, a young 20-something is moving to San Francisco and sees that rents are like $6,000 for a two-bedroom, they might as well just buy an apartment if the mortgage costs about the same as rent. What I’m hearing, even anecdotally, is that people are willing to buy not just those uber-rich mansions, but also a two-bedroom apartment or condo, because rents are so crazy as well.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Most of them are here. It’s San Francisco headquarters. The other note I’d add to that is that rent prices have also gotten so crazy because Anthropic and other AI companies are all in San Francisco now. So when, for example, a young 20-something is moving to San Francisco and sees that rents are like $6,000 for a two-bedroom, they might as well just buy an apartment if the mortgage costs about the same as rent. What I’m hearing, even anecdotally, is that people are willing to buy not just those uber-rich mansions, but also a two-bedroom apartment or condo, because rents are so crazy as well.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Alexis, I live in it. This is totally anecdotal. I live in the Outer Sunset, though. These neighborhoods are full of these things called doldrums, which are, you know, like this guy — Doldrum built, like, four guys on the first floor. They’re all pretty much the same floor plan, you know, two bedrooms with the garage downstairs. When I moved in there, they were selling for under a million dollars. There have been several in my immediate neighborhood that have sold recently for $900,000 over asking. And you can’t say, “Oh, well, is that because of Anthropic?” But it certainly seems like it. I mean, these are not high-end homes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Alexis, I live in it. This is totally anecdotal. I live in the Outer Sunset, though. These neighborhoods are full of these things called doldrums, which are, you know, like this guy — Doldrum built, like, four guys on the first floor. They’re all pretty much the same floor plan, you know, two bedrooms with the garage downstairs. When I moved in there, they were selling for under a million dollars. There have been several in my immediate neighborhood that have sold recently for $900,000 over asking. And you can’t say, “Oh, well, is that because of Anthropic?” But it certainly seems like it. I mean, these are not high-end homes.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> What’s wild is, you and I, in years past, were talking about the doom loop. I don’t think either of us were believers in this so-called doom loop, that San Francisco was going down in flames. And here we are, just a few years later, and this has happened now. Do you think this is a net good for the city, to get this massive injection of money into what is a tiny percentage of the city’s population?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> What’s wild is, you and I, in years past, were talking about the doom loop. I don’t think either of us were believers in this so-called doom loop, that San Francisco was going down in flames. And here we are, just a few years later, and this has happened now. Do you think this is a net good for the city, to get this massive injection of money into what is a tiny percentage of the city’s population?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s not going to show up in our list — the city’s not going to get a whole lot of tax revenue from it, right? There’s no income tax, and it’s questionable to me how much of that is actually going to go to the city. They are going to have this huge philanthropic division — LLC, what is it? Is it separate?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s not going to show up in our list — the city’s not going to get a whole lot of tax revenue from it, right? There’s no income tax, and it’s questionable to me how much of that is actually going to go to the city. They are going to have this huge philanthropic division — LLC, what is it? Is it separate?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Long-term trust.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Long-term trust.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> That’s going to be giving away all this money to philanthropic causes, but that’s probably not going to be local stuff, right? That’s going to be national, international, global health.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> That’s going to be giving away all this money to philanthropic causes, but that’s probably not going to be local stuff, right? That’s going to be national, international, global health.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Right, right. More Gates Foundation-y level and scope, yeah. So how’s it going to benefit the city? I don’t know. Yeah. All right, let’s ask Jay in Palo Alto. What do you think, Jay?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Right, right. More Gates Foundation-y level and scope, yeah. So how’s it going to benefit the city? I don’t know. Yeah. All right, let’s ask Jay in Palo Alto. What do you think, Jay?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jay:\u003c/strong> Hey, good, good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I love that you guys talked about the housing issue a little bit, but I think that one thing — there have been several news articles about this recently — that’s united the whole country is that everybody hates data centers, right? And that’s exactly what this is. When we try to have this objective conversation about how cool it is, the ins and outs, and talk about it in a very matter-of-fact tone, I think there’s a tremendous disconnect between these facts you’re talking about and the fact that this represents something that almost everybody hates. I think we’re doing a real disservice when we neglect that. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jay:\u003c/strong> Hey, good, good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I love that you guys talked about the housing issue a little bit, but I think that one thing — there have been several news articles about this recently — that’s united the whole country is that everybody hates data centers, right? And that’s exactly what this is. When we try to have this objective conversation about how cool it is, the ins and outs, and talk about it in a very matter-of-fact tone, I think there’s a tremendous disconnect between these facts you’re talking about and the fact that this represents something that almost everybody hates. I think we’re doing a real disservice when we neglect that. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thanks for that, Jay. I mean, if you look at the polling on data centers, it’s sort of the inverse of support for marriage equality. It is just a fast, hard move against data centers. This actually does — I mean, they address it in the risks in the S-1, but I think maybe it’s a little underplayed, right? Because, at least from my read on the data center industry, they’re already having a lot of problems. Do you want to talk a little bit about that, Berber?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thanks for that, Jay. I mean, if you look at the polling on data centers, it’s sort of the inverse of support for marriage equality. It is just a fast, hard move against data centers. This actually does — I mean, they address it in the risks in the S-1, but I think maybe it’s a little underplayed, right? Because, at least from my read on the data center industry, they’re already having a lot of problems. Do you want to talk a little bit about that, Berber?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think it’s been really interesting to see, in the last few months, how data center build-outs have become a real political hot-button issue. It’s really turned into a liability for candidates who have supported data center build-outs in the midterms. It’s a great point to raise because they’re not building data centers in San Francisco. They’re building them in the rest of the country, oftentimes in communities that don’t really see the benefits of AI up front.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think it’s been really interesting to see, in the last few months, how data center build-outs have become a real political hot-button issue. It’s really turned into a liability for candidates who have supported data center build-outs in the midterms. It’s a great point to raise because they’re not building data centers in San Francisco. They’re building them in the rest of the country, oftentimes in communities that don’t really see the benefits of AI up front.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think there’s this weird thing where it is a huge risk, right? Because if Anthropic can’t get the political goodwill to build data centers, they don’t have the compute needed to build and serve their models. But they’ve also been behind this very weird messaging around AI. I feel like they’ve marketed it as scary technology that already is having all these cyber risks and could potentially cause extinction. They have a lot of employees who are doomers. So there’s this weird cultural disconnect where they have a vested business and financial interest in trying to get the country to come around to this vision of building hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars’ worth of data centers. But they have this weird ideology around—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think there’s this weird thing where it is a huge risk, right? Because if Anthropic can’t get the political goodwill to build data centers, they don’t have the compute needed to build and serve their models. But they’ve also been behind this very weird messaging around AI. I feel like they’ve marketed it as scary technology that already is having all these cyber risks and could potentially cause extinction. They have a lot of employees who are doomers. So there’s this weird cultural disconnect where they have a vested business and financial interest in trying to get the country to come around to this vision of building hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars’ worth of data centers. But they have this weird ideology around—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> They’re like, “Don’t worry, we hate AI so much that we must build it and become trillionaires from it.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> They’re like, “Don’t worry, we hate AI so much that we must build it and become trillionaires from it.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And it might kill you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And it might kill you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> And in case anyone else builds it—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> And in case anyone else builds it—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, they do try to explain this in the S-1, right? They call it — and this has been, I do think, fairly consistent about this idea. It’s just a question of whether this idea makes any sense at all — what they call the “race to the top.” Okay, we have to build it first because then we will have built it the right way, with the right safeguards, and it won’t be Chinese tyranny running things, and it won’t be Sam Altman — whatever, even San Franciscan Sam Altman. What do you think? Does the “race to the top” idea make sense, Mat? How have you evaluated that?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, they do try to explain this in the S-1, right? They call it — and this has been, I do think, fairly consistent about this idea. It’s just a question of whether this idea makes any sense at all — what they call the “race to the top.” Okay, we have to build it first because then we will have built it the right way, with the right safeguards, and it won’t be Chinese tyranny running things, and it won’t be Sam Altman — whatever, even San Franciscan Sam Altman. What do you think? Does the “race to the top” idea make sense, Mat? How have you evaluated that?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I think the “race to the top” idea is sort of a self-serving idea. I really do. And I think there are people at OpenAI who would tell you that they’re racing to the top as well. I think there are people at Google who would say they’re racing to the top — DeepMind, for sure. And I don’t know. To go back to that caller’s point about data centers, do you remember, probably around 2010 to 2012, there were all those protests against the Google buses?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I think the “race to the top” idea is sort of a self-serving idea. I really do. And I think there are people at OpenAI who would tell you that they’re racing to the top as well. I think there are people at Google who would say they’re racing to the top — DeepMind, for sure. And I don’t know. To go back to that caller’s point about data centers, do you remember, probably around 2010 to 2012, there were all those protests against the Google buses?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> The Google bus is a physical thing that you can stand in front of, right? And I feel like the data center thing is much the same. You don’t want it in your neighborhood because it’s going to make your rates go up. It’s going to be loud. All that kind of stuff is true. But it’s also something that you could stop. And I think a lot of people right now feel sort of powerless and uneasy about the advent of the age of AI. You can stand in front of a data center and make it not be there.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> The Google bus is a physical thing that you can stand in front of, right? And I feel like the data center thing is much the same. You don’t want it in your neighborhood because it’s going to make your rates go up. It’s going to be loud. All that kind of stuff is true. But it’s also something that you could stop. And I think a lot of people right now feel sort of powerless and uneasy about the advent of the age of AI. You can stand in front of a data center and make it not be there.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you can go to the permitting hearing and slow it down. You can do all these things. It has been truly, truly amazing to look at that. One of our listeners, RJ Wrights, asks — and Berber, maybe we’ll come to you on this — can you talk about Anthropic’s commitment to social causes, specifically around income disparity? Of course, in the AI and automation conversations of 10 years ago, people were talking about this stuff all the time: universal basic income and all these kinds of things. Where does AI — where does Anthropic — stand on these things?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you can go to the permitting hearing and slow it down. You can do all these things. It has been truly, truly amazing to look at that. One of our listeners, RJ Wrights, asks — and Berber, maybe we’ll come to you on this — can you talk about Anthropic’s commitment to social causes, specifically around income disparity? Of course, in the AI and automation conversations of 10 years ago, people were talking about this stuff all the time: universal basic income and all these kinds of things. Where does AI — where does Anthropic — stand on these things?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s an interesting question, because a lot of the business proposition behind Claude is, “We will have Claude be able to save companies a lot of money by automating your workforce.” Anthropic Works has this big project with a bunch of private equity firms to implement Claude in legacy industries, like accounting, to cut head counts and improve efficiency.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s an interesting question, because a lot of the business proposition behind Claude is, “We will have Claude be able to save companies a lot of money by automating your workforce.” Anthropic Works has this big project with a bunch of private equity firms to implement Claude in legacy industries, like accounting, to cut head counts and improve efficiency.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, to start off, I think it’s important to be clear that the financial interest of this company is to herald an economic revolution that will result — they will not contest this — in massive transformations to the labor force. I think Anthropic has also been intentional in trying to find ways to offset that. They produce a lot of papers about how economic transformation will come, and they also have a lot of money earmarked for philanthropic causes. I think — I forget the name — but there’s a vehicle that exists where some of the money they have is specifically directed toward reducing the impact they will have on society.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, to start off, I think it’s important to be clear that the financial interest of this company is to herald an economic revolution that will result — they will not contest this — in massive transformations to the labor force. I think Anthropic has also been intentional in trying to find ways to offset that. They produce a lot of papers about how economic transformation will come, and they also have a lot of money earmarked for philanthropic causes. I think — I forget the name — but there’s a vehicle that exists where some of the money they have is specifically directed toward reducing the impact they will have on society.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>As a normal denizen of the world, it’s a little bit uncomfortable, right? Because you’re handing this company so much power to say, “We are automating away your jobs, but we will also find ways to try to smooth it over.” And I think that goes to that sense of powerlessness Mat was talking about, where they just have so much power and control. I feel like a lot of people feel like it’s kind of out of their hands, the concentration of influence this company has. Yeah, it’s really quite extraordinary.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>As a normal denizen of the world, it’s a little bit uncomfortable, right? Because you’re handing this company so much power to say, “We are automating away your jobs, but we will also find ways to try to smooth it over.” And I think that goes to that sense of powerlessness Mat was talking about, where they just have so much power and control. I feel like a lot of people feel like it’s kind of out of their hands, the concentration of influence this company has. Yeah, it’s really quite extraordinary.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, one of the reasons I think people have come to believe in Anthropic as a business, if not in all these other things, is basically Claude Code, right? So, Sri, I want to come to you on this. This is Claude Code, and then the sort of harness they’ve put around their product so that you can ask Claude to do all kinds of things and build all kinds of things. Anything a computer can do, it could do it for you, basically. And this has turned out to be kind of the magic of the business, right, Sri? Because they’ve rolled this out to companies, and it has not only transformed Anthropic itself — where I think they say 90% of the lines of code committed to their code base are made by Claude Code — but also all these developers and business software makers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, one of the reasons I think people have come to believe in Anthropic as a business, if not in all these other things, is basically Claude Code, right? So, Sri, I want to come to you on this. This is Claude Code, and then the sort of harness they’ve put around their product so that you can ask Claude to do all kinds of things and build all kinds of things. Anything a computer can do, it could do it for you, basically. And this has turned out to be kind of the magic of the business, right, Sri? Because they’ve rolled this out to companies, and it has not only transformed Anthropic itself — where I think they say 90% of the lines of code committed to their code base are made by Claude Code — but also all these developers and business software makers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. Claude Code has been pivotal to Anthropic’s growth. They released it last year at some point. While OpenAI, the bigger rival at the time, was focused on consumer AI with its ChatGPT product, Anthropic really bet big on serving businesses. By focusing on Claude Code, they were able to automate software engineering work, which allows enterprises to do more with AI but also cut labor and save on costs.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. Claude Code has been pivotal to Anthropic’s growth. They released it last year at some point. While OpenAI, the bigger rival at the time, was focused on consumer AI with its ChatGPT product, Anthropic really bet big on serving businesses. By focusing on Claude Code, they were able to automate software engineering work, which allows enterprises to do more with AI but also cut labor and save on costs.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think Anthropic was smart about focusing on that. Over time, OpenAI has tried to follow by focusing more on Codex, for example, its competing coding product. But I don’t think Anthropic expected Claude Code to be so popular. At the start of this year, it was a little flat-footed in terms of how much computing power it needed to serve Claude Code. A lot of folks were complaining about their usage limits being affected if they were using the chatbot, and developers were scrambling to get more tokens to use Claude Code.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think Anthropic was smart about focusing on that. Over time, OpenAI has tried to follow by focusing more on Codex, for example, its competing coding product. But I don’t think Anthropic expected Claude Code to be so popular. At the start of this year, it was a little flat-footed in terms of how much computing power it needed to serve Claude Code. A lot of folks were complaining about their usage limits being affected if they were using the chatbot, and developers were scrambling to get more tokens to use Claude Code.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Eventually, Anthropic went on a deal spree to strike so many deals. That goes back to the $807 billion commitment they have for more computing power, chips, and data center work. Claude Code really was — and is — a huge driver for Anthropic’s business.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Eventually, Anthropic went on a deal spree to strike so many deals. That goes back to the $807 billion commitment they have for more computing power, chips, and data center work. Claude Code really was — and is — a huge driver for Anthropic’s business.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But now, as part of their S-1 and what they’ve been pitching to potential investors, they’re saying, “Hey, we’re going to save the world not just through software engineering, but we’re going to focus on life sciences and help you discover new drugs and cure cancer.” I think that’s also part of what Berber was saying earlier: the rejiggering of its mission to be maybe more of a safety-conscious company, because they’re countering the doomerism that their founders and employees feel. But also, “Hey, we actually have an IPO and need to raise $100 billion. How are we going to do that?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But now, as part of their S-1 and what they’ve been pitching to potential investors, they’re saying, “Hey, we’re going to save the world not just through software engineering, but we’re going to focus on life sciences and help you discover new drugs and cure cancer.” I think that’s also part of what Berber was saying earlier: the rejiggering of its mission to be maybe more of a safety-conscious company, because they’re countering the doomerism that their founders and employees feel. But also, “Hey, we actually have an IPO and need to raise $100 billion. How are we going to do that?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What’s also interesting, when I was reading the S-1, is that there was a phrase where the risk of humanity ending was written in the passive voice, versus, “There have been claims…” I don’t remember the exact wording, but it was very much like people, or it’s like—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What’s also interesting, when I was reading the S-1, is that there was a phrase where the risk of humanity ending was written in the passive voice, versus, “There have been claims…” I don’t remember the exact wording, but it was very much like people, or it’s like—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’d be like, “See if all of our executives…” Yes, exactly. Say that we’re going to have a lot of—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’d be like, “See if all of our executives…” Yes, exactly. Say that we’re going to have a lot of—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> It’s like, not Dario saying it, but it’s like, “Claims have been made.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> It’s like, not Dario saying it, but it’s like, “Claims have been made.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. I mean, the strange thing — and I think it’s a real question for the business in an interesting way — is that Claude Code reached ubiquity among software developers. It seemed like more or less overnight, from the end of 2025 into 2026.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. I mean, the strange thing — and I think it’s a real question for the business in an interesting way — is that Claude Code reached ubiquity among software developers. It seemed like more or less overnight, from the end of 2025 into 2026.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But, you know, my wife and I have a small business. I used Claude Code to automate the back end of this thing, and it works really well. I did it one time, used some tokens, and sort of that was it. I think one of my questions is whether they’ve had to start talking about biology and some of these really data-intensive realms because you could automate most white-collar work with a free plan, practically. These tools have gotten so good that you don’t actually need to pay Anthropic all that much money to do most of the white-collar information work that people do in normal jobs that aren’t coding.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But, you know, my wife and I have a small business. I used Claude Code to automate the back end of this thing, and it works really well. I did it one time, used some tokens, and sort of that was it. I think one of my questions is whether they’ve had to start talking about biology and some of these really data-intensive realms because you could automate most white-collar work with a free plan, practically. These tools have gotten so good that you don’t actually need to pay Anthropic all that much money to do most of the white-collar information work that people do in normal jobs that aren’t coding.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think there’s a real question. You’ve seen this incredible wave of adoption inside companies by the coders, but do the rest of us, Mat, even need as many tokens as it would take? They could totally wipe out white-collar work, and it still might not be a good business if you have to pay $800 billion for data centers and chips.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think there’s a real question. You’ve seen this incredible wave of adoption inside companies by the coders, but do the rest of us, Mat, even need as many tokens as it would take? They could totally wipe out white-collar work, and it still might not be a good business if you have to pay $800 billion for data centers and chips.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I’m sorry, I’m not quite sure—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I’m sorry, I’m not quite sure—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Oh, the question is just, do you think there are going to be enough people who need to use these tools the way coders have?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Oh, the question is just, do you think there are going to be enough people who need to use these tools the way coders have?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Oh, I don’t know. I mean, I will say, just on a personal level, I’ve now started paying for Fable upgrades, which is their most capable model, which was surprising to me — that I actually hit the point where I wanted to do that. And, like you, I’ve done a ton of personal projects and things like that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Oh, I don’t know. I mean, I will say, just on a personal level, I’ve now started paying for Fable upgrades, which is their most capable model, which was surprising to me — that I actually hit the point where I wanted to do that. And, like you, I’ve done a ton of personal projects and things like that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think, again, a lot of what I’m talking about today is anecdotal, but our development team — our team of devs — has become so much more productive because of Claude Code. I do think businesses are going to be willing to pay for that. It’s clear that all kinds of businesses, such as your small business, are going to be able to use these tools in the same way that a larger customer is. And Anthropic clearly has some really large enterprise customers, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think, again, a lot of what I’m talking about today is anecdotal, but our development team — our team of devs — has become so much more productive because of Claude Code. I do think businesses are going to be willing to pay for that. It’s clear that all kinds of businesses, such as your small business, are going to be able to use these tools in the same way that a larger customer is. And Anthropic clearly has some really large enterprise customers, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Right, and that’s where, like—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Right, and that’s where, like—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Most of the revenues are right now.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Most of the revenues are right now.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We are talking about Anthropic as a business, and we’re also talking about what the Anthropic IPO could mean for the Bay Area and what it says about the state of the AI industry. We’ve got \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em> Editor-in-Chief Mat Honan. We’ve got Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook, and Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter with \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We are talking about Anthropic as a business, and we’re also talking about what the Anthropic IPO could mean for the Bay Area and what it says about the state of the AI industry. We’ve got \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em> Editor-in-Chief Mat Honan. We’ve got Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook, and Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter with \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’re going to get to more of your calls. I promise, in the next segment. What about you? Are you planning to invest in Anthropic? Why or why not? You can give us a call, 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. How do you feel about this economy that’s solidifying here in the Bay Area? You can find us on Bluesky, Instagram, and Discord. We’re KQED Forum, all those places. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We’re going to get to more of your calls. I promise, in the next segment. What about you? Are you planning to invest in Anthropic? Why or why not? You can give us a call, 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. How do you feel about this economy that’s solidifying here in the Bay Area? You can find us on Bluesky, Instagram, and Discord. We’re KQED Forum, all those places. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Here we are talking about the Anthropic IPO. We’ve got \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>’s Mat Honan, the New York Times and DealBook’s Sri Muppidi, and Berber Jin from \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Let’s bring in — oh, we just lost the caller I was going to go to. All right, here we go. Let’s bring in Michael on data centers. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Here we are talking about the Anthropic IPO. We’ve got \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>’s Mat Honan, the New York Times and DealBook’s Sri Muppidi, and Berber Jin from \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Let’s bring in — oh, we just lost the caller I was going to go to. All right, here we go. Let’s bring in Michael on data centers. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael:\u003c/strong> Hello, thanks for taking my call. What I wanted to bring up is this notion that data centers are evil, data centers are awful, and we should rise against the data centers. That’s really an inaccurate view. Data centers are no worse than any of the other things that we seem to be okay with: pollution from cars, pollution from nuclear power, pollution, pollution, pollution. What people don’t seem to realize is that many states bent the rules to get data centers into their states because they needed the revenue, right? So I think this is basically a straw man. It really is.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael:\u003c/strong> Hello, thanks for taking my call. What I wanted to bring up is this notion that data centers are evil, data centers are awful, and we should rise against the data centers. That’s really an inaccurate view. Data centers are no worse than any of the other things that we seem to be okay with: pollution from cars, pollution from nuclear power, pollution, pollution, pollution. What people don’t seem to realize is that many states bent the rules to get data centers into their states because they needed the revenue, right? So I think this is basically a straw man. It really is.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And if you think about what you’re getting from these data centers, you’re giving power to people who normally wouldn’t have it. Here’s what I mean: take medical technology and medical information. It used to be, “Okay, I’ve just got to listen to this doctor and hope that they’re right, because I have no other resource to validate what they’re saying.” You can actually use Claude to do that. “Hey, here are my test results.” You can feed them into Claude. Claude will give you plain-English explanations of what this means and the kinds of questions you need to be asking your doctor.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And if you think about what you’re getting from these data centers, you’re giving power to people who normally wouldn’t have it. Here’s what I mean: take medical technology and medical information. It used to be, “Okay, I’ve just got to listen to this doctor and hope that they’re right, because I have no other resource to validate what they’re saying.” You can actually use Claude to do that. “Hey, here are my test results.” You can feed them into Claude. Claude will give you plain-English explanations of what this means and the kinds of questions you need to be asking your doctor.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Well, I want to take the data center question, though, because I think it’s an interesting point. I think part of it is, in exchange for the data centers, you also get to lose your job. That seems to be sort of the rhetoric, you know? People previously didn’t have a lot of opposition to data centers. Santa Clara County, for example, has tons of data centers, and there was virtually no opposition to them. Mat, do you think that’s because — essentially, people are using the tools of, say, environmental justice to raise questions about pollution or other things, but what people are really objecting to is, as you put it, this is a physical manifestation of the AI-driven economy?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Well, I want to take the data center question, though, because I think it’s an interesting point. I think part of it is, in exchange for the data centers, you also get to lose your job. That seems to be sort of the rhetoric, you know? People previously didn’t have a lot of opposition to data centers. Santa Clara County, for example, has tons of data centers, and there was virtually no opposition to them. Mat, do you think that’s because — essentially, people are using the tools of, say, environmental justice to raise questions about pollution or other things, but what people are really objecting to is, as you put it, this is a physical manifestation of the AI-driven economy?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, that’s definitely my opinion. A lot of it is about the physical manifestation. I do think people have legitimate concerns about their rates. They have legitimate concerns about power plants being built. To power these data centers, a lot of the energy sources they’ll have to use may even include natural gas.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, that’s definitely my opinion. A lot of it is about the physical manifestation. I do think people have legitimate concerns about their rates. They have legitimate concerns about power plants being built. To power these data centers, a lot of the energy sources they’ll have to use may even include natural gas.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> One is natural gas, yeah.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> One is natural gas, yeah.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> And I think people have legitimate concerns about that. The data center pushback is older than the AI boom if you think about it from a purely power or energy perspective. Texas did a lot to bring in data centers during the crypto boom, right? Then they had a bunch of brownouts, and they started peeling back the rules they’d put in place to make it easier to bring in data centers. And they’re back because there are concerns about energy usage that are—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> And I think people have legitimate concerns about that. The data center pushback is older than the AI boom if you think about it from a purely power or energy perspective. Texas did a lot to bring in data centers during the crypto boom, right? Then they had a bunch of brownouts, and they started peeling back the rules they’d put in place to make it easier to bring in data centers. And they’re back because there are concerns about energy usage that are—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think if you look at Virginia, where a huge chunk of data centers are, and you look at their power prices, I also think people are responding to the other idea of power — the other definition of power. In a lot of these Virginia places, so much of their property tax revenue is now dependent on these data centers, which makes you wonder, what are they going to do politically in that circumstance? Let’s bring in Todd in San Francisco. Welcome, Todd.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think if you look at Virginia, where a huge chunk of data centers are, and you look at their power prices, I also think people are responding to the other idea of power — the other definition of power. In a lot of these Virginia places, so much of their property tax revenue is now dependent on these data centers, which makes you wonder, what are they going to do politically in that circumstance? Let’s bring in Todd in San Francisco. Welcome, Todd.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Todd:\u003c/strong> Hi there. Since Anthropic and these IPOs are going to generate a lot of money, and there’s already been a lot of money generated in the Bay Area by investments, I’d like the cognoscenti of the AI world on your show right now to speculate about why these millionaires and billionaires are so much different from San Francisco’s previous set of millionaires and billionaires — like the gold miners who struck it rich. Famously, cultured gold miners would build opera houses and import famous authors to read out loud. But living in the Bay Area, one would have to say they’re rather hermetic. What’s up?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Todd:\u003c/strong> Hi there. Since Anthropic and these IPOs are going to generate a lot of money, and there’s already been a lot of money generated in the Bay Area by investments, I’d like the cognoscenti of the AI world on your show right now to speculate about why these millionaires and billionaires are so much different from San Francisco’s previous set of millionaires and billionaires — like the gold miners who struck it rich. Famously, cultured gold miners would build opera houses and import famous authors to read out loud. But living in the Bay Area, one would have to say they’re rather hermetic. What’s up?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> This is really — I mean, Berber, why don’t we go to you? Anthropic specifically was deeply aligned with a movement. I don’t know if I want to call it a philosophical movement, but I suppose it is: effective altruism. In fact, one of their earliest backers, Sam Bankman-Fried, was one of their largest investors at the point when he went down. So what do we think? This seems to deeply inform the culture of Anthropic. Can you give us a little summary of effective altruism and its application to Anthropic?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> This is really — I mean, Berber, why don’t we go to you? Anthropic specifically was deeply aligned with a movement. I don’t know if I want to call it a philosophical movement, but I suppose it is: effective altruism. In fact, one of their earliest backers, Sam Bankman-Fried, was one of their largest investors at the point when he went down. So what do we think? This seems to deeply inform the culture of Anthropic. Can you give us a little summary of effective altruism and its application to Anthropic?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so effective altruism is deeply ingrained, particularly among the co-founders and the very early set of employees, who also happen to be the richest in the IPO. EAs care a lot about how to maximize the amount of good in the world, which leads to a lot of conclusions that most normal people would consider esoteric. For example, if we want to minimize suffering in the world, we should all be vegans. And you take that argument to the extreme — a lot of anti-EA people like to make this argument to make fun of EAs — and you get shrimp farming, because billions of shrimp are farmed every year and they can experience pain.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so effective altruism is deeply ingrained, particularly among the co-founders and the very early set of employees, who also happen to be the richest in the IPO. EAs care a lot about how to maximize the amount of good in the world, which leads to a lot of conclusions that most normal people would consider esoteric. For example, if we want to minimize suffering in the world, we should all be vegans. And you take that argument to the extreme — a lot of anti-EA people like to make this argument to make fun of EAs — and you get shrimp farming, because billions of shrimp are farmed every year and they can experience pain.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So apply that to AI. A lot of the early employees, a lot of people who became very interested in AI, became interested in AI because they felt like here’s a technology that could cause extinction, and extinction would be the worst kind of outcome. It would maximize the amount of suffering in the world, so we have to prevent it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So apply that to AI. A lot of the early employees, a lot of people who became very interested in AI, became interested in AI because they felt like here’s a technology that could cause extinction, and extinction would be the worst kind of outcome. It would maximize the amount of suffering in the world, so we have to prevent it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Anyway, to apply that to the question, which I think is really interesting, about what values will animate this new billionaire class: I think an interesting litmus test will be to see how much of their money goes toward funding cultural and artistic institutions in San Francisco and the Bay Area, and toward funding civic institutions that I think a lot of normal people could really get on board with.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Anyway, to apply that to the question, which I think is really interesting, about what values will animate this new billionaire class: I think an interesting litmus test will be to see how much of their money goes toward funding cultural and artistic institutions in San Francisco and the Bay Area, and toward funding civic institutions that I think a lot of normal people could really get on board with.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The early employees at Anthropic — a lot of them have pledged sometimes half of their wealth to philanthropic causes. But because effective altruism is so deeply ingrained in their worldviews, the chatter right now among employees is, “We should donate this money to fund AI safety nonprofits that are focused on how to use AI to prevent human extinction. We should use it to back animal welfare nonprofits.” Berkeley’s going to get rich.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The early employees at Anthropic — a lot of them have pledged sometimes half of their wealth to philanthropic causes. But because effective altruism is so deeply ingrained in their worldviews, the chatter right now among employees is, “We should donate this money to fund AI safety nonprofits that are focused on how to use AI to prevent human extinction. We should use it to back animal welfare nonprofits.” Berkeley’s going to get rich.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There is this interesting countercultural element where a lot of these people are in Berkeley. One dig against EAs is that they famously don’t care about art and culture. A lot of people who are anti-EA will make that argument. But I think it will be interesting to see how they spend this money. Will it just go to these kind of wacky causes? How much of it will go toward institutions like SFMOMA or supporting the opera? That will be a way to see the relationship between this new billionaire class and the rest of San Francisco. What that looks like will depend in large part on how these employees and founders choose to spend the philanthropic wealth they’ll gain from the IPO.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There is this interesting countercultural element where a lot of these people are in Berkeley. One dig against EAs is that they famously don’t care about art and culture. A lot of people who are anti-EA will make that argument. But I think it will be interesting to see how they spend this money. Will it just go to these kind of wacky causes? How much of it will go toward institutions like SFMOMA or supporting the opera? That will be a way to see the relationship between this new billionaire class and the rest of San Francisco. What that looks like will depend in large part on how these employees and founders choose to spend the philanthropic wealth they’ll gain from the IPO.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, having followed some EA stuff — not closely, but sort of a little bit from the outside — it feels like a real kind of hothouse-flower thing. This started out as a very small group of people all talking to each other about this stuff, and now, of course, it’s become a global, massive discussion about whether the kinds of ideas they had about the world and AI make any sense at all. But, of course, they will have massive wealth, and they also have the proof of this company they’ve built on their side of the ledger, I suppose.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, having followed some EA stuff — not closely, but sort of a little bit from the outside — it feels like a real kind of hothouse-flower thing. This started out as a very small group of people all talking to each other about this stuff, and now, of course, it’s become a global, massive discussion about whether the kinds of ideas they had about the world and AI make any sense at all. But, of course, they will have massive wealth, and they also have the proof of this company they’ve built on their side of the ledger, I suppose.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Mat, what about you? We’ve seen plenty of weird ideologies flow through San Francisco. I would not have bet, 12 years ago, that effective altruism would be associated with one of the fastest-growing capitalist companies ever. Think about the philosophical underpinnings of this place.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Mat, what about you? We’ve seen plenty of weird ideologies flow through San Francisco. I would not have bet, 12 years ago, that effective altruism would be associated with one of the fastest-growing capitalist companies ever. Think about the philosophical underpinnings of this place.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, you want to talk about the rationalists a little bit when you talk about effective altruism, a lot of which is headquartered out in the East Bay. I do think it’s had a profound effect on the way a lot of people, especially those working in tech, think about the world and about what’s the most effective way to make the world a better place.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, you want to talk about the rationalists a little bit when you talk about effective altruism, a lot of which is headquartered out in the East Bay. I do think it’s had a profound effect on the way a lot of people, especially those working in tech, think about the world and about what’s the most effective way to make the world a better place.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think Berber’s exactly right, though. It’s really unclear whether the people who have come up in that scene or movement — whatever you want to call it, philosophy — are going to donate to the opera versus places that are more globally oriented, or AI safety organizations. I don’t know how much we’re going to see of this in the Bay Area. And I think if they wanted to generate an enormous amount of goodwill, they could effectively solve the housing problem in San Francisco instead of making it worse. There are all kinds of ways to put that money to use locally.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think Berber’s exactly right, though. It’s really unclear whether the people who have come up in that scene or movement — whatever you want to call it, philosophy — are going to donate to the opera versus places that are more globally oriented, or AI safety organizations. I don’t know how much we’re going to see of this in the Bay Area. And I think if they wanted to generate an enormous amount of goodwill, they could effectively solve the housing problem in San Francisco instead of making it worse. There are all kinds of ways to put that money to use locally.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. We’ve got a couple of comments here. Eric writes in to say, “As with the microchip boom of the ’90s and the dot-com boom, it’s real. We might see a bit — a lot — of volatility as profitability catches up with valuation, but the smart money has already spoken.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. We’ve got a couple of comments here. Eric writes in to say, “As with the microchip boom of the ’90s and the dot-com boom, it’s real. We might see a bit — a lot — of volatility as profitability catches up with valuation, but the smart money has already spoken.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Then Steve on Discord has this question. News came out recently about China’s AI companies really suffering, with half a trillion dollars of valuation gone. Steve notes that — what do you think is going on there? It’s seemed like two different worlds to me that kind of come together, I suppose, in the American market. But, Berber, do you think the fact that these Chinese AI companies are struggling in their stock market says anything about Anthropic or what’s happening here?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Then Steve on Discord has this question. News came out recently about China’s AI companies really suffering, with half a trillion dollars of valuation gone. Steve notes that — what do you think is going on there? It’s seemed like two different worlds to me that kind of come together, I suppose, in the American market. But, Berber, do you think the fact that these Chinese AI companies are struggling in their stock market says anything about Anthropic or what’s happening here?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> That’s a really good question. The whole Chinese AI ecosystem really puzzles me. I mean, I think — maybe this isn’t a direct answer to your question — a lot of the Chinese companies, it’s unclear to me what their modus operandi is.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> That’s a really good question. The whole Chinese AI ecosystem really puzzles me. I mean, I think — maybe this isn’t a direct answer to your question — a lot of the Chinese companies, it’s unclear to me what their modus operandi is.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What we do kind of know is that they somehow don’t have enough — they can’t raise as much money as Anthropic and OpenAI. I’ve always been confused about why the government doesn’t just subsidize and pour tens of billions of dollars into these companies. They’re famous for distilling Anthropic’s models. They’ll use the outputs from Claude to train a cheaper, hacked-in version of Fable or Opus or the Anthropic-class models, which Anthropic hates. But then they also give away a lot of their technology for free. They make it open source, so none of the companies really have a business model, which is why I think there’s been all this volatility in the Chinese stock market with those names.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What we do kind of know is that they somehow don’t have enough — they can’t raise as much money as Anthropic and OpenAI. I’ve always been confused about why the government doesn’t just subsidize and pour tens of billions of dollars into these companies. They’re famous for distilling Anthropic’s models. They’ll use the outputs from Claude to train a cheaper, hacked-in version of Fable or Opus or the Anthropic-class models, which Anthropic hates. But then they also give away a lot of their technology for free. They make it open source, so none of the companies really have a business model, which is why I think there’s been all this volatility in the Chinese stock market with those names.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s all kind of perplexing to me, how the Chinese AI ecosystem works. I don’t think American policymakers or lab leaders have a great sense of it either. So that’s how I would answer the question. It’s all very confusing to me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It’s all kind of perplexing to me, how the Chinese AI ecosystem works. I don’t think American policymakers or lab leaders have a great sense of it either. So that’s how I would answer the question. It’s all very confusing to me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, no, I don’t disagree. And I think it has confused American AI leaders a lot. When you started to see these Chinese models come out with training numbers that were teensy-tiny on the cost side, it made it seem like, well, why are Anthropic and OpenAI spending $800 billion over the next five or 10 years when these Chinese model makers seem to be able to do more with less? Which I think remains an open question. It feels like there are some variables missing there. James in Larkspur, welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, no, I don’t disagree. And I think it has confused American AI leaders a lot. When you started to see these Chinese models come out with training numbers that were teensy-tiny on the cost side, it made it seem like, well, why are Anthropic and OpenAI spending $800 billion over the next five or 10 years when these Chinese model makers seem to be able to do more with less? Which I think remains an open question. It feels like there are some variables missing there. James in Larkspur, welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James:\u003c/strong> Yeah, hi. Good morning. I wanted to shift the conversation just a little bit to the control of information that’s coming out of Anthropic, for instance. Traditionally, on the internet, we were shown sites that we could go to and ultimately make our own decision about whether the information was good or bad.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James:\u003c/strong> Yeah, hi. Good morning. I wanted to shift the conversation just a little bit to the control of information that’s coming out of Anthropic, for instance. Traditionally, on the internet, we were shown sites that we could go to and ultimately make our own decision about whether the information was good or bad.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What’s happening now with AI is that they’re synthesizing all of that information, writing it, and feeding it to you. We have to remember that this is really based on algorithms that are originally being written and controlled by a certain entity. To release information, to control it and manipulate it, leads to what’s happening, for instance, right now with a pump-and-dump scheme on one hand, where they’re saying only we can control this information. It’s rogue computers that only we know how to tame the monster. So they’re generating a great deal of scare tactics and technological advancement to raise money through these IPOs.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What’s happening now with AI is that they’re synthesizing all of that information, writing it, and feeding it to you. We have to remember that this is really based on algorithms that are originally being written and controlled by a certain entity. To release information, to control it and manipulate it, leads to what’s happening, for instance, right now with a pump-and-dump scheme on one hand, where they’re saying only we can control this information. It’s rogue computers that only we know how to tame the monster. So they’re generating a great deal of scare tactics and technological advancement to raise money through these IPOs.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James:\u003c/strong> But at the same time, what we have to be careful of is that, ultimately, at the end of the day, they will be decreasing — as they are now — the sites that you can see on the internet, and increasing their interpretation of that information and controlling it. Lastly—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James:\u003c/strong> But at the same time, what we have to be careful of is that, ultimately, at the end of the day, they will be decreasing — as they are now — the sites that you can see on the internet, and increasing their interpretation of that information and controlling it. Lastly—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Wait, James, I want to take this, though, because we only have a couple of minutes, so I want to throw this to Sri. This is really interesting. It’s basically changing the shape of the internet, and I think that’s really true. Now, instead, Google would have presented some set of options for most people, and you could have moved freely through that, although most people didn’t. Now you’re filtering all that information through Claude or through — what do you think, not just as a business proposition but as a cultural proposition, Sri? Is that a good idea or not?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Wait, James, I want to take this, though, because we only have a couple of minutes, so I want to throw this to Sri. This is really interesting. It’s basically changing the shape of the internet, and I think that’s really true. Now, instead, Google would have presented some set of options for most people, and you could have moved freely through that, although most people didn’t. Now you’re filtering all that information through Claude or through — what do you think, not just as a business proposition but as a cultural proposition, Sri? Is that a good idea or not?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. You’re already seeing it, as we just discussed, where businesses and advertisers are trying to cater to being surfaced through these chatbots. I’ve heard anecdotes about people trying to add so much slop to Reddit because chatbots index Reddit answers really quickly to surface suggestions or whatever it is. So there’s now a whole set of startups trying to do AI-like SEO so that their companies will be recommended.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. You’re already seeing it, as we just discussed, where businesses and advertisers are trying to cater to being surfaced through these chatbots. I’ve heard anecdotes about people trying to add so much slop to Reddit because chatbots index Reddit answers really quickly to surface suggestions or whatever it is. So there’s now a whole set of startups trying to do AI-like SEO so that their companies will be recommended.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>These labs, Anthropic and OpenAI, are striking partnerships with Walmart or whoever so that those businesses are recommended first. I totally agree that it will shape how information continues to be shared. Businesses are recognizing that and trying to invest money so they aren’t left behind.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>These labs, Anthropic and OpenAI, are striking partnerships with Walmart or whoever so that those businesses are recommended first. I totally agree that it will shape how information continues to be shared. Businesses are recognizing that and trying to invest money so they aren’t left behind.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think it will be an issue from a societal standpoint as well, just because AI is now being shared with students on their Chrome laptops or whatever. It’s really educating our next generation of students and workers. So I think it will be quite interesting to see. I don’t have, like, a—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think it will be an issue from a societal standpoint as well, just because AI is now being shared with students on their Chrome laptops or whatever. It’s really educating our next generation of students and workers. So I think it will be quite interesting to see. I don’t have, like, a—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Something about the way we get information and things that was really interesting to me: there was a study from MIT last year, or in the past year, on financial literacy. A lot of people are now going to a chatbot and saying, “Where do I put my $1,000?” or “How should I invest my money?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Something about the way we get information and things that was really interesting to me: there was a study from MIT last year, or in the past year, on financial literacy. A lot of people are now going to a chatbot and saying, “Where do I put my $1,000?” or “How should I invest my money?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What this study found was that people who have a higher degree of financial sophistication, and can ask a more financially sophisticated question — a more financially sophisticated prompt — get much better advice. If you just go in and say, “Where do I invest?” you’re going to get some really basic advice, and you’ll get advice that will yield you lower returns.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What this study found was that people who have a higher degree of financial sophistication, and can ask a more financially sophisticated question — a more financially sophisticated prompt — get much better advice. If you just go in and say, “Where do I invest?” you’re going to get some really basic advice, and you’ll get advice that will yield you lower returns.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They also found that it was very gender-specific. Women were getting basically worse financial advice — or worse long-term financial advice, I should say — being told to put more money into savings accounts than men were. I think that’s one of the real things we haven’t really started to think about or address yet: your ability to interact with the chatbot is going to become increasingly important. You’re going to have to develop a literacy about how you interact with these things.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>They also found that it was very gender-specific. Women were getting basically worse financial advice — or worse long-term financial advice, I should say — being told to put more money into savings accounts than men were. I think that’s one of the real things we haven’t really started to think about or address yet: your ability to interact with the chatbot is going to become increasingly important. You’re going to have to develop a literacy about how you interact with these things.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I have a somewhat heterodox position on this, only in the sense that if I look up rose quartz or some mineral, you just can’t find the facts about a mineral on the internet anymore because so many people want to sell you rose quartz for ritualistic purposes. I just think the baseline level of what you were finding on the internet has gotten so bad that I feel like Claude’s synthesis of it is better than what most people would do for themselves. Sorry, unpopular opinion from the room.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I have a somewhat heterodox position on this, only in the sense that if I look up rose quartz or some mineral, you just can’t find the facts about a mineral on the internet anymore because so many people want to sell you rose quartz for ritualistic purposes. I just think the baseline level of what you were finding on the internet has gotten so bad that I feel like Claude’s synthesis of it is better than what most people would do for themselves. Sorry, unpopular opinion from the room.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Nancy writes in to say, “Looking forward to the burst of this AI bubble. I’m so sick of hearing about thousands of people losing their jobs because of software forced upon us that hallucinates. Going into the city makes me depressed because every billboard is about someone’s new AI tool. It’s so dystopian.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Nancy writes in to say, “Looking forward to the burst of this AI bubble. I’m so sick of hearing about thousands of people losing their jobs because of software forced upon us that hallucinates. Going into the city makes me depressed because every billboard is about someone’s new AI tool. It’s so dystopian.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There it is — counterarguments to the whole show. We’ve been talking about what an Anthropic IPO would mean for the Bay Area. We’ve had Mat Honan, editor-in-chief of \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Thank you, Mat.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There it is — counterarguments to the whole show. We’ve been talking about what an Anthropic IPO would mean for the Bay Area. We’ve had Mat Honan, editor-in-chief of \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Thank you, Mat.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. Thank you, Sri.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. Thank you, Sri.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter with \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter with \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Wednesday, October 28, 2026 at 9 am\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anthropic has filed to go public in what could become the largest IPO in history. The San Francisco-based AI company’s 335-page filing offers the first detailed look at its finances, growth ambitions and stated risk factors, including the possibility of catastrophic incidents. We’ll talk with San Francisco-based tech and business reporters about what Anthropic’s filing can tell us about the future of the AI economy and what the expected huge influx of money could mean for the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Berber Jin,\u003c/strong> AI enterprise reporter, The Wall Street Journal\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi,\u003c/strong> business and technology reporter, New York Times and DealBook\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Mat Honan,\u003c/strong> editor in chief, MIT Technology Review\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Anthropic is one of those San Francisco stories that’s hard to believe. A group of researchers, including two siblings, a former journalist, and a handful of others, broke off from OpenAI to found their own AI company in 2021. Five years later, the company has grown its revenue faster than any company ever. To take one example, in the second quarter of last year, the company brought in $787 million — not bad for a startup. But in the second quarter of this year, Anthropic brought in $11.6 billion. That’s nearly 15 times year-over-year growth. To put that in perspective, Google, which was the hottest tech company on Earth from 2002 to 2005, grew revenue from $400 million in 2002 to $6 billion in 2005. Sure, there’s been inflation, et cetera, but Anthropic’s growth has been absolutely absurd, unprecedented, and, for many people, unexpected.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Oh, and they made almost a billion dollars in the second quarter, their first profitable quarter. So here we are now: this company, which believes itself to be building toward artificial general intelligence, has money pouring in and revenue from corporations that use its tools. But because it needs to keep competing at the frontier of AI, it needs even more money to keep growing, and hence the IPO, which could raise $100 billion — the most ever.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here to break down what the IPO tells us about Anthropic, the state of AI, and the tidal wave of wealth cresting over our fair city, we’re joined by Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter at \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re joined by Sri Muppidi, who’s business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. Welcome, Sri.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Thanks so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve got Mat Honan, editor-in-chief of \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Welcome, Mat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Thanks, Alexis.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Was Casey Newton busy?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, Kevin Roose and Kate Snow are building something new. So, Mat, you’ve been in the tech journalism game here in San Francisco a long time, and you’re looking at this Anthropic document. What are you thinking?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, first of all, I’m thinking this is the longest S-1 I’ve ever seen. You know, you see a lot of these things over the years, and they’re always dense, but there’s often really entertaining stuff in there. This one was so long that I didn’t — I, at best, could skim it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> He’s got a summary from Claude.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I actually — I was about to say, I used Claude to get a summary of some of the high points there. But it was, you know, it’s a staggering document, and what it means, I think, is kind of unprecedented for San Francisco. I think we’re going to sit here and talk today about what’s going to happen in San Francisco, but one of my takeaways from that 335-page document is that nobody knows what’s going to happen in San Francisco or anywhere else because of just the scale of it. The scale of it is, you know, like when we talk about the Uber IPO or Slack or Facebook or anything else that’s come before, they’re all so much smaller.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sri, can you just walk us through some of the numbers here? You know, how much is Anthropic hoping to raise? What could the company be worth, that kind of stuff?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. So the company is aiming to raise, or is expected to raise, about $100 billion as part of its IPO. And the valuation that’s been touted around is between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion. That really comes down to what investors expect the company to be worth.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I love it. It’s just like, it’s so much money, and yet that’s a $500 billion difference. If you were like 1.5, 2, you know, it’s like a house in San Francisco. You’re like, “You know…”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. What’s the over-asking price in terms of how much the company can actually go raise in the public offering? And so I think that’s really striking, just because Anthropic already has $130 billion-plus in cash and other investments that it can turn into cash. And so the fact that the company could raise, or is hoping to raise, $100 billion more really shows the size and scale, as we were just chatting about. And I think that really comes down to this figure of more than $807 billion in commitments that the company has in terms of being able to build out data centers, as well as have more computing power to actually run and build its AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s like, yeah, if you looked at a table of all the people they owe money to and you added it up, it’s like $800 billion.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And I love, in the S-1, they say at some point, it may seem crazy that we’re spending all this money, but it’s because we really believe that there’s exponential growth necessary in what we spend so that we also can get exponential growth in what we make. There’s also this interesting figure, and maybe, Berber, I don’t know if you want to take this one. The company says they lost $80 billion in the first half of the year, but a lot of people have — some people have quoted that number. But it’s this really kind of odd convertible-debt thing where, essentially, Amazon invested. Can you talk a little bit about that? They didn’t really lose $80 billion, did they?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> No, they didn’t. Actually, Sri might know the specifics of this better than me. But my understanding is that that $80 billion net loss isn’t part of the core business. So it’s not like they’re losing $80 billion from their core operations, building and selling Claude. That would be very bad and would make the company much less attractive as a business to invest in. So I think it’s a little bit technical. They raised a lot of money through convertible notes, which eventually convert into equity but haven’t yet. And so, for some tricky, complicated, wonky accounting reasons, that shows up as a net loss. And the reason why that number is so inflated is because, actually, as Anthropic’s valuation has gone up, I guess the liabilities or the losses tied to those convertible notes have also gone up. So I think a lot of investors are also kind of not really looking at that. There are a lot of debates about profitability — how do AI companies calculate profitability? Is Anthropic kind of taking shortcuts to claim this profitability number from Q2? Because it is very impressive.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Um, but I think — I think I feel like it’s safe to say that that $80 billion—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Well, and even they say at the same time, right, that they have something like — they were saying 85% gross margins for serving up Claude and Claude Code specifically, right? They’re able to make that much money there. But there are some questions about that, too, right? Sri, do you want to talk about how — what does this business look like?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. So the questions about gross margins — that basically means revenue minus the direct cost to produce that revenue. And so Anthropic accounts for that as what’s called inference cost, so essentially running its AI models to actually serve customers. So 85% gross margins is actually great for an AI lab, particularly because the company had, I think, negative margins even just two years ago, and very, very low margins even just last year. And so the fact that it’s been able to really improve its efficiency shows that they’ve been focused on this. And just for context, to put it alongside other software companies, that’s in line with software-as-a-service companies, anyway. So I think that’s quite impressive.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think what folks are really indexing on now, in terms of where the company can go in the future, is that Q2 was really impressive. But the company actually shared some of its unaudited Q3 financials at an investor day a few weeks ago. And revenue growth increased, I believe, 45% between Q2 and Q3. But it shows that it actually decelerated compared with earlier this year. And so that kind of raises questions for some investors about whether Anthropic can actually continue sustaining that growth, particularly as you think about the threat of Chinese open-weight models.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What I’m hearing anecdotally is that businesses, especially large enterprise companies, are starting to adopt more open-weight models or turn to OpenAI for its Astra model, just because it’s gotten more competitive. OpenAI is also noting that this is an opportune moment to maybe cut prices, and so they’re gaining competitive share that way. I think there are a lot of questions around whether Anthropic can continue growing, just because the scale, as Mat was alluding to, is so large.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Law of large numbers, as I feel like they like to say. Mat, what do you think about the big question here? People have been trying to ask, “Is AI for real? Is this a boom that’s going to bust?” What do you think this document says about that larger question — where the whole industry is likely to land and its overall importance?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I think you can answer the “Is AI for real?” question in two ways. One is: Is the technology real? Clearly, it is. There’s no question. If you’re doubting that AI technology is real at this point—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It’s a question from—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> —a few years ago.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I don’t know what to tell you. Is the stock market overinflated? Is there a bubble? Is that the question about whether AI is for real? Is AI really going to be able to generate these returns? You know, I mean, I hate to be cautious in this way, the way that I was at the top of the show, but I don’t think anybody knows. I mean, I think anybody who’s really projecting what you’re going to do with the — to use the SpaceX term — largest addressable market on Earth—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Which is all human labor, apparently.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> It’s a great unknown, and I guess I personally, just because I’ve been reporting for however many years now, tend not to like to put my chips on the table about that kind of stuff. But if I had to guess, it seems like a not-bad business.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, it certainly seems more real than a year ago. If we were having the same conversation and had somehow gotten access to these numbers last summer, we’d be like, “Hmm, they seem to be losing a ton of money.” They’re growing fast, but of course it’s not that much money against the idea of this massive — you know, even back then they were talking about a valuation that was hundreds of billions of dollars. What do you think, Berber, about the larger question?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I would tend to agree with what Mat said. I think, based on this document, Anthropic is an extraordinarily good business. And I think the fact that they were able to turn an operating profit in Q2 defies a lot of the narrative that people have had about just how AI businesses work. The narrative around the labs in particular is that they are money pits, that they’ll never achieve profitability. They spend all this money training the models, but it’s very unclear whether they’ll ever get an ROI from it. So I think the fact that Anthropic’s business is so good is something that, a year or two ago, you’d be very surprised by. I think everyone would be surprised to see the numbers coming out of the company.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another statistic that really popped out to me in the S-1 was that they’ve raised $141 billion, and they still have around $120 billion on their balance sheet. Those are extraordinary numbers. Normally, we would expect them to be burning through the money they raised.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> And that’s what OpenAI is doing, by the way. We can talk about how much of a better business Anthropic is than OpenAI right now. But I do think there are a lot of weird things about the business that should give some people pause. For example, I think they said 5% to 7% of their revenue comes from users who violate their terms of service. They’re alluding to Chinese companies that are just distilling their models, trying to hack into the models to train their own models. A lot of their revenue comes from one or two big customers, so there are still a lot of question marks that should make us cautious about putting all our chips into Anthropic.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re talking about the Anthropic IPO with Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter at \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>; Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook; and Mat Honan, editor-in-chief at \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Are you more scared of a bust or a boom? 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’re talking about the Anthropic IPO. We’ve got a little roundtable of technology reporters here from \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. We’ve got Sri Muppidi, Berber Jin, and, from \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>, Mat Honan. And we want to hear from you. You know, you’re a Bay Area person listening to this. Are you more scared of the tech boom here, or the tech bust that could come at some point in AI? 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on social media, Bluesky, Instagram, and Discord. We’re KQED Forum. So, Mat, do you think we’re going to feel this IPO?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, I think we’re already feeling it a little bit in real estate. There’s been a bunch of great reporting about the ways it’s — something, including in the Journal. Maybe, Berber, this is one of your stories. Forgive me if it was. But there was a story recently about how there are 600 or so employees who’ve already been able to pull money out, and they’ve been investing it heavily in real estate. If you look at some of the home prices, look at how much they’ve gone up year over year, you’re definitely already seeing it. They’re definitely really feeling it. Like, what’s that going to mean for the corner stores and the small businesses in the city? I don’t know, but it’s showing up in real estate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, normally, when I’ve talked about IPOs in the past, there are all these lockups on the options and all this stuff that’s happening. But it seems to me like Anthropic has made it unusually easy for their employees to trade, basically from the very beginning, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Yes, exactly. So typically there’s like a 180-day lockup where companies’ early employees or others in the company have to wait. You might see an adjustment in the IPO price after, for example, that first pop. What’s unusual about Anthropic is that some shares can actually be traded right away, and then it’s staggered across a set of 37- or 60-second periods, I believe, in terms of when others can also start trading. And so that makes it possible for employees and other shareholders to start trading immediately. You’re going to see the impact of that right away.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What’s expected is that the company would actually start trading in the week of November 16, I believe, so right before Thanksgiving. Maybe if you’re making any big purchases — if you’re trying to buy a house, maybe do it right now. But you’re already seeing that impact, as Mat was saying, because there were these share sales that employees had already participated in, and they were able to sell some of their existing shares — for example, to buy a house. So I think you’re starting to see a trickle of it already, and it will continue to get worse.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, when we’ve done real estate shows, it seemed like the major impact was at the ultra-luxury level. You know, it’s hard to feel bad for people who might be getting priced out of Pacific Heights mansions. But I suppose in this case it’s going to spread to some — what do we think, 1,500 or 2,000 people or something like that around here? Do we know the exact number of employees in San Francisco?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> I think it’s about 3,000, but you’d have to fact-check me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And most of them are here, though, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Most of them are here. It’s San Francisco headquarters. The other note I’d add to that is that rent prices have also gotten so crazy because Anthropic and other AI companies are all in San Francisco now. So when, for example, a young 20-something is moving to San Francisco and sees that rents are like $6,000 for a two-bedroom, they might as well just buy an apartment if the mortgage costs about the same as rent. What I’m hearing, even anecdotally, is that people are willing to buy not just those uber-rich mansions, but also a two-bedroom apartment or condo, because rents are so crazy as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Alexis, I live in it. This is totally anecdotal. I live in the Outer Sunset, though. These neighborhoods are full of these things called doldrums, which are, you know, like this guy — Doldrum built, like, four guys on the first floor. They’re all pretty much the same floor plan, you know, two bedrooms with the garage downstairs. When I moved in there, they were selling for under a million dollars. There have been several in my immediate neighborhood that have sold recently for $900,000 over asking. And you can’t say, “Oh, well, is that because of Anthropic?” But it certainly seems like it. I mean, these are not high-end homes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> What’s wild is, you and I, in years past, were talking about the doom loop. I don’t think either of us were believers in this so-called doom loop, that San Francisco was going down in flames. And here we are, just a few years later, and this has happened now. Do you think this is a net good for the city, to get this massive injection of money into what is a tiny percentage of the city’s population?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s not going to show up in our list — the city’s not going to get a whole lot of tax revenue from it, right? There’s no income tax, and it’s questionable to me how much of that is actually going to go to the city. They are going to have this huge philanthropic division — LLC, what is it? Is it separate?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Long-term trust.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> That’s going to be giving away all this money to philanthropic causes, but that’s probably not going to be local stuff, right? That’s going to be national, international, global health.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Right, right. More Gates Foundation-y level and scope, yeah. So how’s it going to benefit the city? I don’t know. Yeah. All right, let’s ask Jay in Palo Alto. What do you think, Jay?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Jay:\u003c/strong> Hey, good, good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I love that you guys talked about the housing issue a little bit, but I think that one thing — there have been several news articles about this recently — that’s united the whole country is that everybody hates data centers, right? And that’s exactly what this is. When we try to have this objective conversation about how cool it is, the ins and outs, and talk about it in a very matter-of-fact tone, I think there’s a tremendous disconnect between these facts you’re talking about and the fact that this represents something that almost everybody hates. I think we’re doing a real disservice when we neglect that. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thanks for that, Jay. I mean, if you look at the polling on data centers, it’s sort of the inverse of support for marriage equality. It is just a fast, hard move against data centers. This actually does — I mean, they address it in the risks in the S-1, but I think maybe it’s a little underplayed, right? Because, at least from my read on the data center industry, they’re already having a lot of problems. Do you want to talk a little bit about that, Berber?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think it’s been really interesting to see, in the last few months, how data center build-outs have become a real political hot-button issue. It’s really turned into a liability for candidates who have supported data center build-outs in the midterms. It’s a great point to raise because they’re not building data centers in San Francisco. They’re building them in the rest of the country, oftentimes in communities that don’t really see the benefits of AI up front.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think there’s this weird thing where it is a huge risk, right? Because if Anthropic can’t get the political goodwill to build data centers, they don’t have the compute needed to build and serve their models. But they’ve also been behind this very weird messaging around AI. I feel like they’ve marketed it as scary technology that already is having all these cyber risks and could potentially cause extinction. They have a lot of employees who are doomers. So there’s this weird cultural disconnect where they have a vested business and financial interest in trying to get the country to come around to this vision of building hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars’ worth of data centers. But they have this weird ideology around—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> They’re like, “Don’t worry, we hate AI so much that we must build it and become trillionaires from it.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And it might kill you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> And in case anyone else builds it—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, they do try to explain this in the S-1, right? They call it — and this has been, I do think, fairly consistent about this idea. It’s just a question of whether this idea makes any sense at all — what they call the “race to the top.” Okay, we have to build it first because then we will have built it the right way, with the right safeguards, and it won’t be Chinese tyranny running things, and it won’t be Sam Altman — whatever, even San Franciscan Sam Altman. What do you think? Does the “race to the top” idea make sense, Mat? How have you evaluated that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I think the “race to the top” idea is sort of a self-serving idea. I really do. And I think there are people at OpenAI who would tell you that they’re racing to the top as well. I think there are people at Google who would say they’re racing to the top — DeepMind, for sure. And I don’t know. To go back to that caller’s point about data centers, do you remember, probably around 2010 to 2012, there were all those protests against the Google buses?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> The Google bus is a physical thing that you can stand in front of, right? And I feel like the data center thing is much the same. You don’t want it in your neighborhood because it’s going to make your rates go up. It’s going to be loud. All that kind of stuff is true. But it’s also something that you could stop. And I think a lot of people right now feel sort of powerless and uneasy about the advent of the age of AI. You can stand in front of a data center and make it not be there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you can go to the permitting hearing and slow it down. You can do all these things. It has been truly, truly amazing to look at that. One of our listeners, RJ Wrights, asks — and Berber, maybe we’ll come to you on this — can you talk about Anthropic’s commitment to social causes, specifically around income disparity? Of course, in the AI and automation conversations of 10 years ago, people were talking about this stuff all the time: universal basic income and all these kinds of things. Where does AI — where does Anthropic — stand on these things?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s an interesting question, because a lot of the business proposition behind Claude is, “We will have Claude be able to save companies a lot of money by automating your workforce.” Anthropic Works has this big project with a bunch of private equity firms to implement Claude in legacy industries, like accounting, to cut head counts and improve efficiency.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, to start off, I think it’s important to be clear that the financial interest of this company is to herald an economic revolution that will result — they will not contest this — in massive transformations to the labor force. I think Anthropic has also been intentional in trying to find ways to offset that. They produce a lot of papers about how economic transformation will come, and they also have a lot of money earmarked for philanthropic causes. I think — I forget the name — but there’s a vehicle that exists where some of the money they have is specifically directed toward reducing the impact they will have on society.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a normal denizen of the world, it’s a little bit uncomfortable, right? Because you’re handing this company so much power to say, “We are automating away your jobs, but we will also find ways to try to smooth it over.” And I think that goes to that sense of powerlessness Mat was talking about, where they just have so much power and control. I feel like a lot of people feel like it’s kind of out of their hands, the concentration of influence this company has. Yeah, it’s really quite extraordinary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, one of the reasons I think people have come to believe in Anthropic as a business, if not in all these other things, is basically Claude Code, right? So, Sri, I want to come to you on this. This is Claude Code, and then the sort of harness they’ve put around their product so that you can ask Claude to do all kinds of things and build all kinds of things. Anything a computer can do, it could do it for you, basically. And this has turned out to be kind of the magic of the business, right, Sri? Because they’ve rolled this out to companies, and it has not only transformed Anthropic itself — where I think they say 90% of the lines of code committed to their code base are made by Claude Code — but also all these developers and business software makers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. Claude Code has been pivotal to Anthropic’s growth. They released it last year at some point. While OpenAI, the bigger rival at the time, was focused on consumer AI with its ChatGPT product, Anthropic really bet big on serving businesses. By focusing on Claude Code, they were able to automate software engineering work, which allows enterprises to do more with AI but also cut labor and save on costs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think Anthropic was smart about focusing on that. Over time, OpenAI has tried to follow by focusing more on Codex, for example, its competing coding product. But I don’t think Anthropic expected Claude Code to be so popular. At the start of this year, it was a little flat-footed in terms of how much computing power it needed to serve Claude Code. A lot of folks were complaining about their usage limits being affected if they were using the chatbot, and developers were scrambling to get more tokens to use Claude Code.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Eventually, Anthropic went on a deal spree to strike so many deals. That goes back to the $807 billion commitment they have for more computing power, chips, and data center work. Claude Code really was — and is — a huge driver for Anthropic’s business.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But now, as part of their S-1 and what they’ve been pitching to potential investors, they’re saying, “Hey, we’re going to save the world not just through software engineering, but we’re going to focus on life sciences and help you discover new drugs and cure cancer.” I think that’s also part of what Berber was saying earlier: the rejiggering of its mission to be maybe more of a safety-conscious company, because they’re countering the doomerism that their founders and employees feel. But also, “Hey, we actually have an IPO and need to raise $100 billion. How are we going to do that?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What’s also interesting, when I was reading the S-1, is that there was a phrase where the risk of humanity ending was written in the passive voice, versus, “There have been claims…” I don’t remember the exact wording, but it was very much like people, or it’s like—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it’d be like, “See if all of our executives…” Yes, exactly. Say that we’re going to have a lot of—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> It’s like, not Dario saying it, but it’s like, “Claims have been made.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. I mean, the strange thing — and I think it’s a real question for the business in an interesting way — is that Claude Code reached ubiquity among software developers. It seemed like more or less overnight, from the end of 2025 into 2026.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, you know, my wife and I have a small business. I used Claude Code to automate the back end of this thing, and it works really well. I did it one time, used some tokens, and sort of that was it. I think one of my questions is whether they’ve had to start talking about biology and some of these really data-intensive realms because you could automate most white-collar work with a free plan, practically. These tools have gotten so good that you don’t actually need to pay Anthropic all that much money to do most of the white-collar information work that people do in normal jobs that aren’t coding.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I think there’s a real question. You’ve seen this incredible wave of adoption inside companies by the coders, but do the rest of us, Mat, even need as many tokens as it would take? They could totally wipe out white-collar work, and it still might not be a good business if you have to pay $800 billion for data centers and chips.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I’m sorry, I’m not quite sure—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Oh, the question is just, do you think there are going to be enough people who need to use these tools the way coders have?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Oh, I don’t know. I mean, I will say, just on a personal level, I’ve now started paying for Fable upgrades, which is their most capable model, which was surprising to me — that I actually hit the point where I wanted to do that. And, like you, I’ve done a ton of personal projects and things like that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think, again, a lot of what I’m talking about today is anecdotal, but our development team — our team of devs — has become so much more productive because of Claude Code. I do think businesses are going to be willing to pay for that. It’s clear that all kinds of businesses, such as your small business, are going to be able to use these tools in the same way that a larger customer is. And Anthropic clearly has some really large enterprise customers, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Right, and that’s where, like—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Most of the revenues are right now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We are talking about Anthropic as a business, and we’re also talking about what the Anthropic IPO could mean for the Bay Area and what it says about the state of the AI industry. We’ve got \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em> Editor-in-Chief Mat Honan. We’ve got Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook, and Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter with \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We’re going to get to more of your calls. I promise, in the next segment. What about you? Are you planning to invest in Anthropic? Why or why not? You can give us a call, 866-733-6786. Email \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. How do you feel about this economy that’s solidifying here in the Bay Area? You can find us on Bluesky, Instagram, and Discord. We’re KQED Forum, all those places. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Here we are talking about the Anthropic IPO. We’ve got \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>’s Mat Honan, the New York Times and DealBook’s Sri Muppidi, and Berber Jin from \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Let’s bring in — oh, we just lost the caller I was going to go to. All right, here we go. Let’s bring in Michael on data centers. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Michael:\u003c/strong> Hello, thanks for taking my call. What I wanted to bring up is this notion that data centers are evil, data centers are awful, and we should rise against the data centers. That’s really an inaccurate view. Data centers are no worse than any of the other things that we seem to be okay with: pollution from cars, pollution from nuclear power, pollution, pollution, pollution. What people don’t seem to realize is that many states bent the rules to get data centers into their states because they needed the revenue, right? So I think this is basically a straw man. It really is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And if you think about what you’re getting from these data centers, you’re giving power to people who normally wouldn’t have it. Here’s what I mean: take medical technology and medical information. It used to be, “Okay, I’ve just got to listen to this doctor and hope that they’re right, because I have no other resource to validate what they’re saying.” You can actually use Claude to do that. “Hey, here are my test results.” You can feed them into Claude. Claude will give you plain-English explanations of what this means and the kinds of questions you need to be asking your doctor.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Well, I want to take the data center question, though, because I think it’s an interesting point. I think part of it is, in exchange for the data centers, you also get to lose your job. That seems to be sort of the rhetoric, you know? People previously didn’t have a lot of opposition to data centers. Santa Clara County, for example, has tons of data centers, and there was virtually no opposition to them. Mat, do you think that’s because — essentially, people are using the tools of, say, environmental justice to raise questions about pollution or other things, but what people are really objecting to is, as you put it, this is a physical manifestation of the AI-driven economy?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, that’s definitely my opinion. A lot of it is about the physical manifestation. I do think people have legitimate concerns about their rates. They have legitimate concerns about power plants being built. To power these data centers, a lot of the energy sources they’ll have to use may even include natural gas.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> One is natural gas, yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> And I think people have legitimate concerns about that. The data center pushback is older than the AI boom if you think about it from a purely power or energy perspective. Texas did a lot to bring in data centers during the crypto boom, right? Then they had a bunch of brownouts, and they started peeling back the rules they’d put in place to make it easier to bring in data centers. And they’re back because there are concerns about energy usage that are—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, I think if you look at Virginia, where a huge chunk of data centers are, and you look at their power prices, I also think people are responding to the other idea of power — the other definition of power. In a lot of these Virginia places, so much of their property tax revenue is now dependent on these data centers, which makes you wonder, what are they going to do politically in that circumstance? Let’s bring in Todd in San Francisco. Welcome, Todd.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Todd:\u003c/strong> Hi there. Since Anthropic and these IPOs are going to generate a lot of money, and there’s already been a lot of money generated in the Bay Area by investments, I’d like the cognoscenti of the AI world on your show right now to speculate about why these millionaires and billionaires are so much different from San Francisco’s previous set of millionaires and billionaires — like the gold miners who struck it rich. Famously, cultured gold miners would build opera houses and import famous authors to read out loud. But living in the Bay Area, one would have to say they’re rather hermetic. What’s up?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> This is really — I mean, Berber, why don’t we go to you? Anthropic specifically was deeply aligned with a movement. I don’t know if I want to call it a philosophical movement, but I suppose it is: effective altruism. In fact, one of their earliest backers, Sam Bankman-Fried, was one of their largest investors at the point when he went down. So what do we think? This seems to deeply inform the culture of Anthropic. Can you give us a little summary of effective altruism and its application to Anthropic?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so effective altruism is deeply ingrained, particularly among the co-founders and the very early set of employees, who also happen to be the richest in the IPO. EAs care a lot about how to maximize the amount of good in the world, which leads to a lot of conclusions that most normal people would consider esoteric. For example, if we want to minimize suffering in the world, we should all be vegans. And you take that argument to the extreme — a lot of anti-EA people like to make this argument to make fun of EAs — and you get shrimp farming, because billions of shrimp are farmed every year and they can experience pain.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So apply that to AI. A lot of the early employees, a lot of people who became very interested in AI, became interested in AI because they felt like here’s a technology that could cause extinction, and extinction would be the worst kind of outcome. It would maximize the amount of suffering in the world, so we have to prevent it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anyway, to apply that to the question, which I think is really interesting, about what values will animate this new billionaire class: I think an interesting litmus test will be to see how much of their money goes toward funding cultural and artistic institutions in San Francisco and the Bay Area, and toward funding civic institutions that I think a lot of normal people could really get on board with.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The early employees at Anthropic — a lot of them have pledged sometimes half of their wealth to philanthropic causes. But because effective altruism is so deeply ingrained in their worldviews, the chatter right now among employees is, “We should donate this money to fund AI safety nonprofits that are focused on how to use AI to prevent human extinction. We should use it to back animal welfare nonprofits.” Berkeley’s going to get rich.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is this interesting countercultural element where a lot of these people are in Berkeley. One dig against EAs is that they famously don’t care about art and culture. A lot of people who are anti-EA will make that argument. But I think it will be interesting to see how they spend this money. Will it just go to these kind of wacky causes? How much of it will go toward institutions like SFMOMA or supporting the opera? That will be a way to see the relationship between this new billionaire class and the rest of San Francisco. What that looks like will depend in large part on how these employees and founders choose to spend the philanthropic wealth they’ll gain from the IPO.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I mean, having followed some EA stuff — not closely, but sort of a little bit from the outside — it feels like a real kind of hothouse-flower thing. This started out as a very small group of people all talking to each other about this stuff, and now, of course, it’s become a global, massive discussion about whether the kinds of ideas they had about the world and AI make any sense at all. But, of course, they will have massive wealth, and they also have the proof of this company they’ve built on their side of the ledger, I suppose.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mat, what about you? We’ve seen plenty of weird ideologies flow through San Francisco. I would not have bet, 12 years ago, that effective altruism would be associated with one of the fastest-growing capitalist companies ever. Think about the philosophical underpinnings of this place.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> I mean, you want to talk about the rationalists a little bit when you talk about effective altruism, a lot of which is headquartered out in the East Bay. I do think it’s had a profound effect on the way a lot of people, especially those working in tech, think about the world and about what’s the most effective way to make the world a better place.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think Berber’s exactly right, though. It’s really unclear whether the people who have come up in that scene or movement — whatever you want to call it, philosophy — are going to donate to the opera versus places that are more globally oriented, or AI safety organizations. I don’t know how much we’re going to see of this in the Bay Area. And I think if they wanted to generate an enormous amount of goodwill, they could effectively solve the housing problem in San Francisco instead of making it worse. There are all kinds of ways to put that money to use locally.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. We’ve got a couple of comments here. Eric writes in to say, “As with the microchip boom of the ’90s and the dot-com boom, it’s real. We might see a bit — a lot — of volatility as profitability catches up with valuation, but the smart money has already spoken.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then Steve on Discord has this question. News came out recently about China’s AI companies really suffering, with half a trillion dollars of valuation gone. Steve notes that — what do you think is going on there? It’s seemed like two different worlds to me that kind of come together, I suppose, in the American market. But, Berber, do you think the fact that these Chinese AI companies are struggling in their stock market says anything about Anthropic or what’s happening here?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> That’s a really good question. The whole Chinese AI ecosystem really puzzles me. I mean, I think — maybe this isn’t a direct answer to your question — a lot of the Chinese companies, it’s unclear to me what their modus operandi is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What we do kind of know is that they somehow don’t have enough — they can’t raise as much money as Anthropic and OpenAI. I’ve always been confused about why the government doesn’t just subsidize and pour tens of billions of dollars into these companies. They’re famous for distilling Anthropic’s models. They’ll use the outputs from Claude to train a cheaper, hacked-in version of Fable or Opus or the Anthropic-class models, which Anthropic hates. But then they also give away a lot of their technology for free. They make it open source, so none of the companies really have a business model, which is why I think there’s been all this volatility in the Chinese stock market with those names.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It’s all kind of perplexing to me, how the Chinese AI ecosystem works. I don’t think American policymakers or lab leaders have a great sense of it either. So that’s how I would answer the question. It’s all very confusing to me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, no, I don’t disagree. And I think it has confused American AI leaders a lot. When you started to see these Chinese models come out with training numbers that were teensy-tiny on the cost side, it made it seem like, well, why are Anthropic and OpenAI spending $800 billion over the next five or 10 years when these Chinese model makers seem to be able to do more with less? Which I think remains an open question. It feels like there are some variables missing there. James in Larkspur, welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>James:\u003c/strong> Yeah, hi. Good morning. I wanted to shift the conversation just a little bit to the control of information that’s coming out of Anthropic, for instance. Traditionally, on the internet, we were shown sites that we could go to and ultimately make our own decision about whether the information was good or bad.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What’s happening now with AI is that they’re synthesizing all of that information, writing it, and feeding it to you. We have to remember that this is really based on algorithms that are originally being written and controlled by a certain entity. To release information, to control it and manipulate it, leads to what’s happening, for instance, right now with a pump-and-dump scheme on one hand, where they’re saying only we can control this information. It’s rogue computers that only we know how to tame the monster. So they’re generating a great deal of scare tactics and technological advancement to raise money through these IPOs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>James:\u003c/strong> But at the same time, what we have to be careful of is that, ultimately, at the end of the day, they will be decreasing — as they are now — the sites that you can see on the internet, and increasing their interpretation of that information and controlling it. Lastly—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Wait, James, I want to take this, though, because we only have a couple of minutes, so I want to throw this to Sri. This is really interesting. It’s basically changing the shape of the internet, and I think that’s really true. Now, instead, Google would have presented some set of options for most people, and you could have moved freely through that, although most people didn’t. Now you’re filtering all that information through Claude or through — what do you think, not just as a business proposition but as a cultural proposition, Sri? Is that a good idea or not?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Totally. You’re already seeing it, as we just discussed, where businesses and advertisers are trying to cater to being surfaced through these chatbots. I’ve heard anecdotes about people trying to add so much slop to Reddit because chatbots index Reddit answers really quickly to surface suggestions or whatever it is. So there’s now a whole set of startups trying to do AI-like SEO so that their companies will be recommended.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These labs, Anthropic and OpenAI, are striking partnerships with Walmart or whoever so that those businesses are recommended first. I totally agree that it will shape how information continues to be shared. Businesses are recognizing that and trying to invest money so they aren’t left behind.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think it will be an issue from a societal standpoint as well, just because AI is now being shared with students on their Chrome laptops or whatever. It’s really educating our next generation of students and workers. So I think it will be quite interesting to see. I don’t have, like, a—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Something about the way we get information and things that was really interesting to me: there was a study from MIT last year, or in the past year, on financial literacy. A lot of people are now going to a chatbot and saying, “Where do I put my $1,000?” or “How should I invest my money?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What this study found was that people who have a higher degree of financial sophistication, and can ask a more financially sophisticated question — a more financially sophisticated prompt — get much better advice. If you just go in and say, “Where do I invest?” you’re going to get some really basic advice, and you’ll get advice that will yield you lower returns.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They also found that it was very gender-specific. Women were getting basically worse financial advice — or worse long-term financial advice, I should say — being told to put more money into savings accounts than men were. I think that’s one of the real things we haven’t really started to think about or address yet: your ability to interact with the chatbot is going to become increasingly important. You’re going to have to develop a literacy about how you interact with these things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I have a somewhat heterodox position on this, only in the sense that if I look up rose quartz or some mineral, you just can’t find the facts about a mineral on the internet anymore because so many people want to sell you rose quartz for ritualistic purposes. I just think the baseline level of what you were finding on the internet has gotten so bad that I feel like Claude’s synthesis of it is better than what most people would do for themselves. Sorry, unpopular opinion from the room.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nancy writes in to say, “Looking forward to the burst of this AI bubble. I’m so sick of hearing about thousands of people losing their jobs because of software forced upon us that hallucinates. Going into the city makes me depressed because every billboard is about someone’s new AI tool. It’s so dystopian.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There it is — counterarguments to the whole show. We’ve been talking about what an Anthropic IPO would mean for the Bay Area. We’ve had Mat Honan, editor-in-chief of \u003cem>MIT Technology Review\u003c/em>. Thank you, Mat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Mat Honan:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sri Muppidi, business and technology reporter at \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em> and DealBook. Thank you, Sri.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Sri Muppidi:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And Berber Jin, AI enterprise reporter with \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em>. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Berber Jin:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Tuesday, October 13, 2026 at 9 AM\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Oakland is home to dozens of houses of worship, and the “Oakland Faith Project,” aims to document these spaces and their leaders at a time when many are turning away from religion. Photographer and documentarian Nicolò Sertorio’s website includes stark black and white photography and interviews with religious leaders who represent various walks of life, identity and beliefs. We’ll talk with Sertorio, project partners and some of Oakland’s religious leaders about “de-churching” in the Bay Area and the future of organized religion. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio\u003c/strong>, founder, artist and photographer, Oakland Faith Project\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>James Campbell,\u003c/strong> Edgar E Robinson professor in United States History, Stanford University; partner, Oakland Faith Project\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin,\u003c/strong> senior rabbi, Temple Sinai\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid,\u003c/strong> imam, Lighthouse Mosque; Muslim Chaplain, University of San Francisco\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace,\u003c/strong> pastor, Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Like many people, Nicolò Sertorio had his life turned upside down by COVID. He was a photographer, and suddenly his normal business was gone. Italian by birth and raised by two science professors, he’d been on his own spiritual path and had been struck by the pluralism of the religious scene in his adoptive home of Oakland. So when the pandemic started, he set out on a personal quest to photograph all of the city’s churches, mosques, synagogues, and other places of worship. Four hundred and sixty-six locations later, the Oakland Faith Project has expanded to include portraits of faith leaders and fascinating audio of them talking about their views and work in the community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So this hour, we’re going to be joined by some faith leaders, as well as the Oakland Faith Project folks. We’re joined first by Nicolò himself. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re also joined by James Campbell, Edgar E. Robinson Professor in United States History at Stanford, a partner and, I guess, the house historian at the Oakland Faith Project. Welcome, Jim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Nicolò, when COVID hit, you started this project. What do you think you were getting from this work of photographing these houses of worship?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> Well, taking a brief step back, like you mentioned, and you can probably derive from my accent, I grew up in Italy. And so I was used to having pretty much just one church in each town, the Roman Catholic church. And they typically all kind of look the same. They’re all made of stone in the shape of a cross.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So one of the first things that really struck me when I came, moved to the U.S. was the number and diversity of houses of worship, particularly in Oakland, and how free and diverse they are. At the same time, I kept noticing how many of them were shutting down, being torn down, or reconverted into private apartments. And for years, I was wondering why nobody was recording this cultural phenomenon happening right around us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, like you mentioned, when COVID hit and all of a sudden all my businesses were shut down within hours, I realized this was something I was the one who had to do, and this was the perfect time. Honestly, at the time, I didn’t know what I was getting into.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> But do you consider yourself more or less religious since you started working on this?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> Oh, since I started? Yeah. Um, interesting question. I still consider myself spiritual but not religious, but I was positively impressed by the people that I met during this project. And so I confess I might have entered with a little bit of a bias from my Italian heritage, and instead I found people who are truly open-minded and liberal, and many have become friends.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s cool. Jim, give us some of the sociological context here. I mean, we know in Europe, obviously, religious affiliation started declining a long time ago. And the U.S. didn’t really follow that trend at first, but now has.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think the United States is an outlier in this. There’s just no question. You know, when we started getting a General Social Survey in the 1970s, American respondents were asked — I don’t think it was a very finely grained survey. It’s given every two years. You had five categories. You could identify yourself as Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, another world religion, or none of the above, religiously unaffiliated.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>When that survey started, about 5% of Americans identified themselves as religiously unaffiliated. By the 1990s, believe it or not, that figure had only gone up to about 7%. Today, the General Social Survey has that figure over 30%. Some surveys put it significantly higher, particularly among younger people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So the general phenomenon does look like what happened in Europe, a kind of broad process of de-churching, but it’s happening considerably later in this country.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Do you think it’s just de-churching, or is it secularization? Are there ways of thinking about splitting out people who are spiritual but not religious?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> That’s a great question. When Nicolò just said, “Well, I consider myself spiritual but not religious,” that’s probably the largest church, if you will, in the United States in some fashion.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So there’s a debate among scholars about this, whether what we’re seeing represents a process of secularization per se, or more a shift in the meaning of spirituality or in the nature of religious experience. There’s a scholar, Robert, I think at Princeton, who writes about this, and a distinction he makes is a shift between what he calls a spirituality of dwelling, which is, you know, you attend the same church every week that your parents attended, and so forth, to a spirituality of seeking.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think that’s a really thought-provoking distinction. For me, a lot of Americans feel free now to fashion spiritual creeds of their own from eclectic materials, in ways that might look less orthodox on the surface. But if you scratch at it and start asking them about specific religious beliefs — do they believe in an afterlife? Do they believe in the presence of angels? — you find actually surprisingly orthodox beliefs even among many people who profess to be religiously unaffiliated.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Is there anything specific about our history of religion here in the Bay Area, or in Oakland even more specifically, that’s worth dwelling on?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Well, you know, there certainly is a stereotype in the rest of the country that this area is full of godless heathens.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> That we’re this kind of godless, forlorn people. I mean, I think the most significant factor here, which really defines the entire Bay Area and Oakland specifically, is that it’s a city of immigrants, and it always has been.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Churches and mosques and synagogues and other houses of worship have played a critical role in enabling immigrant communities to find their feet in a new setting, and also to retain some connection to ways of being, cultural practices, linguistic practices, even foodways, of the nations that they have left behind.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And that is certainly what happened in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as Italians and Irish arrived. There were seven different Lutheran churches here in the early 20th century for various Scandinavian migrants. And now you would see the same thing with immigrants from Tonga, Ethiopia, or Eritrea.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So in that sense, there’s a kind of persistent through line. It’s just different immigrant groups, and the specifics of their religious practices might look different.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Interesting. Nicolò, as you worked on this project, you had a vision for what you wanted to ask these faith leaders about, right? You didn’t want just a general conversation. You had some specific things you asked them. What did you want to know from these faith leaders?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> So I wanted to scratch a little bit under the surface. I wanted to talk to them about the issues that are happening around Oakland, and some of the issues that, at least in my upbringing, had pushed people away from traditional churchgoing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I’ve asked them about same-sex marriage. I’ve asked them about the drug epidemic, about the role of their church vis-à-vis politics. And that’s how I started to be so positively surprised by the people I was talking to.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Great. Well, let’s bring in a few of these faith leaders that we’ve got here. We’ve got Jacqueline Mates-Muchin, who’s senior rabbi at Temple Sinai. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve got Sundiata Rashid, who’s an imam at Lighthouse Mosque and also the Muslim chaplain at the University of San Francisco. Welcome!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> Thank you!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve got Michael Wallace, pastor at Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> We’re having a s—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks so much for coming in, everyone. What was it like, Michael Wallace, to have Nicolò come to you and say, “Hey, I want to photograph the church. I want to talk to you about things”?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> When he shared his vision that he wanted to highlight the faith community and Oakland’s legacy as a faith mecca for many different faiths, I was extremely excited and definitely lent all my support behind the project.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I thought that we have such a rich legacy in faith and in the city of Oakland, and so I wanted to be a part of that and make sure we captured the historic aspects of the faith community in Oakland over the years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And your church rank goes back to 1870, is that right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Our church was actually established in 1922, so we’re 104 years in the West Oakland community. We have primarily served as the mecca church. Many churches have come out of our church.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But more importantly, when many of our ancestors migrated from the South to the North to work in the shipyards, naval supply, on the trains, and things of that nature, they all came to Mount Zion. And we housed veterans after the wars, so it has always been a community hub for the community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Cynthia, what’s the brief summary of how the Lighthouse Mosque came about?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> So the Lighthouse Mosque, we definitely didn’t start in 1922. We started in about 2007, and in 2013 we were actually able to purchase the church that we’re at now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And yeah, so we’re really the new people on the block. We’re really the new ones, because I grew up in West Oakland, South Berkeley, so I remember all of the Star Bethel and Mount Zion. Those are kind of the historical churches I remember in the East Bay.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, I love Pastor Mike Wallace. We actually went to Los Angeles together one time. No, I’m saying—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And so, yeah. Yeah, that’s great. And Jacqueline Mates-Muchin, tell us a little bit about Temple Sinai.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> So Temple Sinai was actually founded in 1875, so we’re almost 151 years old. And we had a couple of different locations, but our current sanctuary was finished the same year that Oakland City Hall was finished. So we really see ourselves as a part of the growth of Oakland over time, and have been a consistent presence here in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s great. So we’re going to get into a discussion between all these faith leaders about the things that they’re seeing in the community. And, of course, we also want to hear from our listeners.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Are you a member of a faith community in Oakland or your city? Do you seek comfort in those spaces, or have you moved away from it? Or do you consider yourself religious or spiritual but not religious? We want to hear your story. 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. You can email Forum at kqed.org. Friends on Bluesky, on Instagram, on Discord, we’re KQED Forum.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This morning, we’ve got Nicolò Sertorio, who’s founder, artist, and photographer at the Oakland Faith Project. We’ve got James Campbell. He’s a professor in United States history at Stanford, and we’ve got three faith leaders with us. We’ve got Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin, Sundiata Rashid, imam at Lighthouse Mosque, and Pastor Mike Wallace from Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more right after the break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Well, welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’re here talking with faith leaders about the Oakland Faith Project. We’ve got Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin from Temple Sinai. We’ve got Sundiata Rashid from Lighthouse Mosque. We’ve got Mike Wallace from Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Sundiata, let’s talk a little bit about how you got started on the path to becoming an imam at this mosque.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so, you know, I’m a Pisces. No, I’m just playing. No, so I actually, okay, yeah. So when I was younger, I was in the U.S. Marine Corps, and I was Muslim when I went in. And during the Gulf War, a lot of service people converted to Islam.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But there weren’t a lot of people who knew about Islam. So because I already had been Muslim, I just kind of got pushed into this thing of teaching people how to pray, leading services, working with other people who were called lay leaders in the military. So they weren’t like the chaplain, but they might run services at a certain base or something like that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So then that kind of carried over. When I got out of the military, I kept on trying to teach classes and doing that for different masajid. And then in 2007, I ended up at Lighthouse Mosque, and Imam Zaid Shakir, who started the mosque, found out that I taught classes and he called me one time. I was so starstruck. He was like, “Oh, this is Imam Zaid Shakir,” and I was like, “Stop playing on my phone. Who’s this?” And he’s like, “No, it’s really Imam Zaid Shakir.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>He started asking me to teach and get involved, and now, from 2008 until now, that’s just what I’ve been kind of doing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, Jacqueline, you’re the first Chinese American rabbi in the U.S., as I understand it. What does that distinction mean? How do you think it shaped your spiritual journey?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> I actually think it has given me a unique perspective of being able to understand multiple communities and see myself as belonging and grounded in multiple histories and heritages.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think that has actually been a really good experience when we look at Oakland and we see Oakland’s amazing diversity, and the approach that we try to have to be open and understanding of where everyone’s coming from. We recognize that we’re going to the same place. We’re all trying to make the world a better place, and we’re trying to do good here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think it’s been really helpful in trying to get a much, much broader picture of life and experience.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, Pastor Mike, did you grow up in the church?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Yes, I did. I grew up in a Christian family. I’m really grateful for my parents. My father served as a deacon in a church, and my mother was an evangelist, one of the first women evangelists in a local church. And so I grew up in a Christian home. I was saved and baptized at the age of 11, and I thank God for my journey.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>With respect to this, that’s on my life. I knew it early on in life, that I had a sacred calling on my life as a teenager. As I progressed through school and college, I pursued a legal profession. So I worked in the legal profession for a number of years and then transitioned over to finance.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>For a while, I served as associate minister at the New St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church in West Oakland, where I received acknowledgment of my calling. And then I served under Dr. C.J. Anderson at the St. John Missionary Baptist Church. He was a historic pastor in our community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Continuing to work in the finance industry for a number of years, I accepted my call bivocationally. I was associate minister at the local church, and I worked in finance. And I received the call to go to the historic Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church. I retired from finance and went full-time into ministry. And now I’ve served at Mount Zion as senior pastor for the last 18 years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> What does a senior pastor do?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Well, it varies from church to church, but you basically oversee the whole operation in the ministry. You cast a vision, you empower the people to run with the vision, you teach, you preach, you lead, you serve, and the most important thing is that you serve the people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I am constantly trying to meet the needs of our congregation, as well as the needs of the greater community, because my calling is beyond the four walls of the church. And so, as a result, I try to empower our people to take the ministry from beyond the stained-glass windows to the community, to the heart of the people, and try to meet people right—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Where they are. Sundiata, how do you take that on, like the kind of going beyond the walls of the mosque?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> You know, um, I’ve just always been kind of a people person myself, so I love to get out and talk to folks.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I was telling Nicolò earlier that, really, the pandemic was kind of an opportunity, because when a lot of mosques were closed in Oakland, we actually started doing our services at a local park. That park is known in West Oakland. It’s Mr. Fab’s Park. And so people would see us there, and people who wanted to come to a service started coming to our park service.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so after the pandemic, we almost had a whole new congregation of all these new folks who found us, just because we kept operating. We kind of tried to keep things going, because I myself just don’t like to be by myself. So even in a pandemic, I was like, “I gotta get a microphone and talk to people.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There’s something about ministers and microphones. We just can’t leave them alone. It’s like—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I understand. We might share this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, Jacqueline, let’s talk a little bit about the people who are not affiliated with a particular faith institution, even if they consider themselves to be religious in some ways. You noted to the Oakland Faith Project that actually a small portion of Jewish residents in Oakland belong to a synagogue. Why do you think that is?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> You know, I think, and it was sort of mentioned by Dr. Campbell earlier as well, that there is a sense of spirituality that’s in the water in the Bay Area, especially in the East Bay. So I think that there are some folks who find that sense of spirituality and connection and community in different sorts of places.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Jewish community, or rather, a synagogue, has always been the center of Jewish life. So for some folks, they come around because they feel specifically religious, and for other folks, they’re looking for community or that shared sense of heritage and ethnicity that Judaism is, and so they’re looking to develop their sense of Jewish identity.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, we have found actually in the last couple of years, with the uptick in antisemitism, that there are more people who are seeking out synagogues and seeking out community in that way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think the question of why aren’t there more is always a great question, but I’m really glad to see that there are folks who are, and I’m proud to know that we’re kind of a through line throughout the history here, so that if and when people want to connect, we are here for them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> One listener writes in to say, you know, Eddie writes, “My primary struggle with organized religion is the message that their approach is the right way to worship God. I don’t believe that God is so vain as to require that we worship them or worship in any specific way. I believe that’s one reason many people have shifted to spirituality over religion. You can choose how you want to appreciate God.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>James Campbell, this strikes me as quite a modern sensibility, right, that someone would see things in this way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Look, I think this is absolutely right. And in some ways, the attitude you’ve just reflected or expressed in that quotation immediately harkens to the great cultural ruptures of the 1960s and early 1970s, when the Bay Area was kind of ground zero. And not just in the realm of organized religion, but in an extraordinary array of different registers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Young people and seekers of various kinds were not necessarily rejecting spirituality, not rejecting community, but rejecting what they regarded as the ossified forms in which that had come to be expressed. And I think the roots of an enormous cultural war that we are still fighting in some fashion today are embedded in that quotation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Nicolò, your project is a tiny bit different, even just as I think about its underlying philosophy, right? It’s not just to go away from all these institutions. It’s actually to go into as many of them as possible, which is kind of different.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> So first of all, I just wanted to add something to the earlier conversation. I think the spiritual leaders may have been too modest to mention that a lot of these houses of worship play a very vital role in the city beyond the church walls, supporting the community, providing food, shelter, showers, safe housing in their parking lots overnight. And that is a very important role that we need to acknowledge about what the houses of worship are doing in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In terms of your question, I think it kind of links the points together in that, although I belong to that growing denomination, I, like everybody else, have this thirst for a higher self and belonging and community. And so, maybe consciously or unconsciously, there was a desire to understand and explore that world around me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the extreme fascination with this incredible diversity — one of the big parts that brought me to the project was, as you mentioned, during COVID, when everything was locked down and there was all this bad news about Oakland, I wanted to focus on something positive. And to me, having multiple denominations literally sometimes next door to each other, if you go on International Boulevard in Oakland, that’s something very unique. And that’s something very powerful that also reflects the ethnic and social diversity of the city.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Of Oakland. Sundiata, one of the things that I have wondered about is how having this war in Gaza, having a war in Iran, having these things going on around the world ends up reflecting back for you inside the mosque.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> You know, so I think a lot of those tragedies do build up attendance at the mosque. Because I think one of the things is that when people leave organized religion, that might be almost a sense of entitlement because they’re not going through things in life.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, like, once they start — if you were even here and you were kind of comfortable, but you’re identifying with your relatives or even just Muslims who you feel an affinity for because of the same religion, and you see the things happening to them — you’ll still be looking for those signs of spiritual answers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so a lot of times, that’s what religious institutions provide. It’s like, we can answer some of the questions. And like the guy said, sometimes it might be dogmatic, like, “This is the right answer, and anything else is astray.” But I think that most people who encounter religion are just looking for an answer to some of the grief that they’re feeling.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And those institutions, like the mosque, especially during the genocide in Gaza and those kinds of things, were able to drive up attendance, get people coming out and organizing. So many programs at the mosque were centered around those kinds of things that were happening in Iran and things like that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, another listener, Ryan, and Rabbi Jacqueline, this one’s coming to you. Ryan writes, “I grew up in a secular Jewish household in Boise, Idaho. I later married a man who was raised observant in the South Bay, and I waded hesitantly but excitedly into a more Jewish life. In 2022, we sent our first child to Temple Sinai’s preschool program.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“But after the events of October 7, 2023, and the Israeli attacks on Gaza, both of us began feeling increasingly uncomfortable being associated with Jewish organizations that did not condemn those attacks. For the first time in my life, I feel ashamed to be Jewish. But even sadder for me is that this is also true for my husband. He used to take great comfort in his religious practice.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I think we’re at a generational turning point for Jewish Americans that will drive many of us further from the faith.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Obviously, this has been an incredibly difficult issue across American life, but specifically Jewish life. How have you been counseling people in your congregation?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> So I think there’s a wide range of ways to understand what is happening and different ways to talk about it. I will say that it’s kind of hard to hear “the genocide in Gaza,” which I wasn’t necessarily expecting in this particular conversation. But I will save that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think the role of the synagogue is to grapple with the word Israel, because the country is actually named after the people. So we call ourselves Israel, Yisrael, and it means those who wrestle with God.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so the point of being a part of a Jewish community is to be able to bring your concerns, bring your questions, bring your values, and bring your frustrations together so that we can have those kinds of conversations and figure out what it means for all of us. And it’s totally fine to disagree on certain kinds of things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think the problem that we’re seeing right now, not just in the Jewish community but in a much greater way, is that people are choosing sides and teams and not having those kinds of conversations, not trying to understand other people and grapple with the things that are happening in the world and the things happening in our lives.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I would actually argue that if you are looking for a place to be able to do that, it might not be one synagogue or one church or one mosque or the other, but it could be somewhere in that realm where you can find places to wrestle with the things that are difficult and be able to understand what it means for your life.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Michael Wallace, how do you see your role in this sort of cross-faith collaboration? Do you do a lot of it? Do you not do a lot of it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> We engage a lot in collaboration across denominational lines, faith traditions, generations, as well as culture. It’s absolutely essential because we have to move from our silos to systems. And we realize that collectively we can have a greater impact, a more meaningful impact, in our communities and the people that we serve.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I just want to allude to something that you mentioned earlier: the Black church in our culture has always been on the front line of addressing inequalities in our society. We have always been on the front line of addressing disparities within our society. We’ve always been at the forefront of addressing injustice in our society.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, in that tradition, in that vein, it’s absolutely essential that we continue to address injustices anywhere among any people, regardless of their race, creed, or color.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, as a result of that, we do build collaborations. I work with a number of groups. One particular group is Impact Oakland Now, ION, and it’s a collective of six progressive pastors and churches that are basically addressing social, economic, educational, and spiritual needs within the community. So we do a lot of work collectively to have an impact for the most marginalized within our communities.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Collaboration is absolutely essential. As he indicated earlier, we went to Los Angeles together to work in collaboration. And so I work a lot with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I served as the chairperson of Faith in Action East Bay, which consists of a lot of rabbis and Jewish synagogues. And so we find that working together, we can have much more of an impact on our society.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sundiata, I was thinking about this. I mean, you’re the Muslim chaplain at USF, which I think of as a very Catholic university.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> Go down. How does that work? You know, every university is going to be diverse, but USF is rated as the most diverse campus in the United States, right here in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I took my daughter there when I first got the job, and I’ve been to different MSAs and worked with different Muslim Student Associations. She would always tag along, her and my son, and she was shocked at just how many people of color there were.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then I was like, “Let’s count the Black folks.” So when I was young and we lived in Berkeley, my dad used to play a game called “Let’s Count the Vovos,” because there were always a lot of Vovos in Berkeley. So we were like, let’s count, and we gave up counting when we got to about 100.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, it’s a small campus, but we got to about 110 Black people just walking through. Tonight — if you’re biracial or something, my daughter wasn’t counting that. She was like, “So these were, like, you know, 110.” They’re not saying biracial folks aren’t authentic, but there were no, no — so that’s me at USF.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s interesting. We’re talking about religious communities in Oakland, the future of religious traditions. We’re joined by a trio of faith leaders, as well as the people working on the Oakland Faith Project, including its founder, Nicolò Sertorio. We’ll be back with more right after the break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here, joined by Nicolò Sertorio, who is founder, artist, and photographer of the Oakland Faith Project. He’s got his house of worship story, and James Campbell is also Edgar E. Robinson Professor in United States History at Stanford. We’ve got Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin, who is senior rabbi at Temple Sinai. We’ve got Sundiata Rashid, imam at Lighthouse Mosque and Muslim chaplain at the University of San Francisco, and we’ve got Pastor Michael Wallace of Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This project began, Nicolò, with the photographs that you were taking, and you actually now have them up in a show at 1500 Broadway, is that right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> Yes. The project exploded in some ways. So I did start with the houses of worship, and then for the second part I partnered with my good friend and colleague, and also a good photographer, J. Michael Tucker, in taking the portraits. And furthermore, we decided to start recording their oral histories.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Later, after doing a solo show at Oakland City Hall, I was offered the opportunity to exhibit in this empty commercial space at 1500 Broadway. It’s a very large, over 2,000-square-foot space that we now have open Monday to Friday.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it’s been really interesting to see the constant flow of people and the conversations that I have encouraged just by people listening to spiritual leaders and discovering new sides of them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And also, I think it’s important that we don’t move away from difficult conversations, but rather confront them full-on. To me, that is actually one of the biggest measures of a successful art project: if people talk about it, good or bad.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. We’ve got a few different folks who have been grappling with these various topics. Some folks with other religious beliefs. One listener writes, “My friends and I believe that nature is my church.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And Peggy writes in to say, “I belong to the Buddhist Church of Oakland. The Buddhist teachings make sense to me and are based on gratitude and compassion for all living beings. I also find great community in our church. We have our annual Spring Bazaar and our Obon Festival in early August, and everyone is welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Our church was founded in 1901 and survived the mass incarceration of Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II. This year, we are celebrating our 125th anniversary.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I mean, one of the things that strikes me, Pastor Michael Wallace, out of this is just that there’s something to the fact that these institutions have been around for so long. Maybe a hundred years old, 120 years old, whatever it is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> No, that’s true, and that just really is a tribute to them surviving through some more difficult times. If you’ve been around a church or a facility or a house of faith that’s been around for over a hundred years, that means they have seen the pendulum swing from one side to the other.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They have lived through the dark days of the Depression. They have lived through the turbulent times of the ’60s. They have lived through the free speech movements of the ’70s and so forth.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, as a result, I think it’s a testament to that particular institution or that place of faith that they have been able to weather many storms. But you don’t just weather storms. In order to survive that long, you have to be doing something positive, having a meaningful impact, meeting the needs of the people. And so I think that’s a true testament to their survival.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Especially at a time when there’s so much change in the Bay Area and so much change in Oakland over the last even just 20 years, let alone 120 years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Oh, absolutely. I mean, just say post-pandemic. Let’s just be in the last five years. It has been really different because, prior to the pandemic, we had a lot of people attending services. During the pandemic, people were not allowed to gather. And then post-pandemic, there was a large falling away.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But now we have this political and social climate that we’re currently existing in that, to me, has more people turning back to places of faith, to their faith, in order to find how to navigate through the challenging and difficult days that we’re facing right now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s bring in a couple of callers here. Let’s go to Art in West Sacramento. Welcome, Art.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Art:\u003c/strong> Hi.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Hi. Hello? Yep, we can hear you. Go ahead.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Art:\u003c/strong> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We could hear you, at least, that is to say. Sorry about that, Art. We’ll try and come back to you. I don’t know what’s going on with the phones this morning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Let’s talk a little bit about one major topic. And maybe, Rabbi Jacqueline, I’ll come to you on this. One of the things that I think has been — I don’t want to put a value judgment on it — but many people have gone to AI chatbots, kind of asking for life advice, even borderline spiritual advice, as people try to figure out what they want and find meaning in life. How do you approach something like that and kind of bring people towards other people?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> I think it’s rough, just because everybody needs to find an outlet that makes the most sense for them. I think the best thing that we can do is to ensure a thriving community and make people aware that we are here if they want to connect.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, I think it is hard to hear sometimes folks say that they don’t go to religious institutions because they think that we’re going to be dogmatic. But you actually don’t know what’s happening unless you give it a try.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So it is a worry in our world now that folks are tending to be a little bit more isolated and not necessarily wanting to make themselves vulnerable, which can happen if you are a part of a community. Then you become a part of the community in all sorts of ways.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But my hope is just that if you’re curious, if you have any desire to see what it is, or even if you’re thinking that we are saying one thing, you know, come in and see if it’s true. And hopefully you’ll be able to find a community that’s meaningful. And if it isn’t meaningful, then that’s okay, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Jim, one of the things that I think is interesting about some of the research around these things is that our churches have gotten more sorted politically. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I also want to point out one thing, since you had one of the people who wrote in about the Buddhist Church of Oakland. That group not only survived the experience of Japanese American incarceration during the Second World War, they also survived the interstate road system.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s one of the churches that, under eminent domain, was slated for destruction, and the people in it actually sawed it in half, put it on trucks, and moved it, preserving it. So there’s lots of vicissitudes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>One of the messages that came out of doing this research for me about religious life in Oakland was just its extraordinary resiliency. But, in any event, on the question you asked, if you go back not very long ago, maybe even to the turn of the century—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That is to say, the year 2000.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Correct. The people sitting in the pews next to you were just as likely to be Democrats as they were likely to be Republicans. And that is manifestly not the case now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I mean, the process of people moving away from traditional religions and denominations is across the board. It’s happening among evangelicals, mainstream Protestants, Catholics, and so forth, but it does correlate with political affiliation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And one of the things that, to me, is most alarming as someone who grew up in a Christian tradition is the way in which that tradition in our country today is increasingly being appropriated or donned as a mantle by certain kinds of political actors who, I think, make a mockery of the teachings of the person they profess to worship.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I don’t mean to be overly political about this, but I think that’s happened. I think a very large part of the movement away from orthodox religion in recent years — there’s been a dramatic, phenomenal outflow of people, measured in millions nationally, in the wake of the election of 2016, for example.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so that’s clearly one of the things that’s happening now, and I think it’s really unhealthy for our country. You know, part of what the United States always had was a very robust civic life, not just churches, but Rotary clubs and bowling leagues, and the list goes on and on, including Little Leagues, where you routinely interacted with people who voted for different political parties from you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That tradition is eroding in our society, and I think that’s very threatening for our democracy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s see if we can get Art in West Sacramento back here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Art:\u003c/strong> Hey, Art, sorry about that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Hey, no worries.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Art:\u003c/strong> I’m 11th in a family of 15. I was a former Catholic, Seventh-day Adventist, Pentecostal. I was going on the Pentecostal track. I attended the University of California, Davis. I decided that I could not become a Pentecostal minister because they wanted me to preach against my sister being a lesbian. And I said, “She’s not going to hell. It’s not possible. I cannot preach that way.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it turns out the guy that was leading me was actually using me as a young person to paint homes and making money off of me, and just was running a puppy mill later on in life. This guy was being sued by the city that I grew up in.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It just is really… And then let’s add to that things like Tammy Faye, Tammy’s magic stories that come out of… And it’s no wonder, in my mind, why we have the kind of leadership we have in the country, in one way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The second part is that, of course, people are going to turn away from things that they can’t have trust in. And to rebuild that trust doesn’t necessarily come down to belief in God or some supernatural power, because people have that. What they don’t believe in is the people who are mediating the process. And I’ll leave it at that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thank you. Great, great comment. I’m glad you hung with us there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I mean, yeah, Pastor Michael, I think this is, you know, growing up in an era of televangelists myself, and just seeing them on and being like, “Boy, what is this? What does this have to do with the Bible or anything?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Well, yeah. I mean, without question, the swell of the televangelists over the years, particularly during that era, was enormous because they were on the airwaves 24/7. You could not miss it. And as a result, those individuals became bigger than life.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so what you have is a personality-driven church. And anytime you have a personality-driven church, that means it’s centered around the human being that’s, quote-unquote, the personality of that church. And so when that personality is defective or false, then that whole movement shifts to a decline.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so that’s what we’ve seen with some of the great movements, from Jimmy Swaggart to Jim Bakker to many others who were personality-driven.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so what we have to do, and I think our society is demanding this, is shift from personality-driven to either Christ-centered or centered on whomever your higher authority is. But it has to be centered on that person and not the human individual.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sundiata?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> I mean, I think it’s fine for people. I mean, for me, it’s not one size fits all. So, like, there are probably many Muslims who don’t go to the mosque, but they’re still Muslim, you know what I’m saying? And then there are many Muslims who do go to the mosque.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There might be, you know, like in Oakland, we might have 10 or 11 masajid, or mosques. For me, if Lighthouse isn’t your thing and you want to go to, you know, we always name our mosques after streets, 31st Street or 47th or whatever, I’m always fine with that. I’m like, that’s cool, just do you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, like, for somebody who might have had a tragic experience and got turned away from religion, I’m not going to try to recruit them or try to get them back. They should just do what they’re comfortable with, you know what I’m saying?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Let’s bring in Gail in Oakland with a comment here. Welcome, Gail.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gail:\u003c/strong> Kate, thanks, Alexis. Nice to talk to you. I knew you in my former iteration as an Oakland restaurant owner.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I wanted to let listeners know or remind them about the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir. I’m a member of the Oakland Interfaith Community Choir, which is one of the sister choirs under the umbrella of OIGC. And OIGC has been around for 41 years, and I’ve been singing with them and recently became a board member because I love it so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s a huge joy in my life, and I think a beautiful reflection of the 23 religions represented in our choir, singing together, learning a lot about Black history, really inspiring joy in our audiences and our performances, and just an incredible reflection of the diversity of Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It’s kind of like the sonic version of your project, Nicolò.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I would like to take the opportunity to invite you to come and sing at 1500 Broadway.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Oh, yeah, that’s a good idea, actually. The Oakland Interfaith Choir is absolutely amazing. Minister Terrence Kelly, who has served as the leader of that, they do a tremendous job. It’s a collective collaboration of many faith traditions coming together and unified, pulling in the same direction. And they are really amazing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Gail, the people want to hear you sing, though.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gail:\u003c/strong> That’s not going to happen. It’s totally fine, but I’m going to come to our conference.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I had to try. I had to try. Producer Grace made me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gail:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you had to try. Good try, good try.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> All right, thank you, Gail. Thank you so much. Lots of comments here from listeners who’ve just found their place, which is kind of nice.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Rishi on the Discord writes, “I’m so glad to have found my local UCC congregational church of Sunnyvale. Progressive but not zealous, just kind, sensible people. I love my UCC church for the solstice celebration. I also try to practice nonsectarian meditation, a way of life taught by the Buddha. And I volunteered at a local food distribution organization founded by a group of like-minded Indians. As my Hindu saints told me, helping others is doing God’s work.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So many. Here’s another comment. Gina writes, “I grew up attending a couple of different Oakland synagogues, but as a young person, I couldn’t see what relevance most of these ancient Jewish texts and rules could have to my life. And I couldn’t believe in the God I saw represented there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I saw the problems religious conflict had caused throughout history and how religion was used as a reason to cast out certain types of people, and I wanted none of it. But once I had a kid, I decided to keep an open mind and seek out a different approach to bringing Judaism into my life, into my family.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I found an organization called Jewish Gateways, a community based in Albany that doesn’t have its own building but offers a variety of educational programs for families and adults that have changed my perspective on Judaism and helped me see its relevance to living an ethical and meaningful life in community.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Rabbi Jacqueline, how often do you see someone come back to the temple because they want their family to have some of this shared basis of faith?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> I actually think it’s very common that folks, once they have children and want to try to help create a lens and help their kids form their identity, it’s very common for folks to come back and want to put their kids into a religious school and Hebrew school, and to have them have some sense of what it means to be a part of the Jewish community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I’d say it’s actually very common, and I appreciate it. I think that that’s a part of the stage of life that makes a lot of sense, that you’re developing a sense of your home and your household, with traditions and roots. And so it’s very welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Last one. Alison writes, “I found the Oakland Unitarian Church along with my partner fairly recently. We needed a faith community that was engaged in resistance to the cruelty of our current national politics. It has been wonderful to be engaged with other seekers who have made the commitment to not accept our present circumstances, but rather to fight for justice for all marginalized people. It is a spiritual quest and a way to feel connected to what is good.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We have been talking about religious communities in Oakland and the future of religious traditions. You can go take a look at the Oakland Faith Project’s exhibition at 1500 Broadway.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’ve been joined by its founder, Nicolò Sertorio. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> All right. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And Jim Campbell, Edgar E. Robinson Professor in United States History at Stanford. Thank you. Might have lost him.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin at Temple Sinai, thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> Thank you. Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sundiata Rashid from Lighthouse Mosque, thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And Michael Wallace, pastor at Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in West Oakland. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thanks so much to all of our callers and listeners. Sorry about those problems on the phones. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with Mina.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Announcer:\u003c/strong> Funds for the production of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> are provided by the Jenerosity Family Fund and the members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Oakland is home to dozens of houses of worship, and the “Oakland Faith Project,” aims to document these spaces and their leaders at a time when many are turning away from religion. Photographer and documentarian Nicolò Sertorio’s website includes stark black and white photography and interviews with religious leaders who represent various walks of life, identity and beliefs. We’ll talk with Sertorio, project partners and some of Oakland’s religious leaders about “de-churching” in the Bay Area and the future of organized religion. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Like many people, Nicolò Sertorio had his life turned upside down by COVID. He was a photographer, and suddenly his normal business was gone. Italian by birth and raised by two science professors, he’d been on his own spiritual path and had been struck by the pluralism of the religious scene in his adoptive home of Oakland. So when the pandemic started, he set out on a personal quest to photograph all of the city’s churches, mosques, synagogues, and other places of worship. Four hundred and sixty-six locations later, the Oakland Faith Project has expanded to include portraits of faith leaders and fascinating audio of them talking about their views and work in the community.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Like many people, Nicolò Sertorio had his life turned upside down by COVID. He was a photographer, and suddenly his normal business was gone. Italian by birth and raised by two science professors, he’d been on his own spiritual path and had been struck by the pluralism of the religious scene in his adoptive home of Oakland. So when the pandemic started, he set out on a personal quest to photograph all of the city’s churches, mosques, synagogues, and other places of worship. Four hundred and sixty-six locations later, the Oakland Faith Project has expanded to include portraits of faith leaders and fascinating audio of them talking about their views and work in the community.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So this hour, we’re going to be joined by some faith leaders, as well as the Oakland Faith Project folks. We’re joined first by Nicolò himself. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re also joined by James Campbell, Edgar E. Robinson Professor in United States History at Stanford, a partner and, I guess, the house historian at the Oakland Faith Project. Welcome, Jim.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Nicolò, when COVID hit, you started this project. What do you think you were getting from this work of photographing these houses of worship?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> Well, taking a brief step back, like you mentioned, and you can probably derive from my accent, I grew up in Italy. And so I was used to having pretty much just one church in each town, the Roman Catholic church. And they typically all kind of look the same. They’re all made of stone in the shape of a cross.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So one of the first things that really struck me when I came, moved to the U.S. was the number and diversity of houses of worship, particularly in Oakland, and how free and diverse they are. At the same time, I kept noticing how many of them were shutting down, being torn down, or reconverted into private apartments. And for years, I was wondering why nobody was recording this cultural phenomenon happening right around us.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so, like you mentioned, when COVID hit and all of a sudden all my businesses were shut down within hours, I realized this was something I was the one who had to do, and this was the perfect time. Honestly, at the time, I didn’t know what I was getting into.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> But do you consider yourself more or less religious since you started working on this?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> Oh, since I started? Yeah. Um, interesting question. I still consider myself spiritual but not religious, but I was positively impressed by the people that I met during this project. And so I confess I might have entered with a little bit of a bias from my Italian heritage, and instead I found people who are truly open-minded and liberal, and many have become friends.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> Oh, since I started? Yeah. Um, interesting question. I still consider myself spiritual but not religious, but I was positively impressed by the people that I met during this project. And so I confess I might have entered with a little bit of a bias from my Italian heritage, and instead I found people who are truly open-minded and liberal, and many have become friends.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s cool. Jim, give us some of the sociological context here. I mean, we know in Europe, obviously, religious affiliation started declining a long time ago. And the U.S. didn’t really follow that trend at first, but now has.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s cool. Jim, give us some of the sociological context here. I mean, we know in Europe, obviously, religious affiliation started declining a long time ago. And the U.S. didn’t really follow that trend at first, but now has.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think the United States is an outlier in this. There’s just no question. You know, when we started getting a General Social Survey in the 1970s, American respondents were asked — I don’t think it was a very finely grained survey. It’s given every two years. You had five categories. You could identify yourself as Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, another world religion, or none of the above, religiously unaffiliated.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think the United States is an outlier in this. There’s just no question. You know, when we started getting a General Social Survey in the 1970s, American respondents were asked — I don’t think it was a very finely grained survey. It’s given every two years. You had five categories. You could identify yourself as Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, another world religion, or none of the above, religiously unaffiliated.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>When that survey started, about 5% of Americans identified themselves as religiously unaffiliated. By the 1990s, believe it or not, that figure had only gone up to about 7%. Today, the General Social Survey has that figure over 30%. Some surveys put it significantly higher, particularly among younger people.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>When that survey started, about 5% of Americans identified themselves as religiously unaffiliated. By the 1990s, believe it or not, that figure had only gone up to about 7%. Today, the General Social Survey has that figure over 30%. Some surveys put it significantly higher, particularly among younger people.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So the general phenomenon does look like what happened in Europe, a kind of broad process of de-churching, but it’s happening considerably later in this country.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So the general phenomenon does look like what happened in Europe, a kind of broad process of de-churching, but it’s happening considerably later in this country.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Do you think it’s just de-churching, or is it secularization? Are there ways of thinking about splitting out people who are spiritual but not religious?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Do you think it’s just de-churching, or is it secularization? Are there ways of thinking about splitting out people who are spiritual but not religious?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> That’s a great question. When Nicolò just said, “Well, I consider myself spiritual but not religious,” that’s probably the largest church, if you will, in the United States in some fashion.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> That’s a great question. When Nicolò just said, “Well, I consider myself spiritual but not religious,” that’s probably the largest church, if you will, in the United States in some fashion.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So there’s a debate among scholars about this, whether what we’re seeing represents a process of secularization per se, or more a shift in the meaning of spirituality or in the nature of religious experience. There’s a scholar, Robert, I think at Princeton, who writes about this, and a distinction he makes is a shift between what he calls a spirituality of dwelling, which is, you know, you attend the same church every week that your parents attended, and so forth, to a spirituality of seeking.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So there’s a debate among scholars about this, whether what we’re seeing represents a process of secularization per se, or more a shift in the meaning of spirituality or in the nature of religious experience. There’s a scholar, Robert, I think at Princeton, who writes about this, and a distinction he makes is a shift between what he calls a spirituality of dwelling, which is, you know, you attend the same church every week that your parents attended, and so forth, to a spirituality of seeking.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think that’s a really thought-provoking distinction. For me, a lot of Americans feel free now to fashion spiritual creeds of their own from eclectic materials, in ways that might look less orthodox on the surface. But if you scratch at it and start asking them about specific religious beliefs — do they believe in an afterlife? Do they believe in the presence of angels? — you find actually surprisingly orthodox beliefs even among many people who profess to be religiously unaffiliated.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think that’s a really thought-provoking distinction. For me, a lot of Americans feel free now to fashion spiritual creeds of their own from eclectic materials, in ways that might look less orthodox on the surface. But if you scratch at it and start asking them about specific religious beliefs — do they believe in an afterlife? Do they believe in the presence of angels? — you find actually surprisingly orthodox beliefs even among many people who profess to be religiously unaffiliated.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Is there anything specific about our history of religion here in the Bay Area, or in Oakland even more specifically, that’s worth dwelling on?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Is there anything specific about our history of religion here in the Bay Area, or in Oakland even more specifically, that’s worth dwelling on?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Well, you know, there certainly is a stereotype in the rest of the country that this area is full of godless heathens.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Well, you know, there certainly is a stereotype in the rest of the country that this area is full of godless heathens.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> That we’re this kind of godless, forlorn people. I mean, I think the most significant factor here, which really defines the entire Bay Area and Oakland specifically, is that it’s a city of immigrants, and it always has been.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> That we’re this kind of godless, forlorn people. I mean, I think the most significant factor here, which really defines the entire Bay Area and Oakland specifically, is that it’s a city of immigrants, and it always has been.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Churches and mosques and synagogues and other houses of worship have played a critical role in enabling immigrant communities to find their feet in a new setting, and also to retain some connection to ways of being, cultural practices, linguistic practices, even foodways, of the nations that they have left behind.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Churches and mosques and synagogues and other houses of worship have played a critical role in enabling immigrant communities to find their feet in a new setting, and also to retain some connection to ways of being, cultural practices, linguistic practices, even foodways, of the nations that they have left behind.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And that is certainly what happened in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as Italians and Irish arrived. There were seven different Lutheran churches here in the early 20th century for various Scandinavian migrants. And now you would see the same thing with immigrants from Tonga, Ethiopia, or Eritrea.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And that is certainly what happened in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as Italians and Irish arrived. There were seven different Lutheran churches here in the early 20th century for various Scandinavian migrants. And now you would see the same thing with immigrants from Tonga, Ethiopia, or Eritrea.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So in that sense, there’s a kind of persistent through line. It’s just different immigrant groups, and the specifics of their religious practices might look different.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So in that sense, there’s a kind of persistent through line. It’s just different immigrant groups, and the specifics of their religious practices might look different.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Interesting. Nicolò, as you worked on this project, you had a vision for what you wanted to ask these faith leaders about, right? You didn’t want just a general conversation. You had some specific things you asked them. What did you want to know from these faith leaders?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Interesting. Nicolò, as you worked on this project, you had a vision for what you wanted to ask these faith leaders about, right? You didn’t want just a general conversation. You had some specific things you asked them. What did you want to know from these faith leaders?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> So I wanted to scratch a little bit under the surface. I wanted to talk to them about the issues that are happening around Oakland, and some of the issues that, at least in my upbringing, had pushed people away from traditional churchgoing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> So I wanted to scratch a little bit under the surface. I wanted to talk to them about the issues that are happening around Oakland, and some of the issues that, at least in my upbringing, had pushed people away from traditional churchgoing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I’ve asked them about same-sex marriage. I’ve asked them about the drug epidemic, about the role of their church vis-à-vis politics. And that’s how I started to be so positively surprised by the people I was talking to.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I’ve asked them about same-sex marriage. I’ve asked them about the drug epidemic, about the role of their church vis-à-vis politics. And that’s how I started to be so positively surprised by the people I was talking to.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Great. Well, let’s bring in a few of these faith leaders that we’ve got here. We’ve got Jacqueline Mates-Muchin, who’s senior rabbi at Temple Sinai. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Great. Well, let’s bring in a few of these faith leaders that we’ve got here. We’ve got Jacqueline Mates-Muchin, who’s senior rabbi at Temple Sinai. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve got Sundiata Rashid, who’s an imam at Lighthouse Mosque and also the Muslim chaplain at the University of San Francisco. Welcome!\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve got Sundiata Rashid, who’s an imam at Lighthouse Mosque and also the Muslim chaplain at the University of San Francisco. Welcome!\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> Thank you!\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> Thank you!\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve got Michael Wallace, pastor at Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve got Michael Wallace, pastor at Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> We’re having a s—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> We’re having a s—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks so much for coming in, everyone. What was it like, Michael Wallace, to have Nicolò come to you and say, “Hey, I want to photograph the church. I want to talk to you about things”?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks so much for coming in, everyone. What was it like, Michael Wallace, to have Nicolò come to you and say, “Hey, I want to photograph the church. I want to talk to you about things”?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> When he shared his vision that he wanted to highlight the faith community and Oakland’s legacy as a faith mecca for many different faiths, I was extremely excited and definitely lent all my support behind the project.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> When he shared his vision that he wanted to highlight the faith community and Oakland’s legacy as a faith mecca for many different faiths, I was extremely excited and definitely lent all my support behind the project.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I thought that we have such a rich legacy in faith and in the city of Oakland, and so I wanted to be a part of that and make sure we captured the historic aspects of the faith community in Oakland over the years.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I thought that we have such a rich legacy in faith and in the city of Oakland, and so I wanted to be a part of that and make sure we captured the historic aspects of the faith community in Oakland over the years.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And your church rank goes back to 1870, is that right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And your church rank goes back to 1870, is that right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Our church was actually established in 1922, so we’re 104 years in the West Oakland community. We have primarily served as the mecca church. Many churches have come out of our church.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Our church was actually established in 1922, so we’re 104 years in the West Oakland community. We have primarily served as the mecca church. Many churches have come out of our church.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But more importantly, when many of our ancestors migrated from the South to the North to work in the shipyards, naval supply, on the trains, and things of that nature, they all came to Mount Zion. And we housed veterans after the wars, so it has always been a community hub for the community.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But more importantly, when many of our ancestors migrated from the South to the North to work in the shipyards, naval supply, on the trains, and things of that nature, they all came to Mount Zion. And we housed veterans after the wars, so it has always been a community hub for the community.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Cynthia, what’s the brief summary of how the Lighthouse Mosque came about?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Cynthia, what’s the brief summary of how the Lighthouse Mosque came about?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> So the Lighthouse Mosque, we definitely didn’t start in 1922. We started in about 2007, and in 2013 we were actually able to purchase the church that we’re at now.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> So the Lighthouse Mosque, we definitely didn’t start in 1922. We started in about 2007, and in 2013 we were actually able to purchase the church that we’re at now.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And yeah, so we’re really the new people on the block. We’re really the new ones, because I grew up in West Oakland, South Berkeley, so I remember all of the Star Bethel and Mount Zion. Those are kind of the historical churches I remember in the East Bay.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And yeah, so we’re really the new people on the block. We’re really the new ones, because I grew up in West Oakland, South Berkeley, so I remember all of the Star Bethel and Mount Zion. Those are kind of the historical churches I remember in the East Bay.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, I love Pastor Mike Wallace. We actually went to Los Angeles together one time. No, I’m saying—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, I love Pastor Mike Wallace. We actually went to Los Angeles together one time. No, I’m saying—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And so, yeah. Yeah, that’s great. And Jacqueline Mates-Muchin, tell us a little bit about Temple Sinai.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And so, yeah. Yeah, that’s great. And Jacqueline Mates-Muchin, tell us a little bit about Temple Sinai.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> So Temple Sinai was actually founded in 1875, so we’re almost 151 years old. And we had a couple of different locations, but our current sanctuary was finished the same year that Oakland City Hall was finished. So we really see ourselves as a part of the growth of Oakland over time, and have been a consistent presence here in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> So Temple Sinai was actually founded in 1875, so we’re almost 151 years old. And we had a couple of different locations, but our current sanctuary was finished the same year that Oakland City Hall was finished. So we really see ourselves as a part of the growth of Oakland over time, and have been a consistent presence here in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s great. So we’re going to get into a discussion between all these faith leaders about the things that they’re seeing in the community. And, of course, we also want to hear from our listeners.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s great. So we’re going to get into a discussion between all these faith leaders about the things that they’re seeing in the community. And, of course, we also want to hear from our listeners.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Are you a member of a faith community in Oakland or your city? Do you seek comfort in those spaces, or have you moved away from it? Or do you consider yourself religious or spiritual but not religious? We want to hear your story. 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. You can email Forum at kqed.org. Friends on Bluesky, on Instagram, on Discord, we’re KQED Forum.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Are you a member of a faith community in Oakland or your city? Do you seek comfort in those spaces, or have you moved away from it? Or do you consider yourself religious or spiritual but not religious? We want to hear your story. 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. You can email Forum at kqed.org. Friends on Bluesky, on Instagram, on Discord, we’re KQED Forum.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This morning, we’ve got Nicolò Sertorio, who’s founder, artist, and photographer at the Oakland Faith Project. We’ve got James Campbell. He’s a professor in United States history at Stanford, and we’ve got three faith leaders with us. We’ve got Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin, Sundiata Rashid, imam at Lighthouse Mosque, and Pastor Mike Wallace from Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This morning, we’ve got Nicolò Sertorio, who’s founder, artist, and photographer at the Oakland Faith Project. We’ve got James Campbell. He’s a professor in United States history at Stanford, and we’ve got three faith leaders with us. We’ve got Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin, Sundiata Rashid, imam at Lighthouse Mosque, and Pastor Mike Wallace from Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more right after the break.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Well, welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’re here talking with faith leaders about the Oakland Faith Project. We’ve got Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin from Temple Sinai. We’ve got Sundiata Rashid from Lighthouse Mosque. We’ve got Mike Wallace from Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Well, welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’re here talking with faith leaders about the Oakland Faith Project. We’ve got Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin from Temple Sinai. We’ve got Sundiata Rashid from Lighthouse Mosque. We’ve got Mike Wallace from Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Sundiata, let’s talk a little bit about how you got started on the path to becoming an imam at this mosque.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Sundiata, let’s talk a little bit about how you got started on the path to becoming an imam at this mosque.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so, you know, I’m a Pisces. No, I’m just playing. No, so I actually, okay, yeah. So when I was younger, I was in the U.S. Marine Corps, and I was Muslim when I went in. And during the Gulf War, a lot of service people converted to Islam.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so, you know, I’m a Pisces. No, I’m just playing. No, so I actually, okay, yeah. So when I was younger, I was in the U.S. Marine Corps, and I was Muslim when I went in. And during the Gulf War, a lot of service people converted to Islam.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But there weren’t a lot of people who knew about Islam. So because I already had been Muslim, I just kind of got pushed into this thing of teaching people how to pray, leading services, working with other people who were called lay leaders in the military. So they weren’t like the chaplain, but they might run services at a certain base or something like that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But there weren’t a lot of people who knew about Islam. So because I already had been Muslim, I just kind of got pushed into this thing of teaching people how to pray, leading services, working with other people who were called lay leaders in the military. So they weren’t like the chaplain, but they might run services at a certain base or something like that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So then that kind of carried over. When I got out of the military, I kept on trying to teach classes and doing that for different masajid. And then in 2007, I ended up at Lighthouse Mosque, and Imam Zaid Shakir, who started the mosque, found out that I taught classes and he called me one time. I was so starstruck. He was like, “Oh, this is Imam Zaid Shakir,” and I was like, “Stop playing on my phone. Who’s this?” And he’s like, “No, it’s really Imam Zaid Shakir.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So then that kind of carried over. When I got out of the military, I kept on trying to teach classes and doing that for different masajid. And then in 2007, I ended up at Lighthouse Mosque, and Imam Zaid Shakir, who started the mosque, found out that I taught classes and he called me one time. I was so starstruck. He was like, “Oh, this is Imam Zaid Shakir,” and I was like, “Stop playing on my phone. Who’s this?” And he’s like, “No, it’s really Imam Zaid Shakir.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>He started asking me to teach and get involved, and now, from 2008 until now, that’s just what I’ve been kind of doing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>He started asking me to teach and get involved, and now, from 2008 until now, that’s just what I’ve been kind of doing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, Jacqueline, you’re the first Chinese American rabbi in the U.S., as I understand it. What does that distinction mean? How do you think it shaped your spiritual journey?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, Jacqueline, you’re the first Chinese American rabbi in the U.S., as I understand it. What does that distinction mean? How do you think it shaped your spiritual journey?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> I actually think it has given me a unique perspective of being able to understand multiple communities and see myself as belonging and grounded in multiple histories and heritages.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> I actually think it has given me a unique perspective of being able to understand multiple communities and see myself as belonging and grounded in multiple histories and heritages.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think that has actually been a really good experience when we look at Oakland and we see Oakland’s amazing diversity, and the approach that we try to have to be open and understanding of where everyone’s coming from. We recognize that we’re going to the same place. We’re all trying to make the world a better place, and we’re trying to do good here.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think that has actually been a really good experience when we look at Oakland and we see Oakland’s amazing diversity, and the approach that we try to have to be open and understanding of where everyone’s coming from. We recognize that we’re going to the same place. We’re all trying to make the world a better place, and we’re trying to do good here.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think it’s been really helpful in trying to get a much, much broader picture of life and experience.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think it’s been really helpful in trying to get a much, much broader picture of life and experience.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, Pastor Mike, did you grow up in the church?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, Pastor Mike, did you grow up in the church?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Yes, I did. I grew up in a Christian family. I’m really grateful for my parents. My father served as a deacon in a church, and my mother was an evangelist, one of the first women evangelists in a local church. And so I grew up in a Christian home. I was saved and baptized at the age of 11, and I thank God for my journey.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Yes, I did. I grew up in a Christian family. I’m really grateful for my parents. My father served as a deacon in a church, and my mother was an evangelist, one of the first women evangelists in a local church. And so I grew up in a Christian home. I was saved and baptized at the age of 11, and I thank God for my journey.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>With respect to this, that’s on my life. I knew it early on in life, that I had a sacred calling on my life as a teenager. As I progressed through school and college, I pursued a legal profession. So I worked in the legal profession for a number of years and then transitioned over to finance.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>With respect to this, that’s on my life. I knew it early on in life, that I had a sacred calling on my life as a teenager. As I progressed through school and college, I pursued a legal profession. So I worked in the legal profession for a number of years and then transitioned over to finance.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>For a while, I served as associate minister at the New St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church in West Oakland, where I received acknowledgment of my calling. And then I served under Dr. C.J. Anderson at the St. John Missionary Baptist Church. He was a historic pastor in our community.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>For a while, I served as associate minister at the New St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church in West Oakland, where I received acknowledgment of my calling. And then I served under Dr. C.J. Anderson at the St. John Missionary Baptist Church. He was a historic pastor in our community.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Continuing to work in the finance industry for a number of years, I accepted my call bivocationally. I was associate minister at the local church, and I worked in finance. And I received the call to go to the historic Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church. I retired from finance and went full-time into ministry. And now I’ve served at Mount Zion as senior pastor for the last 18 years.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Continuing to work in the finance industry for a number of years, I accepted my call bivocationally. I was associate minister at the local church, and I worked in finance. And I received the call to go to the historic Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church. I retired from finance and went full-time into ministry. And now I’ve served at Mount Zion as senior pastor for the last 18 years.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> What does a senior pastor do?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> What does a senior pastor do?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Well, it varies from church to church, but you basically oversee the whole operation in the ministry. You cast a vision, you empower the people to run with the vision, you teach, you preach, you lead, you serve, and the most important thing is that you serve the people.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Well, it varies from church to church, but you basically oversee the whole operation in the ministry. You cast a vision, you empower the people to run with the vision, you teach, you preach, you lead, you serve, and the most important thing is that you serve the people.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I am constantly trying to meet the needs of our congregation, as well as the needs of the greater community, because my calling is beyond the four walls of the church. And so, as a result, I try to empower our people to take the ministry from beyond the stained-glass windows to the community, to the heart of the people, and try to meet people right—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I am constantly trying to meet the needs of our congregation, as well as the needs of the greater community, because my calling is beyond the four walls of the church. And so, as a result, I try to empower our people to take the ministry from beyond the stained-glass windows to the community, to the heart of the people, and try to meet people right—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Where they are. Sundiata, how do you take that on, like the kind of going beyond the walls of the mosque?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Where they are. Sundiata, how do you take that on, like the kind of going beyond the walls of the mosque?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> You know, um, I’ve just always been kind of a people person myself, so I love to get out and talk to folks.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> You know, um, I’ve just always been kind of a people person myself, so I love to get out and talk to folks.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I was telling Nicolò earlier that, really, the pandemic was kind of an opportunity, because when a lot of mosques were closed in Oakland, we actually started doing our services at a local park. That park is known in West Oakland. It’s Mr. Fab’s Park. And so people would see us there, and people who wanted to come to a service started coming to our park service.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I was telling Nicolò earlier that, really, the pandemic was kind of an opportunity, because when a lot of mosques were closed in Oakland, we actually started doing our services at a local park. That park is known in West Oakland. It’s Mr. Fab’s Park. And so people would see us there, and people who wanted to come to a service started coming to our park service.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so after the pandemic, we almost had a whole new congregation of all these new folks who found us, just because we kept operating. We kind of tried to keep things going, because I myself just don’t like to be by myself. So even in a pandemic, I was like, “I gotta get a microphone and talk to people.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so after the pandemic, we almost had a whole new congregation of all these new folks who found us, just because we kept operating. We kind of tried to keep things going, because I myself just don’t like to be by myself. So even in a pandemic, I was like, “I gotta get a microphone and talk to people.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There’s something about ministers and microphones. We just can’t leave them alone. It’s like—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There’s something about ministers and microphones. We just can’t leave them alone. It’s like—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I understand. We might share this.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I understand. We might share this.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, Jacqueline, let’s talk a little bit about the people who are not affiliated with a particular faith institution, even if they consider themselves to be religious in some ways. You noted to the Oakland Faith Project that actually a small portion of Jewish residents in Oakland belong to a synagogue. Why do you think that is?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, Jacqueline, let’s talk a little bit about the people who are not affiliated with a particular faith institution, even if they consider themselves to be religious in some ways. You noted to the Oakland Faith Project that actually a small portion of Jewish residents in Oakland belong to a synagogue. Why do you think that is?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> You know, I think, and it was sort of mentioned by Dr. Campbell earlier as well, that there is a sense of spirituality that’s in the water in the Bay Area, especially in the East Bay. So I think that there are some folks who find that sense of spirituality and connection and community in different sorts of places.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> You know, I think, and it was sort of mentioned by Dr. Campbell earlier as well, that there is a sense of spirituality that’s in the water in the Bay Area, especially in the East Bay. So I think that there are some folks who find that sense of spirituality and connection and community in different sorts of places.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The Jewish community, or rather, a synagogue, has always been the center of Jewish life. So for some folks, they come around because they feel specifically religious, and for other folks, they’re looking for community or that shared sense of heritage and ethnicity that Judaism is, and so they’re looking to develop their sense of Jewish identity.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The Jewish community, or rather, a synagogue, has always been the center of Jewish life. So for some folks, they come around because they feel specifically religious, and for other folks, they’re looking for community or that shared sense of heritage and ethnicity that Judaism is, and so they’re looking to develop their sense of Jewish identity.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, we have found actually in the last couple of years, with the uptick in antisemitism, that there are more people who are seeking out synagogues and seeking out community in that way.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, we have found actually in the last couple of years, with the uptick in antisemitism, that there are more people who are seeking out synagogues and seeking out community in that way.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think the question of why aren’t there more is always a great question, but I’m really glad to see that there are folks who are, and I’m proud to know that we’re kind of a through line throughout the history here, so that if and when people want to connect, we are here for them.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think the question of why aren’t there more is always a great question, but I’m really glad to see that there are folks who are, and I’m proud to know that we’re kind of a through line throughout the history here, so that if and when people want to connect, we are here for them.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> One listener writes in to say, you know, Eddie writes, “My primary struggle with organized religion is the message that their approach is the right way to worship God. I don’t believe that God is so vain as to require that we worship them or worship in any specific way. I believe that’s one reason many people have shifted to spirituality over religion. You can choose how you want to appreciate God.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> One listener writes in to say, you know, Eddie writes, “My primary struggle with organized religion is the message that their approach is the right way to worship God. I don’t believe that God is so vain as to require that we worship them or worship in any specific way. I believe that’s one reason many people have shifted to spirituality over religion. You can choose how you want to appreciate God.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>James Campbell, this strikes me as quite a modern sensibility, right, that someone would see things in this way.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>James Campbell, this strikes me as quite a modern sensibility, right, that someone would see things in this way.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Look, I think this is absolutely right. And in some ways, the attitude you’ve just reflected or expressed in that quotation immediately harkens to the great cultural ruptures of the 1960s and early 1970s, when the Bay Area was kind of ground zero. And not just in the realm of organized religion, but in an extraordinary array of different registers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Look, I think this is absolutely right. And in some ways, the attitude you’ve just reflected or expressed in that quotation immediately harkens to the great cultural ruptures of the 1960s and early 1970s, when the Bay Area was kind of ground zero. And not just in the realm of organized religion, but in an extraordinary array of different registers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Young people and seekers of various kinds were not necessarily rejecting spirituality, not rejecting community, but rejecting what they regarded as the ossified forms in which that had come to be expressed. And I think the roots of an enormous cultural war that we are still fighting in some fashion today are embedded in that quotation.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Young people and seekers of various kinds were not necessarily rejecting spirituality, not rejecting community, but rejecting what they regarded as the ossified forms in which that had come to be expressed. And I think the roots of an enormous cultural war that we are still fighting in some fashion today are embedded in that quotation.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Nicolò, your project is a tiny bit different, even just as I think about its underlying philosophy, right? It’s not just to go away from all these institutions. It’s actually to go into as many of them as possible, which is kind of different.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Nicolò, your project is a tiny bit different, even just as I think about its underlying philosophy, right? It’s not just to go away from all these institutions. It’s actually to go into as many of them as possible, which is kind of different.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> So first of all, I just wanted to add something to the earlier conversation. I think the spiritual leaders may have been too modest to mention that a lot of these houses of worship play a very vital role in the city beyond the church walls, supporting the community, providing food, shelter, showers, safe housing in their parking lots overnight. And that is a very important role that we need to acknowledge about what the houses of worship are doing in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> So first of all, I just wanted to add something to the earlier conversation. I think the spiritual leaders may have been too modest to mention that a lot of these houses of worship play a very vital role in the city beyond the church walls, supporting the community, providing food, shelter, showers, safe housing in their parking lots overnight. And that is a very important role that we need to acknowledge about what the houses of worship are doing in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In terms of your question, I think it kind of links the points together in that, although I belong to that growing denomination, I, like everybody else, have this thirst for a higher self and belonging and community. And so, maybe consciously or unconsciously, there was a desire to understand and explore that world around me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In terms of your question, I think it kind of links the points together in that, although I belong to that growing denomination, I, like everybody else, have this thirst for a higher self and belonging and community. And so, maybe consciously or unconsciously, there was a desire to understand and explore that world around me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And the extreme fascination with this incredible diversity — one of the big parts that brought me to the project was, as you mentioned, during COVID, when everything was locked down and there was all this bad news about Oakland, I wanted to focus on something positive. And to me, having multiple denominations literally sometimes next door to each other, if you go on International Boulevard in Oakland, that’s something very unique. And that’s something very powerful that also reflects the ethnic and social diversity of the city.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And the extreme fascination with this incredible diversity — one of the big parts that brought me to the project was, as you mentioned, during COVID, when everything was locked down and there was all this bad news about Oakland, I wanted to focus on something positive. And to me, having multiple denominations literally sometimes next door to each other, if you go on International Boulevard in Oakland, that’s something very unique. And that’s something very powerful that also reflects the ethnic and social diversity of the city.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Of Oakland. Sundiata, one of the things that I have wondered about is how having this war in Gaza, having a war in Iran, having these things going on around the world ends up reflecting back for you inside the mosque.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Of Oakland. Sundiata, one of the things that I have wondered about is how having this war in Gaza, having a war in Iran, having these things going on around the world ends up reflecting back for you inside the mosque.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> You know, so I think a lot of those tragedies do build up attendance at the mosque. Because I think one of the things is that when people leave organized religion, that might be almost a sense of entitlement because they’re not going through things in life.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> You know, so I think a lot of those tragedies do build up attendance at the mosque. Because I think one of the things is that when people leave organized religion, that might be almost a sense of entitlement because they’re not going through things in life.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, like, once they start — if you were even here and you were kind of comfortable, but you’re identifying with your relatives or even just Muslims who you feel an affinity for because of the same religion, and you see the things happening to them — you’ll still be looking for those signs of spiritual answers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, like, once they start — if you were even here and you were kind of comfortable, but you’re identifying with your relatives or even just Muslims who you feel an affinity for because of the same religion, and you see the things happening to them — you’ll still be looking for those signs of spiritual answers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so a lot of times, that’s what religious institutions provide. It’s like, we can answer some of the questions. And like the guy said, sometimes it might be dogmatic, like, “This is the right answer, and anything else is astray.” But I think that most people who encounter religion are just looking for an answer to some of the grief that they’re feeling.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so a lot of times, that’s what religious institutions provide. It’s like, we can answer some of the questions. And like the guy said, sometimes it might be dogmatic, like, “This is the right answer, and anything else is astray.” But I think that most people who encounter religion are just looking for an answer to some of the grief that they’re feeling.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And those institutions, like the mosque, especially during the genocide in Gaza and those kinds of things, were able to drive up attendance, get people coming out and organizing. So many programs at the mosque were centered around those kinds of things that were happening in Iran and things like that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And those institutions, like the mosque, especially during the genocide in Gaza and those kinds of things, were able to drive up attendance, get people coming out and organizing. So many programs at the mosque were centered around those kinds of things that were happening in Iran and things like that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, another listener, Ryan, and Rabbi Jacqueline, this one’s coming to you. Ryan writes, “I grew up in a secular Jewish household in Boise, Idaho. I later married a man who was raised observant in the South Bay, and I waded hesitantly but excitedly into a more Jewish life. In 2022, we sent our first child to Temple Sinai’s preschool program.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, another listener, Ryan, and Rabbi Jacqueline, this one’s coming to you. Ryan writes, “I grew up in a secular Jewish household in Boise, Idaho. I later married a man who was raised observant in the South Bay, and I waded hesitantly but excitedly into a more Jewish life. In 2022, we sent our first child to Temple Sinai’s preschool program.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“But after the events of October 7, 2023, and the Israeli attacks on Gaza, both of us began feeling increasingly uncomfortable being associated with Jewish organizations that did not condemn those attacks. For the first time in my life, I feel ashamed to be Jewish. But even sadder for me is that this is also true for my husband. He used to take great comfort in his religious practice.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“But after the events of October 7, 2023, and the Israeli attacks on Gaza, both of us began feeling increasingly uncomfortable being associated with Jewish organizations that did not condemn those attacks. For the first time in my life, I feel ashamed to be Jewish. But even sadder for me is that this is also true for my husband. He used to take great comfort in his religious practice.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“I think we’re at a generational turning point for Jewish Americans that will drive many of us further from the faith.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“I think we’re at a generational turning point for Jewish Americans that will drive many of us further from the faith.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Obviously, this has been an incredibly difficult issue across American life, but specifically Jewish life. How have you been counseling people in your congregation?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Obviously, this has been an incredibly difficult issue across American life, but specifically Jewish life. How have you been counseling people in your congregation?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> So I think there’s a wide range of ways to understand what is happening and different ways to talk about it. I will say that it’s kind of hard to hear “the genocide in Gaza,” which I wasn’t necessarily expecting in this particular conversation. But I will save that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> So I think there’s a wide range of ways to understand what is happening and different ways to talk about it. I will say that it’s kind of hard to hear “the genocide in Gaza,” which I wasn’t necessarily expecting in this particular conversation. But I will save that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think the role of the synagogue is to grapple with the word Israel, because the country is actually named after the people. So we call ourselves Israel, Yisrael, and it means those who wrestle with God.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think the role of the synagogue is to grapple with the word Israel, because the country is actually named after the people. So we call ourselves Israel, Yisrael, and it means those who wrestle with God.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so the point of being a part of a Jewish community is to be able to bring your concerns, bring your questions, bring your values, and bring your frustrations together so that we can have those kinds of conversations and figure out what it means for all of us. And it’s totally fine to disagree on certain kinds of things.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so the point of being a part of a Jewish community is to be able to bring your concerns, bring your questions, bring your values, and bring your frustrations together so that we can have those kinds of conversations and figure out what it means for all of us. And it’s totally fine to disagree on certain kinds of things.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think the problem that we’re seeing right now, not just in the Jewish community but in a much greater way, is that people are choosing sides and teams and not having those kinds of conversations, not trying to understand other people and grapple with the things that are happening in the world and the things happening in our lives.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think the problem that we’re seeing right now, not just in the Jewish community but in a much greater way, is that people are choosing sides and teams and not having those kinds of conversations, not trying to understand other people and grapple with the things that are happening in the world and the things happening in our lives.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I would actually argue that if you are looking for a place to be able to do that, it might not be one synagogue or one church or one mosque or the other, but it could be somewhere in that realm where you can find places to wrestle with the things that are difficult and be able to understand what it means for your life.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I would actually argue that if you are looking for a place to be able to do that, it might not be one synagogue or one church or one mosque or the other, but it could be somewhere in that realm where you can find places to wrestle with the things that are difficult and be able to understand what it means for your life.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Michael Wallace, how do you see your role in this sort of cross-faith collaboration? Do you do a lot of it? Do you not do a lot of it?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Michael Wallace, how do you see your role in this sort of cross-faith collaboration? Do you do a lot of it? Do you not do a lot of it?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> We engage a lot in collaboration across denominational lines, faith traditions, generations, as well as culture. It’s absolutely essential because we have to move from our silos to systems. And we realize that collectively we can have a greater impact, a more meaningful impact, in our communities and the people that we serve.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> We engage a lot in collaboration across denominational lines, faith traditions, generations, as well as culture. It’s absolutely essential because we have to move from our silos to systems. And we realize that collectively we can have a greater impact, a more meaningful impact, in our communities and the people that we serve.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I just want to allude to something that you mentioned earlier: the Black church in our culture has always been on the front line of addressing inequalities in our society. We have always been on the front line of addressing disparities within our society. We’ve always been at the forefront of addressing injustice in our society.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I just want to allude to something that you mentioned earlier: the Black church in our culture has always been on the front line of addressing inequalities in our society. We have always been on the front line of addressing disparities within our society. We’ve always been at the forefront of addressing injustice in our society.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so, in that tradition, in that vein, it’s absolutely essential that we continue to address injustices anywhere among any people, regardless of their race, creed, or color.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so, in that tradition, in that vein, it’s absolutely essential that we continue to address injustices anywhere among any people, regardless of their race, creed, or color.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so, as a result of that, we do build collaborations. I work with a number of groups. One particular group is Impact Oakland Now, ION, and it’s a collective of six progressive pastors and churches that are basically addressing social, economic, educational, and spiritual needs within the community. So we do a lot of work collectively to have an impact for the most marginalized within our communities.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so, as a result of that, we do build collaborations. I work with a number of groups. One particular group is Impact Oakland Now, ION, and it’s a collective of six progressive pastors and churches that are basically addressing social, economic, educational, and spiritual needs within the community. So we do a lot of work collectively to have an impact for the most marginalized within our communities.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Collaboration is absolutely essential. As he indicated earlier, we went to Los Angeles together to work in collaboration. And so I work a lot with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I served as the chairperson of Faith in Action East Bay, which consists of a lot of rabbis and Jewish synagogues. And so we find that working together, we can have much more of an impact on our society.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Collaboration is absolutely essential. As he indicated earlier, we went to Los Angeles together to work in collaboration. And so I work a lot with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I served as the chairperson of Faith in Action East Bay, which consists of a lot of rabbis and Jewish synagogues. And so we find that working together, we can have much more of an impact on our society.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sundiata, I was thinking about this. I mean, you’re the Muslim chaplain at USF, which I think of as a very Catholic university.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sundiata, I was thinking about this. I mean, you’re the Muslim chaplain at USF, which I think of as a very Catholic university.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> Go down. How does that work? You know, every university is going to be diverse, but USF is rated as the most diverse campus in the United States, right here in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> Go down. How does that work? You know, every university is going to be diverse, but USF is rated as the most diverse campus in the United States, right here in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I took my daughter there when I first got the job, and I’ve been to different MSAs and worked with different Muslim Student Associations. She would always tag along, her and my son, and she was shocked at just how many people of color there were.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I took my daughter there when I first got the job, and I’ve been to different MSAs and worked with different Muslim Student Associations. She would always tag along, her and my son, and she was shocked at just how many people of color there were.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And then I was like, “Let’s count the Black folks.” So when I was young and we lived in Berkeley, my dad used to play a game called “Let’s Count the Vovos,” because there were always a lot of Vovos in Berkeley. So we were like, let’s count, and we gave up counting when we got to about 100.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And then I was like, “Let’s count the Black folks.” So when I was young and we lived in Berkeley, my dad used to play a game called “Let’s Count the Vovos,” because there were always a lot of Vovos in Berkeley. So we were like, let’s count, and we gave up counting when we got to about 100.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, it’s a small campus, but we got to about 110 Black people just walking through. Tonight — if you’re biracial or something, my daughter wasn’t counting that. She was like, “So these were, like, you know, 110.” They’re not saying biracial folks aren’t authentic, but there were no, no — so that’s me at USF.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, it’s a small campus, but we got to about 110 Black people just walking through. Tonight — if you’re biracial or something, my daughter wasn’t counting that. She was like, “So these were, like, you know, 110.” They’re not saying biracial folks aren’t authentic, but there were no, no — so that’s me at USF.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s interesting. We’re talking about religious communities in Oakland, the future of religious traditions. We’re joined by a trio of faith leaders, as well as the people working on the Oakland Faith Project, including its founder, Nicolò Sertorio. We’ll be back with more right after the break.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s interesting. We’re talking about religious communities in Oakland, the future of religious traditions. We’re joined by a trio of faith leaders, as well as the people working on the Oakland Faith Project, including its founder, Nicolò Sertorio. We’ll be back with more right after the break.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here, joined by Nicolò Sertorio, who is founder, artist, and photographer of the Oakland Faith Project. He’s got his house of worship story, and James Campbell is also Edgar E. Robinson Professor in United States History at Stanford. We’ve got Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin, who is senior rabbi at Temple Sinai. We’ve got Sundiata Rashid, imam at Lighthouse Mosque and Muslim chaplain at the University of San Francisco, and we’ve got Pastor Michael Wallace of Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here, joined by Nicolò Sertorio, who is founder, artist, and photographer of the Oakland Faith Project. He’s got his house of worship story, and James Campbell is also Edgar E. Robinson Professor in United States History at Stanford. We’ve got Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin, who is senior rabbi at Temple Sinai. We’ve got Sundiata Rashid, imam at Lighthouse Mosque and Muslim chaplain at the University of San Francisco, and we’ve got Pastor Michael Wallace of Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This project began, Nicolò, with the photographs that you were taking, and you actually now have them up in a show at 1500 Broadway, is that right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This project began, Nicolò, with the photographs that you were taking, and you actually now have them up in a show at 1500 Broadway, is that right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> Yes. The project exploded in some ways. So I did start with the houses of worship, and then for the second part I partnered with my good friend and colleague, and also a good photographer, J. Michael Tucker, in taking the portraits. And furthermore, we decided to start recording their oral histories.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> Yes. The project exploded in some ways. So I did start with the houses of worship, and then for the second part I partnered with my good friend and colleague, and also a good photographer, J. Michael Tucker, in taking the portraits. And furthermore, we decided to start recording their oral histories.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Later, after doing a solo show at Oakland City Hall, I was offered the opportunity to exhibit in this empty commercial space at 1500 Broadway. It’s a very large, over 2,000-square-foot space that we now have open Monday to Friday.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Later, after doing a solo show at Oakland City Hall, I was offered the opportunity to exhibit in this empty commercial space at 1500 Broadway. It’s a very large, over 2,000-square-foot space that we now have open Monday to Friday.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And it’s been really interesting to see the constant flow of people and the conversations that I have encouraged just by people listening to spiritual leaders and discovering new sides of them.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And it’s been really interesting to see the constant flow of people and the conversations that I have encouraged just by people listening to spiritual leaders and discovering new sides of them.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And also, I think it’s important that we don’t move away from difficult conversations, but rather confront them full-on. To me, that is actually one of the biggest measures of a successful art project: if people talk about it, good or bad.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And also, I think it’s important that we don’t move away from difficult conversations, but rather confront them full-on. To me, that is actually one of the biggest measures of a successful art project: if people talk about it, good or bad.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. We’ve got a few different folks who have been grappling with these various topics. Some folks with other religious beliefs. One listener writes, “My friends and I believe that nature is my church.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. We’ve got a few different folks who have been grappling with these various topics. Some folks with other religious beliefs. One listener writes, “My friends and I believe that nature is my church.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And Peggy writes in to say, “I belong to the Buddhist Church of Oakland. The Buddhist teachings make sense to me and are based on gratitude and compassion for all living beings. I also find great community in our church. We have our annual Spring Bazaar and our Obon Festival in early August, and everyone is welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And Peggy writes in to say, “I belong to the Buddhist Church of Oakland. The Buddhist teachings make sense to me and are based on gratitude and compassion for all living beings. I also find great community in our church. We have our annual Spring Bazaar and our Obon Festival in early August, and everyone is welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Our church was founded in 1901 and survived the mass incarceration of Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II. This year, we are celebrating our 125th anniversary.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“Our church was founded in 1901 and survived the mass incarceration of Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II. This year, we are celebrating our 125th anniversary.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I mean, one of the things that strikes me, Pastor Michael Wallace, out of this is just that there’s something to the fact that these institutions have been around for so long. Maybe a hundred years old, 120 years old, whatever it is.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I mean, one of the things that strikes me, Pastor Michael Wallace, out of this is just that there’s something to the fact that these institutions have been around for so long. Maybe a hundred years old, 120 years old, whatever it is.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> No, that’s true, and that just really is a tribute to them surviving through some more difficult times. If you’ve been around a church or a facility or a house of faith that’s been around for over a hundred years, that means they have seen the pendulum swing from one side to the other.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> No, that’s true, and that just really is a tribute to them surviving through some more difficult times. If you’ve been around a church or a facility or a house of faith that’s been around for over a hundred years, that means they have seen the pendulum swing from one side to the other.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They have lived through the dark days of the Depression. They have lived through the turbulent times of the ’60s. They have lived through the free speech movements of the ’70s and so forth.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>They have lived through the dark days of the Depression. They have lived through the turbulent times of the ’60s. They have lived through the free speech movements of the ’70s and so forth.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, as a result, I think it’s a testament to that particular institution or that place of faith that they have been able to weather many storms. But you don’t just weather storms. In order to survive that long, you have to be doing something positive, having a meaningful impact, meeting the needs of the people. And so I think that’s a true testament to their survival.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, as a result, I think it’s a testament to that particular institution or that place of faith that they have been able to weather many storms. But you don’t just weather storms. In order to survive that long, you have to be doing something positive, having a meaningful impact, meeting the needs of the people. And so I think that’s a true testament to their survival.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Especially at a time when there’s so much change in the Bay Area and so much change in Oakland over the last even just 20 years, let alone 120 years.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Especially at a time when there’s so much change in the Bay Area and so much change in Oakland over the last even just 20 years, let alone 120 years.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Oh, absolutely. I mean, just say post-pandemic. Let’s just be in the last five years. It has been really different because, prior to the pandemic, we had a lot of people attending services. During the pandemic, people were not allowed to gather. And then post-pandemic, there was a large falling away.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Oh, absolutely. I mean, just say post-pandemic. Let’s just be in the last five years. It has been really different because, prior to the pandemic, we had a lot of people attending services. During the pandemic, people were not allowed to gather. And then post-pandemic, there was a large falling away.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But now we have this political and social climate that we’re currently existing in that, to me, has more people turning back to places of faith, to their faith, in order to find how to navigate through the challenging and difficult days that we’re facing right now.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But now we have this political and social climate that we’re currently existing in that, to me, has more people turning back to places of faith, to their faith, in order to find how to navigate through the challenging and difficult days that we’re facing right now.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s bring in a couple of callers here. Let’s go to Art in West Sacramento. Welcome, Art.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s bring in a couple of callers here. Let’s go to Art in West Sacramento. Welcome, Art.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Art:\u003c/strong> Hi.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Art:\u003c/strong> Hi.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Hi. Hello? Yep, we can hear you. Go ahead.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Hi. Hello? Yep, we can hear you. Go ahead.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Art:\u003c/strong> Okay.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Art:\u003c/strong> Okay.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We could hear you, at least, that is to say. Sorry about that, Art. We’ll try and come back to you. I don’t know what’s going on with the phones this morning.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We could hear you, at least, that is to say. Sorry about that, Art. We’ll try and come back to you. I don’t know what’s going on with the phones this morning.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Let’s talk a little bit about one major topic. And maybe, Rabbi Jacqueline, I’ll come to you on this. One of the things that I think has been — I don’t want to put a value judgment on it — but many people have gone to AI chatbots, kind of asking for life advice, even borderline spiritual advice, as people try to figure out what they want and find meaning in life. How do you approach something like that and kind of bring people towards other people?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Let’s talk a little bit about one major topic. And maybe, Rabbi Jacqueline, I’ll come to you on this. One of the things that I think has been — I don’t want to put a value judgment on it — but many people have gone to AI chatbots, kind of asking for life advice, even borderline spiritual advice, as people try to figure out what they want and find meaning in life. How do you approach something like that and kind of bring people towards other people?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> I think it’s rough, just because everybody needs to find an outlet that makes the most sense for them. I think the best thing that we can do is to ensure a thriving community and make people aware that we are here if they want to connect.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> I think it’s rough, just because everybody needs to find an outlet that makes the most sense for them. I think the best thing that we can do is to ensure a thriving community and make people aware that we are here if they want to connect.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, I think it is hard to hear sometimes folks say that they don’t go to religious institutions because they think that we’re going to be dogmatic. But you actually don’t know what’s happening unless you give it a try.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, I think it is hard to hear sometimes folks say that they don’t go to religious institutions because they think that we’re going to be dogmatic. But you actually don’t know what’s happening unless you give it a try.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So it is a worry in our world now that folks are tending to be a little bit more isolated and not necessarily wanting to make themselves vulnerable, which can happen if you are a part of a community. Then you become a part of the community in all sorts of ways.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So it is a worry in our world now that folks are tending to be a little bit more isolated and not necessarily wanting to make themselves vulnerable, which can happen if you are a part of a community. Then you become a part of the community in all sorts of ways.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But my hope is just that if you’re curious, if you have any desire to see what it is, or even if you’re thinking that we are saying one thing, you know, come in and see if it’s true. And hopefully you’ll be able to find a community that’s meaningful. And if it isn’t meaningful, then that’s okay, too.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But my hope is just that if you’re curious, if you have any desire to see what it is, or even if you’re thinking that we are saying one thing, you know, come in and see if it’s true. And hopefully you’ll be able to find a community that’s meaningful. And if it isn’t meaningful, then that’s okay, too.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Jim, one of the things that I think is interesting about some of the research around these things is that our churches have gotten more sorted politically. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Jim, one of the things that I think is interesting about some of the research around these things is that our churches have gotten more sorted politically. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I also want to point out one thing, since you had one of the people who wrote in about the Buddhist Church of Oakland. That group not only survived the experience of Japanese American incarceration during the Second World War, they also survived the interstate road system.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I also want to point out one thing, since you had one of the people who wrote in about the Buddhist Church of Oakland. That group not only survived the experience of Japanese American incarceration during the Second World War, they also survived the interstate road system.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>That’s one of the churches that, under eminent domain, was slated for destruction, and the people in it actually sawed it in half, put it on trucks, and moved it, preserving it. So there’s lots of vicissitudes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>That’s one of the churches that, under eminent domain, was slated for destruction, and the people in it actually sawed it in half, put it on trucks, and moved it, preserving it. So there’s lots of vicissitudes.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>One of the messages that came out of doing this research for me about religious life in Oakland was just its extraordinary resiliency. But, in any event, on the question you asked, if you go back not very long ago, maybe even to the turn of the century—\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>One of the messages that came out of doing this research for me about religious life in Oakland was just its extraordinary resiliency. But, in any event, on the question you asked, if you go back not very long ago, maybe even to the turn of the century—\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That is to say, the year 2000.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That is to say, the year 2000.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Correct. The people sitting in the pews next to you were just as likely to be Democrats as they were likely to be Republicans. And that is manifestly not the case now.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Correct. The people sitting in the pews next to you were just as likely to be Democrats as they were likely to be Republicans. And that is manifestly not the case now.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I mean, the process of people moving away from traditional religions and denominations is across the board. It’s happening among evangelicals, mainstream Protestants, Catholics, and so forth, but it does correlate with political affiliation.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>I mean, the process of people moving away from traditional religions and denominations is across the board. It’s happening among evangelicals, mainstream Protestants, Catholics, and so forth, but it does correlate with political affiliation.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And one of the things that, to me, is most alarming as someone who grew up in a Christian tradition is the way in which that tradition in our country today is increasingly being appropriated or donned as a mantle by certain kinds of political actors who, I think, make a mockery of the teachings of the person they profess to worship.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And one of the things that, to me, is most alarming as someone who grew up in a Christian tradition is the way in which that tradition in our country today is increasingly being appropriated or donned as a mantle by certain kinds of political actors who, I think, make a mockery of the teachings of the person they profess to worship.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I don’t mean to be overly political about this, but I think that’s happened. I think a very large part of the movement away from orthodox religion in recent years — there’s been a dramatic, phenomenal outflow of people, measured in millions nationally, in the wake of the election of 2016, for example.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I don’t mean to be overly political about this, but I think that’s happened. I think a very large part of the movement away from orthodox religion in recent years — there’s been a dramatic, phenomenal outflow of people, measured in millions nationally, in the wake of the election of 2016, for example.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so that’s clearly one of the things that’s happening now, and I think it’s really unhealthy for our country. You know, part of what the United States always had was a very robust civic life, not just churches, but Rotary clubs and bowling leagues, and the list goes on and on, including Little Leagues, where you routinely interacted with people who voted for different political parties from you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so that’s clearly one of the things that’s happening now, and I think it’s really unhealthy for our country. You know, part of what the United States always had was a very robust civic life, not just churches, but Rotary clubs and bowling leagues, and the list goes on and on, including Little Leagues, where you routinely interacted with people who voted for different political parties from you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>That tradition is eroding in our society, and I think that’s very threatening for our democracy.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>That tradition is eroding in our society, and I think that’s very threatening for our democracy.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s see if we can get Art in West Sacramento back here.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s see if we can get Art in West Sacramento back here.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Art:\u003c/strong> Hey, Art, sorry about that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Art:\u003c/strong> Hey, Art, sorry about that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Hey, no worries.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Hey, no worries.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Art:\u003c/strong> I’m 11th in a family of 15. I was a former Catholic, Seventh-day Adventist, Pentecostal. I was going on the Pentecostal track. I attended the University of California, Davis. I decided that I could not become a Pentecostal minister because they wanted me to preach against my sister being a lesbian. And I said, “She’s not going to hell. It’s not possible. I cannot preach that way.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Art:\u003c/strong> I’m 11th in a family of 15. I was a former Catholic, Seventh-day Adventist, Pentecostal. I was going on the Pentecostal track. I attended the University of California, Davis. I decided that I could not become a Pentecostal minister because they wanted me to preach against my sister being a lesbian. And I said, “She’s not going to hell. It’s not possible. I cannot preach that way.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And it turns out the guy that was leading me was actually using me as a young person to paint homes and making money off of me, and just was running a puppy mill later on in life. This guy was being sued by the city that I grew up in.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And it turns out the guy that was leading me was actually using me as a young person to paint homes and making money off of me, and just was running a puppy mill later on in life. This guy was being sued by the city that I grew up in.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It just is really… And then let’s add to that things like Tammy Faye, Tammy’s magic stories that come out of… And it’s no wonder, in my mind, why we have the kind of leadership we have in the country, in one way.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It just is really… And then let’s add to that things like Tammy Faye, Tammy’s magic stories that come out of… And it’s no wonder, in my mind, why we have the kind of leadership we have in the country, in one way.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The second part is that, of course, people are going to turn away from things that they can’t have trust in. And to rebuild that trust doesn’t necessarily come down to belief in God or some supernatural power, because people have that. What they don’t believe in is the people who are mediating the process. And I’ll leave it at that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The second part is that, of course, people are going to turn away from things that they can’t have trust in. And to rebuild that trust doesn’t necessarily come down to belief in God or some supernatural power, because people have that. What they don’t believe in is the people who are mediating the process. And I’ll leave it at that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thank you. Great, great comment. I’m glad you hung with us there.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thank you. Great, great comment. I’m glad you hung with us there.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I mean, yeah, Pastor Michael, I think this is, you know, growing up in an era of televangelists myself, and just seeing them on and being like, “Boy, what is this? What does this have to do with the Bible or anything?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I mean, yeah, Pastor Michael, I think this is, you know, growing up in an era of televangelists myself, and just seeing them on and being like, “Boy, what is this? What does this have to do with the Bible or anything?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Well, yeah. I mean, without question, the swell of the televangelists over the years, particularly during that era, was enormous because they were on the airwaves 24/7. You could not miss it. And as a result, those individuals became bigger than life.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Well, yeah. I mean, without question, the swell of the televangelists over the years, particularly during that era, was enormous because they were on the airwaves 24/7. You could not miss it. And as a result, those individuals became bigger than life.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so what you have is a personality-driven church. And anytime you have a personality-driven church, that means it’s centered around the human being that’s, quote-unquote, the personality of that church. And so when that personality is defective or false, then that whole movement shifts to a decline.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so what you have is a personality-driven church. And anytime you have a personality-driven church, that means it’s centered around the human being that’s, quote-unquote, the personality of that church. And so when that personality is defective or false, then that whole movement shifts to a decline.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so that’s what we’ve seen with some of the great movements, from Jimmy Swaggart to Jim Bakker to many others who were personality-driven.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so that’s what we’ve seen with some of the great movements, from Jimmy Swaggart to Jim Bakker to many others who were personality-driven.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so what we have to do, and I think our society is demanding this, is shift from personality-driven to either Christ-centered or centered on whomever your higher authority is. But it has to be centered on that person and not the human individual.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so what we have to do, and I think our society is demanding this, is shift from personality-driven to either Christ-centered or centered on whomever your higher authority is. But it has to be centered on that person and not the human individual.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sundiata?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sundiata?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> I mean, I think it’s fine for people. I mean, for me, it’s not one size fits all. So, like, there are probably many Muslims who don’t go to the mosque, but they’re still Muslim, you know what I’m saying? And then there are many Muslims who do go to the mosque.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> I mean, I think it’s fine for people. I mean, for me, it’s not one size fits all. So, like, there are probably many Muslims who don’t go to the mosque, but they’re still Muslim, you know what I’m saying? And then there are many Muslims who do go to the mosque.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There might be, you know, like in Oakland, we might have 10 or 11 masajid, or mosques. For me, if Lighthouse isn’t your thing and you want to go to, you know, we always name our mosques after streets, 31st Street or 47th or whatever, I’m always fine with that. I’m like, that’s cool, just do you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There might be, you know, like in Oakland, we might have 10 or 11 masajid, or mosques. For me, if Lighthouse isn’t your thing and you want to go to, you know, we always name our mosques after streets, 31st Street or 47th or whatever, I’m always fine with that. I’m like, that’s cool, just do you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, like, for somebody who might have had a tragic experience and got turned away from religion, I’m not going to try to recruit them or try to get them back. They should just do what they’re comfortable with, you know what I’m saying?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, like, for somebody who might have had a tragic experience and got turned away from religion, I’m not going to try to recruit them or try to get them back. They should just do what they’re comfortable with, you know what I’m saying?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Let’s bring in Gail in Oakland with a comment here. Welcome, Gail.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Let’s bring in Gail in Oakland with a comment here. Welcome, Gail.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gail:\u003c/strong> Kate, thanks, Alexis. Nice to talk to you. I knew you in my former iteration as an Oakland restaurant owner.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gail:\u003c/strong> Kate, thanks, Alexis. Nice to talk to you. I knew you in my former iteration as an Oakland restaurant owner.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I wanted to let listeners know or remind them about the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir. I’m a member of the Oakland Interfaith Community Choir, which is one of the sister choirs under the umbrella of OIGC. And OIGC has been around for 41 years, and I’ve been singing with them and recently became a board member because I love it so much.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I wanted to let listeners know or remind them about the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir. I’m a member of the Oakland Interfaith Community Choir, which is one of the sister choirs under the umbrella of OIGC. And OIGC has been around for 41 years, and I’ve been singing with them and recently became a board member because I love it so much.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s a huge joy in my life, and I think a beautiful reflection of the 23 religions represented in our choir, singing together, learning a lot about Black history, really inspiring joy in our audiences and our performances, and just an incredible reflection of the diversity of Oakland.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It’s a huge joy in my life, and I think a beautiful reflection of the 23 religions represented in our choir, singing together, learning a lot about Black history, really inspiring joy in our audiences and our performances, and just an incredible reflection of the diversity of Oakland.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It’s kind of like the sonic version of your project, Nicolò.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It’s kind of like the sonic version of your project, Nicolò.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I would like to take the opportunity to invite you to come and sing at 1500 Broadway.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I would like to take the opportunity to invite you to come and sing at 1500 Broadway.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Oh, yeah, that’s a good idea, actually. The Oakland Interfaith Choir is absolutely amazing. Minister Terrence Kelly, who has served as the leader of that, they do a tremendous job. It’s a collective collaboration of many faith traditions coming together and unified, pulling in the same direction. And they are really amazing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Oh, yeah, that’s a good idea, actually. The Oakland Interfaith Choir is absolutely amazing. Minister Terrence Kelly, who has served as the leader of that, they do a tremendous job. It’s a collective collaboration of many faith traditions coming together and unified, pulling in the same direction. And they are really amazing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Gail, the people want to hear you sing, though.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Gail, the people want to hear you sing, though.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gail:\u003c/strong> That’s not going to happen. It’s totally fine, but I’m going to come to our conference.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gail:\u003c/strong> That’s not going to happen. It’s totally fine, but I’m going to come to our conference.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I had to try. I had to try. Producer Grace made me.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I had to try. I had to try. Producer Grace made me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gail:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you had to try. Good try, good try.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gail:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you had to try. Good try, good try.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> All right, thank you, Gail. Thank you so much. Lots of comments here from listeners who’ve just found their place, which is kind of nice.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> All right, thank you, Gail. Thank you so much. Lots of comments here from listeners who’ve just found their place, which is kind of nice.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Rishi on the Discord writes, “I’m so glad to have found my local UCC congregational church of Sunnyvale. Progressive but not zealous, just kind, sensible people. I love my UCC church for the solstice celebration. I also try to practice nonsectarian meditation, a way of life taught by the Buddha. And I volunteered at a local food distribution organization founded by a group of like-minded Indians. As my Hindu saints told me, helping others is doing God’s work.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Rishi on the Discord writes, “I’m so glad to have found my local UCC congregational church of Sunnyvale. Progressive but not zealous, just kind, sensible people. I love my UCC church for the solstice celebration. I also try to practice nonsectarian meditation, a way of life taught by the Buddha. And I volunteered at a local food distribution organization founded by a group of like-minded Indians. As my Hindu saints told me, helping others is doing God’s work.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So many. Here’s another comment. Gina writes, “I grew up attending a couple of different Oakland synagogues, but as a young person, I couldn’t see what relevance most of these ancient Jewish texts and rules could have to my life. And I couldn’t believe in the God I saw represented there.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So many. Here’s another comment. Gina writes, “I grew up attending a couple of different Oakland synagogues, but as a young person, I couldn’t see what relevance most of these ancient Jewish texts and rules could have to my life. And I couldn’t believe in the God I saw represented there.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“I saw the problems religious conflict had caused throughout history and how religion was used as a reason to cast out certain types of people, and I wanted none of it. But once I had a kid, I decided to keep an open mind and seek out a different approach to bringing Judaism into my life, into my family.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“I saw the problems religious conflict had caused throughout history and how religion was used as a reason to cast out certain types of people, and I wanted none of it. But once I had a kid, I decided to keep an open mind and seek out a different approach to bringing Judaism into my life, into my family.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“I found an organization called Jewish Gateways, a community based in Albany that doesn’t have its own building but offers a variety of educational programs for families and adults that have changed my perspective on Judaism and helped me see its relevance to living an ethical and meaningful life in community.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“I found an organization called Jewish Gateways, a community based in Albany that doesn’t have its own building but offers a variety of educational programs for families and adults that have changed my perspective on Judaism and helped me see its relevance to living an ethical and meaningful life in community.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Rabbi Jacqueline, how often do you see someone come back to the temple because they want their family to have some of this shared basis of faith?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Rabbi Jacqueline, how often do you see someone come back to the temple because they want their family to have some of this shared basis of faith?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> I actually think it’s very common that folks, once they have children and want to try to help create a lens and help their kids form their identity, it’s very common for folks to come back and want to put their kids into a religious school and Hebrew school, and to have them have some sense of what it means to be a part of the Jewish community.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> I actually think it’s very common that folks, once they have children and want to try to help create a lens and help their kids form their identity, it’s very common for folks to come back and want to put their kids into a religious school and Hebrew school, and to have them have some sense of what it means to be a part of the Jewish community.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I’d say it’s actually very common, and I appreciate it. I think that that’s a part of the stage of life that makes a lot of sense, that you’re developing a sense of your home and your household, with traditions and roots. And so it’s very welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I’d say it’s actually very common, and I appreciate it. I think that that’s a part of the stage of life that makes a lot of sense, that you’re developing a sense of your home and your household, with traditions and roots. And so it’s very welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Last one. Alison writes, “I found the Oakland Unitarian Church along with my partner fairly recently. We needed a faith community that was engaged in resistance to the cruelty of our current national politics. It has been wonderful to be engaged with other seekers who have made the commitment to not accept our present circumstances, but rather to fight for justice for all marginalized people. It is a spiritual quest and a way to feel connected to what is good.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Last one. Alison writes, “I found the Oakland Unitarian Church along with my partner fairly recently. We needed a faith community that was engaged in resistance to the cruelty of our current national politics. It has been wonderful to be engaged with other seekers who have made the commitment to not accept our present circumstances, but rather to fight for justice for all marginalized people. It is a spiritual quest and a way to feel connected to what is good.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We have been talking about religious communities in Oakland and the future of religious traditions. You can go take a look at the Oakland Faith Project’s exhibition at 1500 Broadway.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We have been talking about religious communities in Oakland and the future of religious traditions. You can go take a look at the Oakland Faith Project’s exhibition at 1500 Broadway.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’ve been joined by its founder, Nicolò Sertorio. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We’ve been joined by its founder, Nicolò Sertorio. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> All right. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> All right. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And Jim Campbell, Edgar E. Robinson Professor in United States History at Stanford. Thank you. Might have lost him.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And Jim Campbell, Edgar E. Robinson Professor in United States History at Stanford. Thank you. Might have lost him.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin at Temple Sinai, thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin at Temple Sinai, thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> Thank you. Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> Thank you. Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sundiata Rashid from Lighthouse Mosque, thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sundiata Rashid from Lighthouse Mosque, thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And Michael Wallace, pastor at Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in West Oakland. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And Michael Wallace, pastor at Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in West Oakland. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thanks so much to all of our callers and listeners. Sorry about those problems on the phones. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with Mina.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thanks so much to all of our callers and listeners. Sorry about those problems on the phones. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with Mina.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Announcer:\u003c/strong> Funds for the production of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> are provided by the Jenerosity Family Fund and the members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Tuesday, October 13, 2026 at 9 AM\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Oakland is home to dozens of houses of worship, and the “Oakland Faith Project,” aims to document these spaces and their leaders at a time when many are turning away from religion. Photographer and documentarian Nicolò Sertorio’s website includes stark black and white photography and interviews with religious leaders who represent various walks of life, identity and beliefs. We’ll talk with Sertorio, project partners and some of Oakland’s religious leaders about “de-churching” in the Bay Area and the future of organized religion. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio\u003c/strong>, founder, artist and photographer, Oakland Faith Project\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>James Campbell,\u003c/strong> Edgar E Robinson professor in United States History, Stanford University; partner, Oakland Faith Project\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin,\u003c/strong> senior rabbi, Temple Sinai\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid,\u003c/strong> imam, Lighthouse Mosque; Muslim Chaplain, University of San Francisco\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace,\u003c/strong> pastor, Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Like many people, Nicolò Sertorio had his life turned upside down by COVID. He was a photographer, and suddenly his normal business was gone. Italian by birth and raised by two science professors, he’d been on his own spiritual path and had been struck by the pluralism of the religious scene in his adoptive home of Oakland. So when the pandemic started, he set out on a personal quest to photograph all of the city’s churches, mosques, synagogues, and other places of worship. Four hundred and sixty-six locations later, the Oakland Faith Project has expanded to include portraits of faith leaders and fascinating audio of them talking about their views and work in the community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So this hour, we’re going to be joined by some faith leaders, as well as the Oakland Faith Project folks. We’re joined first by Nicolò himself. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’re also joined by James Campbell, Edgar E. Robinson Professor in United States History at Stanford, a partner and, I guess, the house historian at the Oakland Faith Project. Welcome, Jim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Nicolò, when COVID hit, you started this project. What do you think you were getting from this work of photographing these houses of worship?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> Well, taking a brief step back, like you mentioned, and you can probably derive from my accent, I grew up in Italy. And so I was used to having pretty much just one church in each town, the Roman Catholic church. And they typically all kind of look the same. They’re all made of stone in the shape of a cross.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So one of the first things that really struck me when I came, moved to the U.S. was the number and diversity of houses of worship, particularly in Oakland, and how free and diverse they are. At the same time, I kept noticing how many of them were shutting down, being torn down, or reconverted into private apartments. And for years, I was wondering why nobody was recording this cultural phenomenon happening right around us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, like you mentioned, when COVID hit and all of a sudden all my businesses were shut down within hours, I realized this was something I was the one who had to do, and this was the perfect time. Honestly, at the time, I didn’t know what I was getting into.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> But do you consider yourself more or less religious since you started working on this?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> Oh, since I started? Yeah. Um, interesting question. I still consider myself spiritual but not religious, but I was positively impressed by the people that I met during this project. And so I confess I might have entered with a little bit of a bias from my Italian heritage, and instead I found people who are truly open-minded and liberal, and many have become friends.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s cool. Jim, give us some of the sociological context here. I mean, we know in Europe, obviously, religious affiliation started declining a long time ago. And the U.S. didn’t really follow that trend at first, but now has.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think the United States is an outlier in this. There’s just no question. You know, when we started getting a General Social Survey in the 1970s, American respondents were asked — I don’t think it was a very finely grained survey. It’s given every two years. You had five categories. You could identify yourself as Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, another world religion, or none of the above, religiously unaffiliated.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>When that survey started, about 5% of Americans identified themselves as religiously unaffiliated. By the 1990s, believe it or not, that figure had only gone up to about 7%. Today, the General Social Survey has that figure over 30%. Some surveys put it significantly higher, particularly among younger people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So the general phenomenon does look like what happened in Europe, a kind of broad process of de-churching, but it’s happening considerably later in this country.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Do you think it’s just de-churching, or is it secularization? Are there ways of thinking about splitting out people who are spiritual but not religious?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> That’s a great question. When Nicolò just said, “Well, I consider myself spiritual but not religious,” that’s probably the largest church, if you will, in the United States in some fashion.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So there’s a debate among scholars about this, whether what we’re seeing represents a process of secularization per se, or more a shift in the meaning of spirituality or in the nature of religious experience. There’s a scholar, Robert, I think at Princeton, who writes about this, and a distinction he makes is a shift between what he calls a spirituality of dwelling, which is, you know, you attend the same church every week that your parents attended, and so forth, to a spirituality of seeking.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think that’s a really thought-provoking distinction. For me, a lot of Americans feel free now to fashion spiritual creeds of their own from eclectic materials, in ways that might look less orthodox on the surface. But if you scratch at it and start asking them about specific religious beliefs — do they believe in an afterlife? Do they believe in the presence of angels? — you find actually surprisingly orthodox beliefs even among many people who profess to be religiously unaffiliated.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Is there anything specific about our history of religion here in the Bay Area, or in Oakland even more specifically, that’s worth dwelling on?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Well, you know, there certainly is a stereotype in the rest of the country that this area is full of godless heathens.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> That we’re this kind of godless, forlorn people. I mean, I think the most significant factor here, which really defines the entire Bay Area and Oakland specifically, is that it’s a city of immigrants, and it always has been.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Churches and mosques and synagogues and other houses of worship have played a critical role in enabling immigrant communities to find their feet in a new setting, and also to retain some connection to ways of being, cultural practices, linguistic practices, even foodways, of the nations that they have left behind.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And that is certainly what happened in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as Italians and Irish arrived. There were seven different Lutheran churches here in the early 20th century for various Scandinavian migrants. And now you would see the same thing with immigrants from Tonga, Ethiopia, or Eritrea.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So in that sense, there’s a kind of persistent through line. It’s just different immigrant groups, and the specifics of their religious practices might look different.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Interesting. Nicolò, as you worked on this project, you had a vision for what you wanted to ask these faith leaders about, right? You didn’t want just a general conversation. You had some specific things you asked them. What did you want to know from these faith leaders?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> So I wanted to scratch a little bit under the surface. I wanted to talk to them about the issues that are happening around Oakland, and some of the issues that, at least in my upbringing, had pushed people away from traditional churchgoing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I’ve asked them about same-sex marriage. I’ve asked them about the drug epidemic, about the role of their church vis-à-vis politics. And that’s how I started to be so positively surprised by the people I was talking to.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Great. Well, let’s bring in a few of these faith leaders that we’ve got here. We’ve got Jacqueline Mates-Muchin, who’s senior rabbi at Temple Sinai. Welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We’ve got Sundiata Rashid, who’s an imam at Lighthouse Mosque and also the Muslim chaplain at the University of San Francisco. Welcome!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> Thank you!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And we’ve got Michael Wallace, pastor at Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> We’re having a s—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks so much for coming in, everyone. What was it like, Michael Wallace, to have Nicolò come to you and say, “Hey, I want to photograph the church. I want to talk to you about things”?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> When he shared his vision that he wanted to highlight the faith community and Oakland’s legacy as a faith mecca for many different faiths, I was extremely excited and definitely lent all my support behind the project.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I thought that we have such a rich legacy in faith and in the city of Oakland, and so I wanted to be a part of that and make sure we captured the historic aspects of the faith community in Oakland over the years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And your church rank goes back to 1870, is that right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Our church was actually established in 1922, so we’re 104 years in the West Oakland community. We have primarily served as the mecca church. Many churches have come out of our church.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But more importantly, when many of our ancestors migrated from the South to the North to work in the shipyards, naval supply, on the trains, and things of that nature, they all came to Mount Zion. And we housed veterans after the wars, so it has always been a community hub for the community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Cynthia, what’s the brief summary of how the Lighthouse Mosque came about?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> So the Lighthouse Mosque, we definitely didn’t start in 1922. We started in about 2007, and in 2013 we were actually able to purchase the church that we’re at now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And yeah, so we’re really the new people on the block. We’re really the new ones, because I grew up in West Oakland, South Berkeley, so I remember all of the Star Bethel and Mount Zion. Those are kind of the historical churches I remember in the East Bay.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, I love Pastor Mike Wallace. We actually went to Los Angeles together one time. No, I’m saying—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And so, yeah. Yeah, that’s great. And Jacqueline Mates-Muchin, tell us a little bit about Temple Sinai.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> So Temple Sinai was actually founded in 1875, so we’re almost 151 years old. And we had a couple of different locations, but our current sanctuary was finished the same year that Oakland City Hall was finished. So we really see ourselves as a part of the growth of Oakland over time, and have been a consistent presence here in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s great. So we’re going to get into a discussion between all these faith leaders about the things that they’re seeing in the community. And, of course, we also want to hear from our listeners.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Are you a member of a faith community in Oakland or your city? Do you seek comfort in those spaces, or have you moved away from it? Or do you consider yourself religious or spiritual but not religious? We want to hear your story. 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786. You can email Forum at kqed.org. Friends on Bluesky, on Instagram, on Discord, we’re KQED Forum.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This morning, we’ve got Nicolò Sertorio, who’s founder, artist, and photographer at the Oakland Faith Project. We’ve got James Campbell. He’s a professor in United States history at Stanford, and we’ve got three faith leaders with us. We’ve got Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin, Sundiata Rashid, imam at Lighthouse Mosque, and Pastor Mike Wallace from Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more right after the break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Well, welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Alexis Madrigal. We’re here talking with faith leaders about the Oakland Faith Project. We’ve got Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin from Temple Sinai. We’ve got Sundiata Rashid from Lighthouse Mosque. We’ve got Mike Wallace from Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Sundiata, let’s talk a little bit about how you got started on the path to becoming an imam at this mosque.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so, you know, I’m a Pisces. No, I’m just playing. No, so I actually, okay, yeah. So when I was younger, I was in the U.S. Marine Corps, and I was Muslim when I went in. And during the Gulf War, a lot of service people converted to Islam.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But there weren’t a lot of people who knew about Islam. So because I already had been Muslim, I just kind of got pushed into this thing of teaching people how to pray, leading services, working with other people who were called lay leaders in the military. So they weren’t like the chaplain, but they might run services at a certain base or something like that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So then that kind of carried over. When I got out of the military, I kept on trying to teach classes and doing that for different masajid. And then in 2007, I ended up at Lighthouse Mosque, and Imam Zaid Shakir, who started the mosque, found out that I taught classes and he called me one time. I was so starstruck. He was like, “Oh, this is Imam Zaid Shakir,” and I was like, “Stop playing on my phone. Who’s this?” And he’s like, “No, it’s really Imam Zaid Shakir.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>He started asking me to teach and get involved, and now, from 2008 until now, that’s just what I’ve been kind of doing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, Jacqueline, you’re the first Chinese American rabbi in the U.S., as I understand it. What does that distinction mean? How do you think it shaped your spiritual journey?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> I actually think it has given me a unique perspective of being able to understand multiple communities and see myself as belonging and grounded in multiple histories and heritages.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think that has actually been a really good experience when we look at Oakland and we see Oakland’s amazing diversity, and the approach that we try to have to be open and understanding of where everyone’s coming from. We recognize that we’re going to the same place. We’re all trying to make the world a better place, and we’re trying to do good here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think it’s been really helpful in trying to get a much, much broader picture of life and experience.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, Pastor Mike, did you grow up in the church?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Yes, I did. I grew up in a Christian family. I’m really grateful for my parents. My father served as a deacon in a church, and my mother was an evangelist, one of the first women evangelists in a local church. And so I grew up in a Christian home. I was saved and baptized at the age of 11, and I thank God for my journey.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>With respect to this, that’s on my life. I knew it early on in life, that I had a sacred calling on my life as a teenager. As I progressed through school and college, I pursued a legal profession. So I worked in the legal profession for a number of years and then transitioned over to finance.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>For a while, I served as associate minister at the New St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church in West Oakland, where I received acknowledgment of my calling. And then I served under Dr. C.J. Anderson at the St. John Missionary Baptist Church. He was a historic pastor in our community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Continuing to work in the finance industry for a number of years, I accepted my call bivocationally. I was associate minister at the local church, and I worked in finance. And I received the call to go to the historic Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church. I retired from finance and went full-time into ministry. And now I’ve served at Mount Zion as senior pastor for the last 18 years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> What does a senior pastor do?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Well, it varies from church to church, but you basically oversee the whole operation in the ministry. You cast a vision, you empower the people to run with the vision, you teach, you preach, you lead, you serve, and the most important thing is that you serve the people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I am constantly trying to meet the needs of our congregation, as well as the needs of the greater community, because my calling is beyond the four walls of the church. And so, as a result, I try to empower our people to take the ministry from beyond the stained-glass windows to the community, to the heart of the people, and try to meet people right—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Where they are. Sundiata, how do you take that on, like the kind of going beyond the walls of the mosque?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> You know, um, I’ve just always been kind of a people person myself, so I love to get out and talk to folks.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I was telling Nicolò earlier that, really, the pandemic was kind of an opportunity, because when a lot of mosques were closed in Oakland, we actually started doing our services at a local park. That park is known in West Oakland. It’s Mr. Fab’s Park. And so people would see us there, and people who wanted to come to a service started coming to our park service.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so after the pandemic, we almost had a whole new congregation of all these new folks who found us, just because we kept operating. We kind of tried to keep things going, because I myself just don’t like to be by myself. So even in a pandemic, I was like, “I gotta get a microphone and talk to people.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There’s something about ministers and microphones. We just can’t leave them alone. It’s like—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I understand. We might share this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> You know, Jacqueline, let’s talk a little bit about the people who are not affiliated with a particular faith institution, even if they consider themselves to be religious in some ways. You noted to the Oakland Faith Project that actually a small portion of Jewish residents in Oakland belong to a synagogue. Why do you think that is?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> You know, I think, and it was sort of mentioned by Dr. Campbell earlier as well, that there is a sense of spirituality that’s in the water in the Bay Area, especially in the East Bay. So I think that there are some folks who find that sense of spirituality and connection and community in different sorts of places.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Jewish community, or rather, a synagogue, has always been the center of Jewish life. So for some folks, they come around because they feel specifically religious, and for other folks, they’re looking for community or that shared sense of heritage and ethnicity that Judaism is, and so they’re looking to develop their sense of Jewish identity.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, we have found actually in the last couple of years, with the uptick in antisemitism, that there are more people who are seeking out synagogues and seeking out community in that way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think the question of why aren’t there more is always a great question, but I’m really glad to see that there are folks who are, and I’m proud to know that we’re kind of a through line throughout the history here, so that if and when people want to connect, we are here for them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> One listener writes in to say, you know, Eddie writes, “My primary struggle with organized religion is the message that their approach is the right way to worship God. I don’t believe that God is so vain as to require that we worship them or worship in any specific way. I believe that’s one reason many people have shifted to spirituality over religion. You can choose how you want to appreciate God.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>James Campbell, this strikes me as quite a modern sensibility, right, that someone would see things in this way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Look, I think this is absolutely right. And in some ways, the attitude you’ve just reflected or expressed in that quotation immediately harkens to the great cultural ruptures of the 1960s and early 1970s, when the Bay Area was kind of ground zero. And not just in the realm of organized religion, but in an extraordinary array of different registers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Young people and seekers of various kinds were not necessarily rejecting spirituality, not rejecting community, but rejecting what they regarded as the ossified forms in which that had come to be expressed. And I think the roots of an enormous cultural war that we are still fighting in some fashion today are embedded in that quotation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Nicolò, your project is a tiny bit different, even just as I think about its underlying philosophy, right? It’s not just to go away from all these institutions. It’s actually to go into as many of them as possible, which is kind of different.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> So first of all, I just wanted to add something to the earlier conversation. I think the spiritual leaders may have been too modest to mention that a lot of these houses of worship play a very vital role in the city beyond the church walls, supporting the community, providing food, shelter, showers, safe housing in their parking lots overnight. And that is a very important role that we need to acknowledge about what the houses of worship are doing in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In terms of your question, I think it kind of links the points together in that, although I belong to that growing denomination, I, like everybody else, have this thirst for a higher self and belonging and community. And so, maybe consciously or unconsciously, there was a desire to understand and explore that world around me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the extreme fascination with this incredible diversity — one of the big parts that brought me to the project was, as you mentioned, during COVID, when everything was locked down and there was all this bad news about Oakland, I wanted to focus on something positive. And to me, having multiple denominations literally sometimes next door to each other, if you go on International Boulevard in Oakland, that’s something very unique. And that’s something very powerful that also reflects the ethnic and social diversity of the city.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Of Oakland. Sundiata, one of the things that I have wondered about is how having this war in Gaza, having a war in Iran, having these things going on around the world ends up reflecting back for you inside the mosque.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> You know, so I think a lot of those tragedies do build up attendance at the mosque. Because I think one of the things is that when people leave organized religion, that might be almost a sense of entitlement because they’re not going through things in life.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, like, once they start — if you were even here and you were kind of comfortable, but you’re identifying with your relatives or even just Muslims who you feel an affinity for because of the same religion, and you see the things happening to them — you’ll still be looking for those signs of spiritual answers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so a lot of times, that’s what religious institutions provide. It’s like, we can answer some of the questions. And like the guy said, sometimes it might be dogmatic, like, “This is the right answer, and anything else is astray.” But I think that most people who encounter religion are just looking for an answer to some of the grief that they’re feeling.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And those institutions, like the mosque, especially during the genocide in Gaza and those kinds of things, were able to drive up attendance, get people coming out and organizing. So many programs at the mosque were centered around those kinds of things that were happening in Iran and things like that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Um, another listener, Ryan, and Rabbi Jacqueline, this one’s coming to you. Ryan writes, “I grew up in a secular Jewish household in Boise, Idaho. I later married a man who was raised observant in the South Bay, and I waded hesitantly but excitedly into a more Jewish life. In 2022, we sent our first child to Temple Sinai’s preschool program.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“But after the events of October 7, 2023, and the Israeli attacks on Gaza, both of us began feeling increasingly uncomfortable being associated with Jewish organizations that did not condemn those attacks. For the first time in my life, I feel ashamed to be Jewish. But even sadder for me is that this is also true for my husband. He used to take great comfort in his religious practice.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I think we’re at a generational turning point for Jewish Americans that will drive many of us further from the faith.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Obviously, this has been an incredibly difficult issue across American life, but specifically Jewish life. How have you been counseling people in your congregation?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> So I think there’s a wide range of ways to understand what is happening and different ways to talk about it. I will say that it’s kind of hard to hear “the genocide in Gaza,” which I wasn’t necessarily expecting in this particular conversation. But I will save that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think the role of the synagogue is to grapple with the word Israel, because the country is actually named after the people. So we call ourselves Israel, Yisrael, and it means those who wrestle with God.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so the point of being a part of a Jewish community is to be able to bring your concerns, bring your questions, bring your values, and bring your frustrations together so that we can have those kinds of conversations and figure out what it means for all of us. And it’s totally fine to disagree on certain kinds of things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think the problem that we’re seeing right now, not just in the Jewish community but in a much greater way, is that people are choosing sides and teams and not having those kinds of conversations, not trying to understand other people and grapple with the things that are happening in the world and the things happening in our lives.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I would actually argue that if you are looking for a place to be able to do that, it might not be one synagogue or one church or one mosque or the other, but it could be somewhere in that realm where you can find places to wrestle with the things that are difficult and be able to understand what it means for your life.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Michael Wallace, how do you see your role in this sort of cross-faith collaboration? Do you do a lot of it? Do you not do a lot of it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> We engage a lot in collaboration across denominational lines, faith traditions, generations, as well as culture. It’s absolutely essential because we have to move from our silos to systems. And we realize that collectively we can have a greater impact, a more meaningful impact, in our communities and the people that we serve.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I just want to allude to something that you mentioned earlier: the Black church in our culture has always been on the front line of addressing inequalities in our society. We have always been on the front line of addressing disparities within our society. We’ve always been at the forefront of addressing injustice in our society.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, in that tradition, in that vein, it’s absolutely essential that we continue to address injustices anywhere among any people, regardless of their race, creed, or color.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, as a result of that, we do build collaborations. I work with a number of groups. One particular group is Impact Oakland Now, ION, and it’s a collective of six progressive pastors and churches that are basically addressing social, economic, educational, and spiritual needs within the community. So we do a lot of work collectively to have an impact for the most marginalized within our communities.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Collaboration is absolutely essential. As he indicated earlier, we went to Los Angeles together to work in collaboration. And so I work a lot with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I served as the chairperson of Faith in Action East Bay, which consists of a lot of rabbis and Jewish synagogues. And so we find that working together, we can have much more of an impact on our society.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sundiata, I was thinking about this. I mean, you’re the Muslim chaplain at USF, which I think of as a very Catholic university.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> Go down. How does that work? You know, every university is going to be diverse, but USF is rated as the most diverse campus in the United States, right here in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I took my daughter there when I first got the job, and I’ve been to different MSAs and worked with different Muslim Student Associations. She would always tag along, her and my son, and she was shocked at just how many people of color there were.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then I was like, “Let’s count the Black folks.” So when I was young and we lived in Berkeley, my dad used to play a game called “Let’s Count the Vovos,” because there were always a lot of Vovos in Berkeley. So we were like, let’s count, and we gave up counting when we got to about 100.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, it’s a small campus, but we got to about 110 Black people just walking through. Tonight — if you’re biracial or something, my daughter wasn’t counting that. She was like, “So these were, like, you know, 110.” They’re not saying biracial folks aren’t authentic, but there were no, no — so that’s me at USF.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That’s interesting. We’re talking about religious communities in Oakland, the future of religious traditions. We’re joined by a trio of faith leaders, as well as the people working on the Oakland Faith Project, including its founder, Nicolò Sertorio. We’ll be back with more right after the break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. Alexis Madrigal here, joined by Nicolò Sertorio, who is founder, artist, and photographer of the Oakland Faith Project. He’s got his house of worship story, and James Campbell is also Edgar E. Robinson Professor in United States History at Stanford. We’ve got Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin, who is senior rabbi at Temple Sinai. We’ve got Sundiata Rashid, imam at Lighthouse Mosque and Muslim chaplain at the University of San Francisco, and we’ve got Pastor Michael Wallace of Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This project began, Nicolò, with the photographs that you were taking, and you actually now have them up in a show at 1500 Broadway, is that right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> Yes. The project exploded in some ways. So I did start with the houses of worship, and then for the second part I partnered with my good friend and colleague, and also a good photographer, J. Michael Tucker, in taking the portraits. And furthermore, we decided to start recording their oral histories.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Later, after doing a solo show at Oakland City Hall, I was offered the opportunity to exhibit in this empty commercial space at 1500 Broadway. It’s a very large, over 2,000-square-foot space that we now have open Monday to Friday.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it’s been really interesting to see the constant flow of people and the conversations that I have encouraged just by people listening to spiritual leaders and discovering new sides of them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And also, I think it’s important that we don’t move away from difficult conversations, but rather confront them full-on. To me, that is actually one of the biggest measures of a successful art project: if people talk about it, good or bad.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. We’ve got a few different folks who have been grappling with these various topics. Some folks with other religious beliefs. One listener writes, “My friends and I believe that nature is my church.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And Peggy writes in to say, “I belong to the Buddhist Church of Oakland. The Buddhist teachings make sense to me and are based on gratitude and compassion for all living beings. I also find great community in our church. We have our annual Spring Bazaar and our Obon Festival in early August, and everyone is welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Our church was founded in 1901 and survived the mass incarceration of Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II. This year, we are celebrating our 125th anniversary.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I mean, one of the things that strikes me, Pastor Michael Wallace, out of this is just that there’s something to the fact that these institutions have been around for so long. Maybe a hundred years old, 120 years old, whatever it is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> No, that’s true, and that just really is a tribute to them surviving through some more difficult times. If you’ve been around a church or a facility or a house of faith that’s been around for over a hundred years, that means they have seen the pendulum swing from one side to the other.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They have lived through the dark days of the Depression. They have lived through the turbulent times of the ’60s. They have lived through the free speech movements of the ’70s and so forth.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, as a result, I think it’s a testament to that particular institution or that place of faith that they have been able to weather many storms. But you don’t just weather storms. In order to survive that long, you have to be doing something positive, having a meaningful impact, meeting the needs of the people. And so I think that’s a true testament to their survival.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Especially at a time when there’s so much change in the Bay Area and so much change in Oakland over the last even just 20 years, let alone 120 years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Oh, absolutely. I mean, just say post-pandemic. Let’s just be in the last five years. It has been really different because, prior to the pandemic, we had a lot of people attending services. During the pandemic, people were not allowed to gather. And then post-pandemic, there was a large falling away.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But now we have this political and social climate that we’re currently existing in that, to me, has more people turning back to places of faith, to their faith, in order to find how to navigate through the challenging and difficult days that we’re facing right now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s bring in a couple of callers here. Let’s go to Art in West Sacramento. Welcome, Art.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Art:\u003c/strong> Hi.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Hi. Hello? Yep, we can hear you. Go ahead.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Art:\u003c/strong> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> We could hear you, at least, that is to say. Sorry about that, Art. We’ll try and come back to you. I don’t know what’s going on with the phones this morning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Let’s talk a little bit about one major topic. And maybe, Rabbi Jacqueline, I’ll come to you on this. One of the things that I think has been — I don’t want to put a value judgment on it — but many people have gone to AI chatbots, kind of asking for life advice, even borderline spiritual advice, as people try to figure out what they want and find meaning in life. How do you approach something like that and kind of bring people towards other people?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> I think it’s rough, just because everybody needs to find an outlet that makes the most sense for them. I think the best thing that we can do is to ensure a thriving community and make people aware that we are here if they want to connect.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, I think it is hard to hear sometimes folks say that they don’t go to religious institutions because they think that we’re going to be dogmatic. But you actually don’t know what’s happening unless you give it a try.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So it is a worry in our world now that folks are tending to be a little bit more isolated and not necessarily wanting to make themselves vulnerable, which can happen if you are a part of a community. Then you become a part of the community in all sorts of ways.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But my hope is just that if you’re curious, if you have any desire to see what it is, or even if you’re thinking that we are saying one thing, you know, come in and see if it’s true. And hopefully you’ll be able to find a community that’s meaningful. And if it isn’t meaningful, then that’s okay, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Jim, one of the things that I think is interesting about some of the research around these things is that our churches have gotten more sorted politically. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I also want to point out one thing, since you had one of the people who wrote in about the Buddhist Church of Oakland. That group not only survived the experience of Japanese American incarceration during the Second World War, they also survived the interstate road system.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s one of the churches that, under eminent domain, was slated for destruction, and the people in it actually sawed it in half, put it on trucks, and moved it, preserving it. So there’s lots of vicissitudes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>One of the messages that came out of doing this research for me about religious life in Oakland was just its extraordinary resiliency. But, in any event, on the question you asked, if you go back not very long ago, maybe even to the turn of the century—\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> That is to say, the year 2000.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>James Campbell:\u003c/strong> Correct. The people sitting in the pews next to you were just as likely to be Democrats as they were likely to be Republicans. And that is manifestly not the case now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I mean, the process of people moving away from traditional religions and denominations is across the board. It’s happening among evangelicals, mainstream Protestants, Catholics, and so forth, but it does correlate with political affiliation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And one of the things that, to me, is most alarming as someone who grew up in a Christian tradition is the way in which that tradition in our country today is increasingly being appropriated or donned as a mantle by certain kinds of political actors who, I think, make a mockery of the teachings of the person they profess to worship.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I don’t mean to be overly political about this, but I think that’s happened. I think a very large part of the movement away from orthodox religion in recent years — there’s been a dramatic, phenomenal outflow of people, measured in millions nationally, in the wake of the election of 2016, for example.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so that’s clearly one of the things that’s happening now, and I think it’s really unhealthy for our country. You know, part of what the United States always had was a very robust civic life, not just churches, but Rotary clubs and bowling leagues, and the list goes on and on, including Little Leagues, where you routinely interacted with people who voted for different political parties from you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That tradition is eroding in our society, and I think that’s very threatening for our democracy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Let’s see if we can get Art in West Sacramento back here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Art:\u003c/strong> Hey, Art, sorry about that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Hey, no worries.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Art:\u003c/strong> I’m 11th in a family of 15. I was a former Catholic, Seventh-day Adventist, Pentecostal. I was going on the Pentecostal track. I attended the University of California, Davis. I decided that I could not become a Pentecostal minister because they wanted me to preach against my sister being a lesbian. And I said, “She’s not going to hell. It’s not possible. I cannot preach that way.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it turns out the guy that was leading me was actually using me as a young person to paint homes and making money off of me, and just was running a puppy mill later on in life. This guy was being sued by the city that I grew up in.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It just is really… And then let’s add to that things like Tammy Faye, Tammy’s magic stories that come out of… And it’s no wonder, in my mind, why we have the kind of leadership we have in the country, in one way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The second part is that, of course, people are going to turn away from things that they can’t have trust in. And to rebuild that trust doesn’t necessarily come down to belief in God or some supernatural power, because people have that. What they don’t believe in is the people who are mediating the process. And I’ll leave it at that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thank you. Great, great comment. I’m glad you hung with us there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I mean, yeah, Pastor Michael, I think this is, you know, growing up in an era of televangelists myself, and just seeing them on and being like, “Boy, what is this? What does this have to do with the Bible or anything?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Well, yeah. I mean, without question, the swell of the televangelists over the years, particularly during that era, was enormous because they were on the airwaves 24/7. You could not miss it. And as a result, those individuals became bigger than life.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so what you have is a personality-driven church. And anytime you have a personality-driven church, that means it’s centered around the human being that’s, quote-unquote, the personality of that church. And so when that personality is defective or false, then that whole movement shifts to a decline.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so that’s what we’ve seen with some of the great movements, from Jimmy Swaggart to Jim Bakker to many others who were personality-driven.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so what we have to do, and I think our society is demanding this, is shift from personality-driven to either Christ-centered or centered on whomever your higher authority is. But it has to be centered on that person and not the human individual.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sundiata?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> I mean, I think it’s fine for people. I mean, for me, it’s not one size fits all. So, like, there are probably many Muslims who don’t go to the mosque, but they’re still Muslim, you know what I’m saying? And then there are many Muslims who do go to the mosque.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There might be, you know, like in Oakland, we might have 10 or 11 masajid, or mosques. For me, if Lighthouse isn’t your thing and you want to go to, you know, we always name our mosques after streets, 31st Street or 47th or whatever, I’m always fine with that. I’m like, that’s cool, just do you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, like, for somebody who might have had a tragic experience and got turned away from religion, I’m not going to try to recruit them or try to get them back. They should just do what they’re comfortable with, you know what I’m saying?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah. Let’s bring in Gail in Oakland with a comment here. Welcome, Gail.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gail:\u003c/strong> Kate, thanks, Alexis. Nice to talk to you. I knew you in my former iteration as an Oakland restaurant owner.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I wanted to let listeners know or remind them about the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir. I’m a member of the Oakland Interfaith Community Choir, which is one of the sister choirs under the umbrella of OIGC. And OIGC has been around for 41 years, and I’ve been singing with them and recently became a board member because I love it so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s a huge joy in my life, and I think a beautiful reflection of the 23 religions represented in our choir, singing together, learning a lot about Black history, really inspiring joy in our audiences and our performances, and just an incredible reflection of the diversity of Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> It’s kind of like the sonic version of your project, Nicolò.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I would like to take the opportunity to invite you to come and sing at 1500 Broadway.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Oh, yeah, that’s a good idea, actually. The Oakland Interfaith Choir is absolutely amazing. Minister Terrence Kelly, who has served as the leader of that, they do a tremendous job. It’s a collective collaboration of many faith traditions coming together and unified, pulling in the same direction. And they are really amazing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Gail, the people want to hear you sing, though.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gail:\u003c/strong> That’s not going to happen. It’s totally fine, but I’m going to come to our conference.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> I had to try. I had to try. Producer Grace made me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gail:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you had to try. Good try, good try.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> All right, thank you, Gail. Thank you so much. Lots of comments here from listeners who’ve just found their place, which is kind of nice.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Rishi on the Discord writes, “I’m so glad to have found my local UCC congregational church of Sunnyvale. Progressive but not zealous, just kind, sensible people. I love my UCC church for the solstice celebration. I also try to practice nonsectarian meditation, a way of life taught by the Buddha. And I volunteered at a local food distribution organization founded by a group of like-minded Indians. As my Hindu saints told me, helping others is doing God’s work.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So many. Here’s another comment. Gina writes, “I grew up attending a couple of different Oakland synagogues, but as a young person, I couldn’t see what relevance most of these ancient Jewish texts and rules could have to my life. And I couldn’t believe in the God I saw represented there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I saw the problems religious conflict had caused throughout history and how religion was used as a reason to cast out certain types of people, and I wanted none of it. But once I had a kid, I decided to keep an open mind and seek out a different approach to bringing Judaism into my life, into my family.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I found an organization called Jewish Gateways, a community based in Albany that doesn’t have its own building but offers a variety of educational programs for families and adults that have changed my perspective on Judaism and helped me see its relevance to living an ethical and meaningful life in community.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Rabbi Jacqueline, how often do you see someone come back to the temple because they want their family to have some of this shared basis of faith?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> I actually think it’s very common that folks, once they have children and want to try to help create a lens and help their kids form their identity, it’s very common for folks to come back and want to put their kids into a religious school and Hebrew school, and to have them have some sense of what it means to be a part of the Jewish community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I’d say it’s actually very common, and I appreciate it. I think that that’s a part of the stage of life that makes a lot of sense, that you’re developing a sense of your home and your household, with traditions and roots. And so it’s very welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Last one. Alison writes, “I found the Oakland Unitarian Church along with my partner fairly recently. We needed a faith community that was engaged in resistance to the cruelty of our current national politics. It has been wonderful to be engaged with other seekers who have made the commitment to not accept our present circumstances, but rather to fight for justice for all marginalized people. It is a spiritual quest and a way to feel connected to what is good.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We have been talking about religious communities in Oakland and the future of religious traditions. You can go take a look at the Oakland Faith Project’s exhibition at 1500 Broadway.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’ve been joined by its founder, Nicolò Sertorio. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nicolò Sertorio:\u003c/strong> All right. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And Jim Campbell, Edgar E. Robinson Professor in United States History at Stanford. Thank you. Might have lost him.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin at Temple Sinai, thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jacqueline Mates-Muchin:\u003c/strong> Thank you. Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Sundiata Rashid from Lighthouse Mosque, thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sundiata Rashid:\u003c/strong> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> And Michael Wallace, pastor at Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in West Oakland. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Wallace:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alexis Madrigal:\u003c/strong> Thanks so much to all of our callers and listeners. Sorry about those problems on the phones. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> ahead with Mina.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Announcer:\u003c/strong> Funds for the production of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> are provided by the Jenerosity Family Fund and the members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Tuesday, September 29, 2026 at 10 am\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Extreme academic workloads and relentless achievement culture are driving a youth mental health crisis in classrooms nationwide — especially among students trying to get into top colleges. That’s according to Stuart Slavin, a pediatrician who researches how to improve student mental health and the author of “The Success Trap.” We’ll hear from Slavin, a former school administrator and a high school journalist about how to escape “The Success Trap” and how parents can help their kids navigate this pressure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin, \u003c/strong>pediatrician, medical educator, researcher; author, \u003cem>The Success Trap: How the Pressure to Stand Out Is Fueling Anxiety, Depression, and Burnout in Teens—And the Fundamental Fix They Deserve\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota,\u003c/strong> student journalist, Los Altos High School – published an article in May in student paper detailing the pressures students face\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk,\u003c/strong> former superintendent, Dublin Unified School District – initiated policy limiting the number of AP/honors courses students can take yearly\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, I’m Mina Kim. Anxiety, depression, and burnout are increasingly common among high school students, especially these days as they apply to top colleges. Pediatrician Stuart Slavin says the phenomenon that was largely concentrated in affluent neighborhoods two decades ago has spread like a contagion, infecting a wider socioeconomic swath. And far more than smartphones and social media are the culprits. Slavin says it’s the pressure cooker of academic and extracurricular demands: performance expectations from teachers, coaches, parents, and the students themselves.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And this hour, we hear from a student, a school administrator, and from Slavin, whose new book is called \u003cem>The Success Trap\u003c/em>. And listeners, if this sounds familiar to you, give us a call at 866-733-6786. Find us on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum, or call us at 866-733-6786. Are you a student, a recent graduate, a parent of a student? How has academic pressure affected you?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’d also like to welcome to the program now Los Altos High School senior Ananya Kota. Ananya, welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And of course, Stuart Slavin, pediatrician, medical educator and researcher, and author of \u003cem>The Success Trap\u003c/em>. Stuart, welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much, Mina. Pleasure to be here with you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So, Ananya, I’ll start with you. You wrote a piece for your student paper in May about the pressure a student faced. So tell me, what made you write the piece?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> Yeah, of course. So I’ve always kind of been aware of the academic pressure that was in the Bay Area, and generally I felt that it manifested differently in different schools. And I was really curious how the academic pressure affected Los Altos High School in particular.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, I was kind of mulling it over, and while I was thinking about it, unfortunately, a student had committed suicide in one of our school districts nearby, and I think that kind of made me realize just how horrible the academic pressure could be. And I really wanted to understand by speaking to students and getting their experiences, speaking to teachers and understanding how does it affect our school particularly, and why do students feel the need to overperform so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So how were you seeing it manifest? How was it affecting you and your peers?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I honestly primarily saw it manifest within the student community itself. So, when I started writing the article, I had to — it was a little difficult, honestly — turn myself into an observer of a community I was already so integrated in.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I was constantly observing and seeing the interactions between students, where students should be like, “Oh, I just got a B on this test. I’m going to fail.” And I was just thinking in the back of my head, like, no, you’re not going to fail. I mean, the standard is so high, and students are making very casual comments that kind of inflate that standard.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I just think, like, a lot of the times when we get, for example, grades back, or there’s the SAT or the ACT, AP scores, it’s always the highest standard that’s expected among students. If students don’t get a five on their AP exam, they’re automatically disappointed and assume that they’re failing. If they get a B, they’re automatically panicked and assuming, “I’m failing.” Anything less than the standard feels like failing to a lot of the students. That’s sort of the impression that I got while observing my community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Did you find that people were talking about having trouble sleeping, that they were, you know, experiencing some degree of not feeling like they were good enough?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> Definitely. It’s very common for me to hear, like, “Oh, I only got like three hours of sleep. I was studying for this test,” or, “Oh, I barely slept yesterday.” And it feels very normal. But when I think about it objectively, I’m just like, that’s not healthy at all. Like, you should be getting sleep. You should be eating well. But all these basic things are being sacrificed for studying and getting those perfect grades.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I do think that students have placed the entirety of their self-worth on their grades and these numbers and these letters, and you can really see how it affects their mindset, how it affects the basic care they do for themselves.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> I was also struck from the outset that you talked about the Bay Area, how things were specific to the Bay Area in your high school. Tell me about how you think your community plays a role in the pressure that these students feel.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> Of course. So when I was doing research for the article, I was drawn to the city and the Silicon Valley in particular because I noticed that in the Silicon Valley, in the Bay Area, there’s a lot of upper-class people who have very high median incomes. And I thought perhaps that contributed because the standard of success in the Bay Area in particular is very inflated.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s like a tech hub. We see all these successful companies, these successful tech companies. And when students see that, I think they think that’s the standard of success, that’s a baseline level of success. When you’re surrounded by so much success and so much opportunity, if you don’t take that or if you don’t meet that, it can feel automatically like failure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so I think there really is, like, it’s amazing to live here in Silicon Valley and have so much opportunity at your fingertips, but with that opportunity comes like an unsaid sort of expectation to meet all of that and have to achieve that, and everyone else is trying to do the exact same thing as you are.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I was struck by this line in your piece where you say, “Even as I write this article and acknowledge these issues, the idea of breaking away from the culture is scary.” Talk about that. It’s hard even as you’re aware of it, right, to be able to adopt, you know, things that might reduce the pressure yourself.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I would say personally I, of course, am in the student community and I feel those pressures firsthand. I think that I also value my academics a lot, and it sometimes feels like, you know, if I get anything less than an A, I’m automatically, like, extremely upset at myself. And I think, like, while perhaps I understand, like, objectively it’s not the end of the world, after you’re just surrounded by that pressure for so many years, it kind of becomes your norm.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You automatically feel those before you can really catch yourself and realize, hey, no, I’m not a failure. I’m feeling I’m gonna fail because I got a B in a class.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I do think that the first step to breaking away, as I said, from these expectations is acknowledgement because it is such a deep-rooted issue that it doesn’t even start in high school. It starts from when your academic journey begins in middle school. You’re taught that, like, academics are the be-all and end-all, and that doesn’t end in high school. It doesn’t — like, and when you go to college, I think when you grow up around that environment, it sticks with you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Would you say it was middle school where you started to feel it, or did you even feel it as early as elementary?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I would say, like, personally, it didn’t really affect me until high school, but I don’t think that’s the case at all for my peers, because I did see my peers very frequently panicking over their grades.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And when I entered as a freshman in high school, I could already see that academic pressure around, and I think that — I don’t think it all of a sudden manifested in the first couple months of freshman year. I think it had been there since middle school, and that’s why so many freshmen were already anxious about their grades.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Stuart, Ananya mentions acknowledgement, and that’s what you’re trying to do, acknowledge this issue. And I imagine what she’s saying also sounds familiar to you after serving more than 18,000 teenagers in some 18 high schools, I understand, including in California.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yes, absolutely. The first schools that I looked at were all in the Bay Area. And I have to say, Ananya really encapsulated so beautifully, or eloquently, the challenges kids are facing these days and the pressure-cooker environment that they’re facing in communities across this country.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And even your own child was not immune, right? You share a very relatable experience of her feeling like she couldn’t stop to eat dinner because of all the homework she had and bursting into tears.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, this really started me on this journey. So I’m a pediatrician, and I was watching my daughters in a high school that was reputedly kind of the most progressive school in the St. Louis region, but the amounts of homework and academic pressure they were facing was just extraordinary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so that really launched me on this journey to look at this issue and really raise awareness about it, because I think it could almost be viewed as a problem hiding in plain sight, that we’re so hyper-focused on phones and screens as a source of the adolescent mental health crisis. I have deep concerns about those, but I think it’s led us to kind of ignore this problem, which I think Ananya has really described.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, how do you know that what your daughter was expressing, or what you see happening around you, is not, you know, temporary stress or momentary drama, but a bigger, more serious structural problem?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Well, there are a couple of layers to that that I would say. One is, if your child as an adolescent suffers from depression or anxiety, it markedly increases their likelihood of having those mental health problems as adults.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But the other that Ananya kind of alluded to is there are these kind of mindsets. I’ll describe a couple of them. One is maladaptive perfectionism that’s been on the rise for 35 years, where an A-minus or a B isn’t good enough and it feels just terrible. Another is performance as identity. It’s not that you got the score, it’s you are that score.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Those don’t disappear. Kids are internalizing these and then carrying them into adulthood in ways that then can contribute to their distress later as young adults and on into adulthood.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And you have seen this as widespread. Like, what do the stats tell you, and also widening? I quoted you saying that you were also seeing this in much broader economic swaths and also happening younger even than high school. Can you help us understand sort of the scope of what you’re seeing?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, the scope I describe in a few ways. I mean, I have done research then in California and Missouri, and also in Ohio. And I also had the opportunity over the last eight years or so in my job to travel the country and just talk to families and talk to kids.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it became very clear that what used to be, I think, really in very affluent communities and on both coasts has spread like wildfire really across the country. And I think to a great degree, it’s understandably kind of — it is driven by, I think, a sense of economic insecurity. A sense that the divide between the haves and the have-nots is growing and that to have a middle-class existence is increasingly difficult.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So a lot of this, I think, is well-intended efforts to launch kids to success, which sadly I don’t think are actually even achieving that goal.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Hmm. Actually, this Discord user Nicole writes — no, well, writes: “This extreme academic pressure is a symptom of our growing inequality.” And I think you have some thoughts on that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’re coming up on a break, though, so let me remind listeners that we are talking with Stuart Slavin, a pediatrician and medical educator and researcher and author of the new book \u003cem>The Success Trap\u003c/em>, and Ananya Kota, a student journalist at Los Altos High School.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And with you, are you a high school student or recent graduate? How did academic pressure affect your mental health? If you’re the parent of an adolescent, have you noticed symptoms of anxiety or depression in your child? What did you find helped relieve the stress that comes with high school or college applications? 866-733-6786 is the number.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Stay with us. This is \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. We’re talking this hour about the increasing pressure students are facing and feeling in high school. We’re talking about it with Stuart Slavin, who’s written a new book called \u003cem>The Success Trap: How the Pressure to Stand Out Is Fueling Anxiety, Depression, and Burnout in Teens and the Fundamental Fix They Deserve\u003c/em>. He’s a pediatrician and researcher.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Ananya Kota is also with us, a student journalist at Los Altos High School, who published a piece in May in her student paper detailing the pressure students face there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And you are joining us at the email address \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>, listeners on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum. Tell us if you are a student or a parent of a student and you’ve noticed these types of academic pressures and their effect on students’ mental health.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Are you a teacher or administrator? Are there policies or changes you’ve made at your school that you have found helped improve student mental health? Or what did you find students or parents helped relieve the stress that comes with high school, college admissions and applications, and also with the demands of extracurricular activities?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Listener on Discord writes, “A student’s fear of disappointing their parents often creates more stress than direct parental pressure.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>One of the things you were saying, Stuart, was just how much there is concern among parents about economic anxiety and growing inequality as well driving this. What more would you add to what you feel like is leading students to what you’ve described as really unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> You know, I think one way to look at that, Mina, is looking at the survey that we used in these 18 schools, and we asked students to rate 35 different stressors in their life to see how big of a stress factor they were.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And these included things like school-related, obviously, but boyfriend, girlfriend, family issues, health issues, bullying, cyberbullying, social media. And the thing that really struck me is that in every one of the 18 schools, the top-rated stressors, the biggest stressors in kids’ lives, was school- and achievement-related.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And just to add to that point of your really perceptive learner, who said pressure — pressure to not disappoint parents. In our survey, it was actually ranked higher as a greater stressor than direct pressure from parents. So even as parents, if we’re not putting that direct pressure on them, they know our values and sometimes react to those.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The last thing I’ll say about that, which is true, the number one or number two stressor that was cited by kids in every single school was pressure from self. So what they’re doing is reacting to this pressure-cooker environment and then absorbing all of this, and it’s really creating these mindsets that they’re again going to carry with them to adulthood and contribute to future distress as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, I want to bring into the conversation now a former administrator of the California school district, Dublin Unified, Chris Funk. Chris, welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Thank you for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So your district is trying something new, and I know you just left as an administrator in the summer, but you really set the stage for this experiment, essentially. What are you trying to do in Dublin?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> I just retired in June after 36 years in public education, and the majority of that spent between either two K-12 districts and one high school district.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It was clear to me that this zero-sum race to the top to get to the best colleges was causing students to have excessive academic course loading that seemed like they were just chasing that grade point average, that boost that you get by taking an honors or Advanced Placement course, as opposed to for the love of learning, the engagement of really trying to be masterful of the content that you’re learning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so in Dublin last year, the board passed a resolution that limited the number of courses, honors and Advanced Placement courses, that a student could take in a single year as well as across their four years. So they could take up to four classes combined, honors and AP, in a single year, and up to 11 across their four-year high school time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And what are you hoping the effect of this change will be?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Well, we’re trying to promote more balance, student well-being and a healthier school culture. Because at all three of my systems that I’ve been a part of, there has been mental health has been kind of that stigma. That stigma, I think, has been reduced now after COVID, and now it becomes an expectation that wellness, mental health, is such an important, vital part of everyone’s life, not just high school students, grownups also.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so we’re just trying to focus on creating a more healthy environment, change that mindset that Dr. Slavin has been talking about. And also focus on all the other amazing aspects of being an adolescent in high school, whether it’s athletics, whether it is extracurricular activities like band and choir and drama and dance, all the amazing things that happen in high school, and less focus on just the academic course loading.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And what was the reaction to this decision to limit the number of AP classes offered? And similarly, Discord user Jeff writes, “Did you get pushback from families who worried the AP class limit would disadvantage their kids in college admissions?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Well, I had a unanimous decision by my board, and my board represents the entire district. So that’s a good sign. And yes, there’s always going to be some pushback on any policy that you implement.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I believe the pushback was minor compared to the larger conversation we had around grading, because we did change our grading policy prior to the resolution on limiting AP courses. But most of it was around the fact that families and students felt like they were going to be put at a disadvantage, and just really not understanding the academic entrance requirements into colleges and universities, the idea of what is the official school profile, that you’re really just competing against your own peers at your school and you’re not competing against other schools across the nation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the reality is that you can get to the very best colleges without having to overload on your course taking. So it’s really about education.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And universities, they do know or have profiles on high schools, right, about how many APs are offered there, so they recognize that if a student is taking a certain number that may be less than another district, it’s just because that district simply didn’t offer that many of them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. That’s exactly it. That is why each school and each district has their school profile.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the other piece is that there is this idea that the more classes I take, the better chance I have of getting into this college. And the reality is every college, every university recalculates the GPA, and they have the base level, 22 courses, 24 courses that they actually take the GPA of. So if you take 30 courses, six of those courses, depending on which college or university you apply for, aren’t even going to count because they’re not going to calculate that in your GPA.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so what we’re trying to create in Dublin was this concept of focus on the areas that you love, do the very best and master those areas. Focus on the other aspects of being an adolescent and what colleges look for in terms of your extracurricular activities, your community service, and all being that whole child. It has been lost with this race to the top.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> It’s very interesting because I hear echoes in what Chris Funk is saying with what you’ve said about, maybe we have lost our understanding of what successful means.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think that’s exactly right, and I have to say first, kudos to you, Chris, and your board for taking these actions. I think a lot of schools have been really reluctant to take these kind of measures.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>One of the key things, I think, for listeners to really understand is that I think there’s this idea that if you back off, the performance is going to drop.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A couple of things I would say to counter that: In every school I looked at, kids reported on average getting six and a half hours of sleep per night. The adolescent brain needs eight to ten, so at that level they’re cognitively and emotionally compromised.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then the other piece that I think is really important stems from my work with medical students, in which we found high rates of depression and anxiety, reduced pressure, reduced demands, and not only did their mental health improve dramatically, their performance improved as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think there’s kind of this false narrative that if we back off, if we reduce the pressure, that somehow performance is going to drop and they aren’t going to be as competitive. And I think that’s just false.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Ananya, though, I was struck by a Chronicle piece that covered what Dublin was doing, and it quoted a student, or just a recent graduate from Dublin, as saying that students are just going to find other ways to stand out if they can’t stand out based on the number of AP courses they’ve taken.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What do you think about that? Do you think that’s likely true?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I think partially yes, just because, I mean, the AP cap has also been discussed among our districts, and I certainly did hear a lot of pushback from my peers at the idea of being limited about the number of APs. I frankly think some of them find it scary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But there is also, I know you mentioned it before, like a stigma around extracurriculars, how many you need to take, how they need to stand out. And I think some of that pressure will shift.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But also I do think academics and extracurriculars are two very separate entities, and I do think limiting the number of APs can potentially really help students focus academically and really take the classes they’re passionate about.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I do unfortunately think that it won’t eliminate the pressure and they’ll still feel stressed about it. So I think it will help them, but that pressure might unfortunately feel more prominent just because there’s that underlying worry that if I’m not taking enough AP classes, am I going to be competitive, or do I need to make up for this in my extracurriculars?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think it honestly completely kind of depends on the student and how they receive that. But yeah, I think they can be received in multiple ways.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Let me go to caller Naomi in Berkeley. Naomi, go ahead, you’re on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Hi, my students graduated from Berkeley High in 2023 and 2025. And I think the pressure comes not only from the academic achievements, but the community and the parents of friends and the peers themselves.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>My kids were admitted to fine, decent state and UC schools. And they heard comments from parents at parties or from their peers that they would never allow their kids to apply to that school, or they would never go to that school as only their backup school, and I found that to be, as a parent, to be very distressing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>My kids were fine students. They had A’s and B’s. I did not allow them, or do not encourage them, to max out their APs. They had, you know, they were varsity athletes, and still, by their peers and the parents in our community, they heard very negative comments, and it was very hurtful.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Naomi, thank you for sharing that. Stuart, what have you found are sort of the most common or problematic ways that parents in communities inadvertently add pressure to kids?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so back to that point that pressure to not disappoint parents, even if you’re not putting that direct pressure on, they may know your values by, you know, when you’re talking to friends and somebody mentions that their child is going to Harvard or Stanford, etc., and they just light up. The kids can know your value.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I think what your caller also really alludes to is that this is widespread in the culture, and I think in some ways it requires some courage on the part of parents and kids to say, no, I’m not going to be influenced and affected by that. I have a sense of my self-worth as a human being that isn’t tied to going to the most, you know, selective, prestigious college possible.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Jane writes, “My 18-year-old has dealt with depression and anxiety and expresses desire to relieve their stress with drugs and alcohol. I feel like saying, well, just don’t do that. But just like abstinence, I know saying just say no is unrealistic. How would you suggest talking to a young adult about drugs and alcohol and moderation in a world filled with anxiety?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it sounds like if they’re using it to relieve anxiety, Stuart.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Oh, it’s a very difficult situation, I feel, for that person, and I think that’s kind of the downstream consequences of having a child who’s living in such a pressurized environment as an adolescent that they enter young adulthood really at risk.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And in terms of how to talk to them, I guess, you know, I think with a supportive approach, without a judgmental approach, and ideally encouraging them with you to seek care from a health professional of some kind.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But it is, I think, these are the kind of hidden consequences of what may happen if our kids do feel such enormous pressure and demands as they’re in their early development.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Laura writes, “How do we encourage a kid to work and do well, to put in the time to understand the schoolwork without putting dangerous pressures on them?” Stuart.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I guess what I would say is one of the things that I think is important is to focus less. We have a tendency — how’d that test go? What kind of scores are you getting? How’s your grade point average?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And these electronic dashboards, I think, have become a real problem, where it’s not just kids checking them furiously, but parents are as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think it’s vitally important, it’s just vitally important, for parents to acknowledge and celebrate other identities than their kids’ academic performance: their humor, their creativity, their kindness, their ability to work with others. There are so many things that we need to recognize in our kids that I think get lost in our daily conversations of left cars.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Talk about where it can lead. You mentioned the phenomenon of crashing out. What is that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Oh, crashing out, I think, Ananya, I’d love to hear what she says, where, you know, what looks like a minor setback to anybody else, you know, if anybody else looks at somebody who gets an A-minus or a B-plus, and, you know, the kid thinks it’s a failure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s not a failure, but that’s what it feels like. And that’s what these mindsets do. You know, you have the discomfort of a less-than-ideal performance. But the story, the narrative you add to it, that you attach to it, can make the pain much, much worse.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think there are skills that kids can easily learn and that parents can use. Tell them and help them understand these are just stories you’re telling yourself that really aren’t accurate and are harmful. And helping kids change those thought processes, I think, could be incredibly helpful on their journey to adulthood.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah. And you write that they manifest as essentially an acute cognitive and emotional breakdown, right? From explosive outbursts to actually emotional withdrawal.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think parents just can’t really even comprehend. Again, it’s hard for them to understand why this, what looks like a minor setback, um, feels so profoundly painful.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And again, I think it’s what Ananya had described is this culture that people live in, and it’s not just parents, it’s just, you know, teachers, coaches, et cetera, peers that are also creating this environment that is profound.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And again, as you said, the crashing out can be just breakdowns, perseverative thinking where they just can’t stop thinking about this problem. You know, meltdowns, tears, or anger as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Ananya, we’re coming up on a break, but you wrote about a friend distancing themselves from your friend group for months. How were you able to reach out?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I noticed it initially because she stopped coming to sit with lunch with us, and she stopped talking in our group chats. And I don’t think the pressure she felt was purposeful, I think, because our friends are very aware of the academic pressure, but a lot of them are extremely successful.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>All my friends are wonderful. I have a friend that’s going to Stanford and another one is going to Barnard. And I think even just being around such immensely successful people can make you feel, “I’m not doing enough.” And I think that’s what she felt.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it’s exactly what he described, the emotional withdrawal. That was the aspect that she was facing. And it really manifested in, not in necessarily like outward outburst, but inward.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re talking about the increasing academic pressures on high school students today. More after the break. I’m Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You’re listening to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. We’re talking this hour with Los Altos High School senior Ananya Kota, former superintendent of Dublin Unified School District, Chris Funk, and pediatrician, researcher and author of the new book \u003cem>The Success Trap\u003c/em>, Stuart Slavin, about how to address the increasing anxiety, depression and burnout that students are experiencing as a result of increased parental and social expectations and the desire to stand out in a college admissions process that seems to be demanding more AP courses and extracurriculars.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Join the conversation with your own experiences and questions about how to address this at 866-733-6786, at the email address \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, and Instagram. We’re at KQED Forum.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Let me go to AJ in Mountain View. Hi, AJ, you’re on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Hi, thanks for taking me on. I actually wanted to share a comment with regards to the pressure even though that comes from extracurricular activities that contribute to, that are important for college.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I actually know this family. I mean, the child is all of 10 years old at this point. He’s into diving. There’s math class, there’s — I had no class, but of others, but what stood out for me was when the parent actually created a website, took some pictures, printed a calendar, and sold them to fund an NGO.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And all of this to support his future college admissions. My concern was when a child is all of 10, I believe it’s going to be under 10 more years before he enters, and the pressure is already on. And this is in Los Altos, so I understand. I hear what Ananya is actually talking about. I actually see it around me and my neighbors.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Concerning. Well, AJ, thanks so much for sharing that. Stuart, would love to get your reactions to what AJ is describing, and it also seems to underscore the earlier point that you are seeing this younger and younger.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> When I first started writing this book, and much of the research that supports it was really focused on high school students. But as I was talking to more people and I heard more and more stories of this kind of behavior, I think what it’s reflective of is a phenomenon called intensive parenting, where parents feel enormous social pressure to have their children in a lot of enrichment activities that increasingly have become much more intensive.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The old days of just, like, you know, rec-league baseball has been replaced by club sports that go year-round, involve travel, sometimes enormous pressure and sense of competition on the kids. So, yeah, you have to wonder and worry about the impact on, goodness, a 10-year-old child. And it starts earlier.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’ve talked to parents of five- and six-year-olds. A quick story, which is a mom who told me, another mom said, “Do you have a soccer coach for your six-year-old?” And she said, “No.” “Well, he’s never gonna get into the travel team.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think those pressures are widespread and they’re starting earlier and earlier.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> One of the things you’ve warned against, Stuart, is parent as problem solver, the increasing role they take in that. What do you see as the dangers and how can they pull back?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I have to admit I was a problem solver in many ways as a parent, and I think there’s a tendency for us to jump in when your kids are struggling. And while that’s important and at times to do, I think what you have to recognize is that if you jump in too quickly and intervene too aggressively, it has unintended consequences of reducing their own self-confidence in dealing with their problems, undermining their ability potentially to deal with challenges in the future.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I mean, in many ways, we should be viewing adolescents as this kind of training ground for adulthood, and they need practice in working through and solving their problems as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So you should be there to support. Don’t abandon your kids, but don’t fall into the tendency to jump in too quickly to try to rescue and solve problems.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Scott in Sacramento writes, “Does involvement in extracurricular activities like after-school sports or clubs help relieve that stress of everyday student lives, or does it just compound it? As a parent, I feel that it would relieve it, but I didn’t have social media and other modern-day pressures that kids experience nowadays.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What do you think, Ananya? Do you think that extracurriculars — do you find them to be a place of relief or do you find them to be added stress?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I think it can be both. Honestly, personally, an extracurricular I find that stress relieving, as I do cross-country, and it’s so nice to have a dedicated time period where I can just exercise. And I know it’s a really good medium of stress relief. So that’s an example of one extracurricular that I think is stress relief.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But also, in turn, I think in the back of my head, “Oh, this is taking a couple hours out of my day, so when am I going to do homework? When am I going to do this? When do I do that?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think it’s a mix of both, and the key to finding an extracurricular that can do stress relief is just time management, knowing that, oh, if I’m gonna do this sport, can I have a time where I can do this other extracurricular or take the time to do homework this other time period?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So don’t cram like seven extracurriculars into one day, because I think that starts to make it more of a pressure than a stress relief. But I think if you can find the key number of extracurriculars you genuinely enjoy, it can definitely be a stress relief.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Have you found helpful, Ananya, as a high school student deep in this, right? Like strategies or things that you have found helped work for you in terms of relieving the stress and pressure?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I think the biggest thing is just being very aware of my limits as a student. I think, like, obviously being surrounded by so much pressure, it’s definitely affected me to the point where, like, sometimes I’ll find myself being like, “Oh, I should have taken that AP class,” even if it’s like not a class I’m necessarily, like, very passionate about.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I think just having a support group around you, friends who don’t encourage, like, the academic pressure or don’t say things like, “Oh, you didn’t get an A on that test. Well, what are you doing?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think being very aware of your own limits and also communicating that to your peers, especially to your parents, as they’re your main support, can really help with developing an understanding of, this is what I can do and I’m going to stick with it because I don’t want to burn out and I don’t want to fall down that rabbit hole of I’m not doing enough.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Chris, I’m curious what you’ve observed with regard to, you know, parents who seem to have a healthy relationship with their kids’ success levels.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you see it as has been mentioned. It starts younger and younger. But in terms of the academics, one of the key things or guidelines that happens — measure points — is in middle school math acceleration.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I can’t tell you, in all three of my school districts that I was in in 36 years, the goal to take calculus by your junior or even your sophomore year is the new trend. And you start ninth grade in Algebra 2, which is just completely a mindset that has to be changed, because every student that really wants to take calculus can get there in four years of high school math.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>For some, it might require taking a summer course or a bridge course. But for most students, if they are applicable to taking calculus, they’ll be able to do it. But to have kids start to accelerate, taking algebra and geometry in middle school, I think that is way too much pressure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, same families that put their kids in math acceleration, that also put them in academic classes in the summertime. You know, summertime really should be that time to explore other passions that you have. Just like with teachers, you’ve got to recharge your battery, because the school year is not a sprint, it’s a marathon.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And there are certain stages throughout the year, October, December, end of February, that kids hit the wall, teachers hit the wall. And you got to be able to have that well-groundedness that’s important.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think one other aspect that we haven’t really talked about is that this policy is not a silver bullet. It’s to address one aspect of the academic stress. But grading is a huge discussion that may be for another day, but we have kids that are just chasing points.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And that grading actually starts even in elementary school, where they don’t normally have letter grades. But this extra credit, chasing that extra credit, bringing in paper towel dispensers, bringing in hand cleanser for extra points — all that does is boost your grade, but doesn’t necessarily translate, or certainly doesn’t translate, to mastery of that content.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>When you’re only chasing points, that’s another stressor on kids that the grading policy has to be addressed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Stuart, you have a whole section about how many of the kids you spoke with have painted a picture of a lack of joy in their lives, which I really feel like is what Chris has been getting to.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it is. I think that was the thing that was most striking to me. And one thing I’ll add on to a comment that Ananya made about cross-country: I think she seems to be approaching it in a healthy way, but I’ve talked to people, and this was one of the things that surprised me as I talked to kids, is that the perfectionism they had in their academics was also there in their extracurriculars.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So if they had a disappointing cross-country time, they would just beat up on themselves and ruminate on this thought for just forever. So, this is a deep problem that I think kind of is — infiltrates, you know, all aspects of their life. Everything can become a competition.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And when everything’s a competition, like the idea of just fun and joy disappears.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And last thing I think I would say about that that’s especially true: It isn’t the activities themselves that are a problem. It’s the nature of the activities. There’s great research that shows that it’s not the amount of time you spend in these, but it’s how competitive, how pressured, how controlled by adults is it. Those are the things that seem to correlate with adverse mental health outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think we do need to, like, let’s bring some joy and fun back into the lives of our kids.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Do you see the turn to smartphones and screens or social media in part as a symptom of this lack of joy?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> I think that’s such a good question, and I think how I’d answer that is, yeah, and brief, yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think one of the things that’s really striking to me about it is that our approach largely is, you know, kind of pushing these companies to change their algorithms, et cetera. That’s great. But a lot of it’s like prohibition, like let’s take your phones when you walk in the door at school, et cetera, et cetera.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think we need to be working on the other side of the engagement. I think kids are turning to these devices because in many ways their virtual lives are more interesting and pleasant than their real ones.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So one of the ways we maybe can work to get kids off their screens is actually to make their real lives more pleasant, more joyful, more enjoyable.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Let me remind listeners, you are listening to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. I’m going to caller Jonathan in San Francisco. Go ahead, Jonathan. You’re on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> I mean, I think this is a great topic that you guys have covered in a very well-rounded way. As a parent of a freshman and a seventh grader, I’m kind of in the middle of seeing a lot of this happening.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think there’s kind of a bifurcated set of forces that haven’t entirely been hit on yet on both sides of the collegiate experience.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>On the high school side, more and more, as parents, we keep hearing, and the kids you’re hearing, but straight A is kind of the entry level, the bare minimum of what you need to get accepted at the top colleges. You need to have published papers. You need to be a part of research projects at reputable institutions. They’re not even just looking at the AP courses you took, they’re looking at how many AP courses did your high school offer? And then what percentage of those did you take?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so those pressures really mount on the kids because I hear the kids talking about it a lot and comparing their strategies for getting into these sought-after schools.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then on the other side of the collegiate experience, looking at where AI is going, I hear kids talking, a lot of my kids’ friends talking about, we’re worried that there’s not gonna be as many jobs. We’re hearing, you know, people that have graduated into college are now struggling to find work. And it’s a small percentage, but it’s still enough that it’s a part of the conversation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so they’re worried that they have to work even harder to achieve even more to make sure that they’ll have a shot at what’s going to be left over after that unknown piece takes a bite out of the workforce.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think those two forces are kind of creating or adding to that pressure cooker as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Jonathan, thanks for saying that. Yeah, Chris, I mean, I’m wondering if you see, you know, Stuart is talking about worries of insufficiency, right? Essentially that the child is, you know, not — is going to have to face a very difficult economic situation and so on. But the other thing is, is this sense — I’m wondering if you’re seeing that is adding to it — that we’re also sort of living under threat, like the threat of climate change or dangerous AI agents, right, among other things, that are driving parents to put a lot of pressure on their teens.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think those are all very valid points. And the reality is the society that I grew up in, and even my two older sons who are in their late 20s, early 30s, things have changed just since COVID.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the amount of pressure that’s out there on society, whether it’s the national — the way we communicate with each other nationally started stemming from the very top, the White House, to all these other pressures, as you mentioned, climate change, AI, do I wanna take on student debt and maybe not even find a job that will pay that student debt off in five to 10 years, but it’ll be 20 to 25, 30 years of student debt.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Um, you know, there’s always the exception to the rule. There are certain kids that just by their nature and their intelligence and what have you, they’re going to go — they want to go to MIT, they want to go to Stanford, they’re gonna go to Stanford because they’re just exceptional.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I just think trying to get to the very top colleges is extremely overrated for the majority of students. It’s the college experience that is, just like the high school experience is what’s amazing. And you can go to beautiful, wonderful colleges, get a great education and not have that student debt that some are chasing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Um, yeah, maybe I just live in an old world, but one of the issues that we face and we intentionally try to create time for our kids is kids don’t play with their friends in the neighborhood anymore. You don’t go down to the local park and play baseball on the weekend, pick-up baseball in the summertime, because kids are so scheduled now by their families, by their parents, or they’re traveling so much to get to whatever the competition may be. It could be a chess tournament, it could be athletics.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There’s just not enough downtime to allow kids to be kids and to allow them to be creative. Creativity has just fallen off the board, especially in school.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And it doesn’t even sound like, Stuart, that once the kid achieves a top college placement that the issues go away.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, they don’t. And I think one of the things, especially if they’ve suffered with depression or anxiety along the way, parents need to keep in mind that if you look at the causes of kids dropping out from college, cost is a big one. But mental health and emotional challenges are four times more likely than lack of academic preparation leading to kids dropping out.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so I think what Chris said is really important. I think we’ve really focused too much on that you have to go to the best college possible or the most selective. It isn’t — you shouldn’t even say best college, most selective, highly prestigious, or your life will be compromised. And I think that’s just a false narrative.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There are many great colleges across this country that students can thrive in.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> It’s the end of the hour, but what’s the good news, Stuart? I noted in your book that you have said that not a single one of the mindsets and the situations that these kids find themselves in is fixed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think that what I would end with is absolutely so that kids can learn how to manage these mindsets in ways that cause less distress.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I’m encouraged by stories like Chris, where there are communities that are saying, this is not okay. We need to change what we’re doing for our kids, and the changes that need to be made I don’t think have to be revolutionary or too expensive in terms of school demands and culture.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Stuart Slavin, the book is \u003cem>The Success Trap\u003c/em>. Ananya Kota, Los Altos High School senior. Chris Funk, former superintendent of Dublin Unified. Thanks to all of you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Thank you, listeners. Thank you, Jeremy Garza, for producing this segment. You’ve been listening to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Announcer:\u003c/strong> Funds for the production of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> are provided by the Jenerosity Family Fund and the members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Extreme academic workloads and relentless achievement culture are driving a youth mental health crisis in classrooms nationwide — especially among students trying to get into top colleges. That’s according to Stuart Slavin, a pediatrician who researches how to improve student mental health and the author of “The Success Trap.” We’ll hear from Slavin, a former school administrator and a high school journalist about how to escape “The Success Trap” and how parents can help their kids navigate this pressure.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, I’m Mina Kim. Anxiety, depression, and burnout are increasingly common among high school students, especially these days as they apply to top colleges. Pediatrician Stuart Slavin says the phenomenon that was largely concentrated in affluent neighborhoods two decades ago has spread like a contagion, infecting a wider socioeconomic swath. And far more than smartphones and social media are the culprits. Slavin says it’s the pressure cooker of academic and extracurricular demands: performance expectations from teachers, coaches, parents, and the students themselves.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, I’m Mina Kim. Anxiety, depression, and burnout are increasingly common among high school students, especially these days as they apply to top colleges. Pediatrician Stuart Slavin says the phenomenon that was largely concentrated in affluent neighborhoods two decades ago has spread like a contagion, infecting a wider socioeconomic swath. And far more than smartphones and social media are the culprits. Slavin says it’s the pressure cooker of academic and extracurricular demands: performance expectations from teachers, coaches, parents, and the students themselves.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And this hour, we hear from a student, a school administrator, and from Slavin, whose new book is called \u003cem>The Success Trap\u003c/em>. And listeners, if this sounds familiar to you, give us a call at 866-733-6786. Find us on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum, or call us at 866-733-6786. Are you a student, a recent graduate, a parent of a student? How has academic pressure affected you?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And this hour, we hear from a student, a school administrator, and from Slavin, whose new book is called \u003cem>The Success Trap\u003c/em>. And listeners, if this sounds familiar to you, give us a call at 866-733-6786. Find us on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum, or call us at 866-733-6786. Are you a student, a recent graduate, a parent of a student? How has academic pressure affected you?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’d also like to welcome to the program now Los Altos High School senior Ananya Kota. Ananya, welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And of course, Stuart Slavin, pediatrician, medical educator and researcher, and author of \u003cem>The Success Trap\u003c/em>. Stuart, welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And of course, Stuart Slavin, pediatrician, medical educator and researcher, and author of \u003cem>The Success Trap\u003c/em>. Stuart, welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much, Mina. Pleasure to be here with you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So, Ananya, I’ll start with you. You wrote a piece for your student paper in May about the pressure a student faced. So tell me, what made you write the piece?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> Yeah, of course. So I’ve always kind of been aware of the academic pressure that was in the Bay Area, and generally I felt that it manifested differently in different schools. And I was really curious how the academic pressure affected Los Altos High School in particular.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> Yeah, of course. So I’ve always kind of been aware of the academic pressure that was in the Bay Area, and generally I felt that it manifested differently in different schools. And I was really curious how the academic pressure affected Los Altos High School in particular.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, I was kind of mulling it over, and while I was thinking about it, unfortunately, a student had committed suicide in one of our school districts nearby, and I think that kind of made me realize just how horrible the academic pressure could be. And I really wanted to understand by speaking to students and getting their experiences, speaking to teachers and understanding how does it affect our school particularly, and why do students feel the need to overperform so much.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So how were you seeing it manifest? How was it affecting you and your peers?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I honestly primarily saw it manifest within the student community itself. So, when I started writing the article, I had to — it was a little difficult, honestly — turn myself into an observer of a community I was already so integrated in.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I was constantly observing and seeing the interactions between students, where students should be like, “Oh, I just got a B on this test. I’m going to fail.” And I was just thinking in the back of my head, like, no, you’re not going to fail. I mean, the standard is so high, and students are making very casual comments that kind of inflate that standard.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I just think, like, a lot of the times when we get, for example, grades back, or there’s the SAT or the ACT, AP scores, it’s always the highest standard that’s expected among students. If students don’t get a five on their AP exam, they’re automatically disappointed and assume that they’re failing. If they get a B, they’re automatically panicked and assuming, “I’m failing.” Anything less than the standard feels like failing to a lot of the students. That’s sort of the impression that I got while observing my community.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I just think, like, a lot of the times when we get, for example, grades back, or there’s the SAT or the ACT, AP scores, it’s always the highest standard that’s expected among students. If students don’t get a five on their AP exam, they’re automatically disappointed and assume that they’re failing. If they get a B, they’re automatically panicked and assuming, “I’m failing.” Anything less than the standard feels like failing to a lot of the students. That’s sort of the impression that I got while observing my community.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Did you find that people were talking about having trouble sleeping, that they were, you know, experiencing some degree of not feeling like they were good enough?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Did you find that people were talking about having trouble sleeping, that they were, you know, experiencing some degree of not feeling like they were good enough?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> Definitely. It’s very common for me to hear, like, “Oh, I only got like three hours of sleep. I was studying for this test,” or, “Oh, I barely slept yesterday.” And it feels very normal. But when I think about it objectively, I’m just like, that’s not healthy at all. Like, you should be getting sleep. You should be eating well. But all these basic things are being sacrificed for studying and getting those perfect grades.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> Definitely. It’s very common for me to hear, like, “Oh, I only got like three hours of sleep. I was studying for this test,” or, “Oh, I barely slept yesterday.” And it feels very normal. But when I think about it objectively, I’m just like, that’s not healthy at all. Like, you should be getting sleep. You should be eating well. But all these basic things are being sacrificed for studying and getting those perfect grades.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I do think that students have placed the entirety of their self-worth on their grades and these numbers and these letters, and you can really see how it affects their mindset, how it affects the basic care they do for themselves.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I do think that students have placed the entirety of their self-worth on their grades and these numbers and these letters, and you can really see how it affects their mindset, how it affects the basic care they do for themselves.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> I was also struck from the outset that you talked about the Bay Area, how things were specific to the Bay Area in your high school. Tell me about how you think your community plays a role in the pressure that these students feel.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> I was also struck from the outset that you talked about the Bay Area, how things were specific to the Bay Area in your high school. Tell me about how you think your community plays a role in the pressure that these students feel.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> Of course. So when I was doing research for the article, I was drawn to the city and the Silicon Valley in particular because I noticed that in the Silicon Valley, in the Bay Area, there’s a lot of upper-class people who have very high median incomes. And I thought perhaps that contributed because the standard of success in the Bay Area in particular is very inflated.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> Of course. So when I was doing research for the article, I was drawn to the city and the Silicon Valley in particular because I noticed that in the Silicon Valley, in the Bay Area, there’s a lot of upper-class people who have very high median incomes. And I thought perhaps that contributed because the standard of success in the Bay Area in particular is very inflated.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s like a tech hub. We see all these successful companies, these successful tech companies. And when students see that, I think they think that’s the standard of success, that’s a baseline level of success. When you’re surrounded by so much success and so much opportunity, if you don’t take that or if you don’t meet that, it can feel automatically like failure.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It’s like a tech hub. We see all these successful companies, these successful tech companies. And when students see that, I think they think that’s the standard of success, that’s a baseline level of success. When you’re surrounded by so much success and so much opportunity, if you don’t take that or if you don’t meet that, it can feel automatically like failure.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so I think there really is, like, it’s amazing to live here in Silicon Valley and have so much opportunity at your fingertips, but with that opportunity comes like an unsaid sort of expectation to meet all of that and have to achieve that, and everyone else is trying to do the exact same thing as you are.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so I think there really is, like, it’s amazing to live here in Silicon Valley and have so much opportunity at your fingertips, but with that opportunity comes like an unsaid sort of expectation to meet all of that and have to achieve that, and everyone else is trying to do the exact same thing as you are.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I was struck by this line in your piece where you say, “Even as I write this article and acknowledge these issues, the idea of breaking away from the culture is scary.” Talk about that. It’s hard even as you’re aware of it, right, to be able to adopt, you know, things that might reduce the pressure yourself.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I was struck by this line in your piece where you say, “Even as I write this article and acknowledge these issues, the idea of breaking away from the culture is scary.” Talk about that. It’s hard even as you’re aware of it, right, to be able to adopt, you know, things that might reduce the pressure yourself.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I would say personally I, of course, am in the student community and I feel those pressures firsthand. I think that I also value my academics a lot, and it sometimes feels like, you know, if I get anything less than an A, I’m automatically, like, extremely upset at myself. And I think, like, while perhaps I understand, like, objectively it’s not the end of the world, after you’re just surrounded by that pressure for so many years, it kind of becomes your norm.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I would say personally I, of course, am in the student community and I feel those pressures firsthand. I think that I also value my academics a lot, and it sometimes feels like, you know, if I get anything less than an A, I’m automatically, like, extremely upset at myself. And I think, like, while perhaps I understand, like, objectively it’s not the end of the world, after you’re just surrounded by that pressure for so many years, it kind of becomes your norm.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You automatically feel those before you can really catch yourself and realize, hey, no, I’m not a failure. I’m feeling I’m gonna fail because I got a B in a class.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You automatically feel those before you can really catch yourself and realize, hey, no, I’m not a failure. I’m feeling I’m gonna fail because I got a B in a class.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I do think that the first step to breaking away, as I said, from these expectations is acknowledgement because it is such a deep-rooted issue that it doesn’t even start in high school. It starts from when your academic journey begins in middle school. You’re taught that, like, academics are the be-all and end-all, and that doesn’t end in high school. It doesn’t — like, and when you go to college, I think when you grow up around that environment, it sticks with you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I do think that the first step to breaking away, as I said, from these expectations is acknowledgement because it is such a deep-rooted issue that it doesn’t even start in high school. It starts from when your academic journey begins in middle school. You’re taught that, like, academics are the be-all and end-all, and that doesn’t end in high school. It doesn’t — like, and when you go to college, I think when you grow up around that environment, it sticks with you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Would you say it was middle school where you started to feel it, or did you even feel it as early as elementary?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Would you say it was middle school where you started to feel it, or did you even feel it as early as elementary?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I would say, like, personally, it didn’t really affect me until high school, but I don’t think that’s the case at all for my peers, because I did see my peers very frequently panicking over their grades.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I would say, like, personally, it didn’t really affect me until high school, but I don’t think that’s the case at all for my peers, because I did see my peers very frequently panicking over their grades.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And when I entered as a freshman in high school, I could already see that academic pressure around, and I think that — I don’t think it all of a sudden manifested in the first couple months of freshman year. I think it had been there since middle school, and that’s why so many freshmen were already anxious about their grades.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And when I entered as a freshman in high school, I could already see that academic pressure around, and I think that — I don’t think it all of a sudden manifested in the first couple months of freshman year. I think it had been there since middle school, and that’s why so many freshmen were already anxious about their grades.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Stuart, Ananya mentions acknowledgement, and that’s what you’re trying to do, acknowledge this issue. And I imagine what she’s saying also sounds familiar to you after serving more than 18,000 teenagers in some 18 high schools, I understand, including in California.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Stuart, Ananya mentions acknowledgement, and that’s what you’re trying to do, acknowledge this issue. And I imagine what she’s saying also sounds familiar to you after serving more than 18,000 teenagers in some 18 high schools, I understand, including in California.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yes, absolutely. The first schools that I looked at were all in the Bay Area. And I have to say, Ananya really encapsulated so beautifully, or eloquently, the challenges kids are facing these days and the pressure-cooker environment that they’re facing in communities across this country.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yes, absolutely. The first schools that I looked at were all in the Bay Area. And I have to say, Ananya really encapsulated so beautifully, or eloquently, the challenges kids are facing these days and the pressure-cooker environment that they’re facing in communities across this country.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And even your own child was not immune, right? You share a very relatable experience of her feeling like she couldn’t stop to eat dinner because of all the homework she had and bursting into tears.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And even your own child was not immune, right? You share a very relatable experience of her feeling like she couldn’t stop to eat dinner because of all the homework she had and bursting into tears.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, this really started me on this journey. So I’m a pediatrician, and I was watching my daughters in a high school that was reputedly kind of the most progressive school in the St. Louis region, but the amounts of homework and academic pressure they were facing was just extraordinary.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, this really started me on this journey. So I’m a pediatrician, and I was watching my daughters in a high school that was reputedly kind of the most progressive school in the St. Louis region, but the amounts of homework and academic pressure they were facing was just extraordinary.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so that really launched me on this journey to look at this issue and really raise awareness about it, because I think it could almost be viewed as a problem hiding in plain sight, that we’re so hyper-focused on phones and screens as a source of the adolescent mental health crisis. I have deep concerns about those, but I think it’s led us to kind of ignore this problem, which I think Ananya has really described.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so that really launched me on this journey to look at this issue and really raise awareness about it, because I think it could almost be viewed as a problem hiding in plain sight, that we’re so hyper-focused on phones and screens as a source of the adolescent mental health crisis. I have deep concerns about those, but I think it’s led us to kind of ignore this problem, which I think Ananya has really described.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, how do you know that what your daughter was expressing, or what you see happening around you, is not, you know, temporary stress or momentary drama, but a bigger, more serious structural problem?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, how do you know that what your daughter was expressing, or what you see happening around you, is not, you know, temporary stress or momentary drama, but a bigger, more serious structural problem?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Well, there are a couple of layers to that that I would say. One is, if your child as an adolescent suffers from depression or anxiety, it markedly increases their likelihood of having those mental health problems as adults.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Well, there are a couple of layers to that that I would say. One is, if your child as an adolescent suffers from depression or anxiety, it markedly increases their likelihood of having those mental health problems as adults.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But the other that Ananya kind of alluded to is there are these kind of mindsets. I’ll describe a couple of them. One is maladaptive perfectionism that’s been on the rise for 35 years, where an A-minus or a B isn’t good enough and it feels just terrible. Another is performance as identity. It’s not that you got the score, it’s you are that score.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But the other that Ananya kind of alluded to is there are these kind of mindsets. I’ll describe a couple of them. One is maladaptive perfectionism that’s been on the rise for 35 years, where an A-minus or a B isn’t good enough and it feels just terrible. Another is performance as identity. It’s not that you got the score, it’s you are that score.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Those don’t disappear. Kids are internalizing these and then carrying them into adulthood in ways that then can contribute to their distress later as young adults and on into adulthood.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Those don’t disappear. Kids are internalizing these and then carrying them into adulthood in ways that then can contribute to their distress later as young adults and on into adulthood.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And you have seen this as widespread. Like, what do the stats tell you, and also widening? I quoted you saying that you were also seeing this in much broader economic swaths and also happening younger even than high school. Can you help us understand sort of the scope of what you’re seeing?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And you have seen this as widespread. Like, what do the stats tell you, and also widening? I quoted you saying that you were also seeing this in much broader economic swaths and also happening younger even than high school. Can you help us understand sort of the scope of what you’re seeing?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, the scope I describe in a few ways. I mean, I have done research then in California and Missouri, and also in Ohio. And I also had the opportunity over the last eight years or so in my job to travel the country and just talk to families and talk to kids.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, the scope I describe in a few ways. I mean, I have done research then in California and Missouri, and also in Ohio. And I also had the opportunity over the last eight years or so in my job to travel the country and just talk to families and talk to kids.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And it became very clear that what used to be, I think, really in very affluent communities and on both coasts has spread like wildfire really across the country. And I think to a great degree, it’s understandably kind of — it is driven by, I think, a sense of economic insecurity. A sense that the divide between the haves and the have-nots is growing and that to have a middle-class existence is increasingly difficult.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And it became very clear that what used to be, I think, really in very affluent communities and on both coasts has spread like wildfire really across the country. And I think to a great degree, it’s understandably kind of — it is driven by, I think, a sense of economic insecurity. A sense that the divide between the haves and the have-nots is growing and that to have a middle-class existence is increasingly difficult.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So a lot of this, I think, is well-intended efforts to launch kids to success, which sadly I don’t think are actually even achieving that goal.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So a lot of this, I think, is well-intended efforts to launch kids to success, which sadly I don’t think are actually even achieving that goal.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Hmm. Actually, this Discord user Nicole writes — no, well, writes: “This extreme academic pressure is a symptom of our growing inequality.” And I think you have some thoughts on that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Hmm. Actually, this Discord user Nicole writes — no, well, writes: “This extreme academic pressure is a symptom of our growing inequality.” And I think you have some thoughts on that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’re coming up on a break, though, so let me remind listeners that we are talking with Stuart Slavin, a pediatrician and medical educator and researcher and author of the new book \u003cem>The Success Trap\u003c/em>, and Ananya Kota, a student journalist at Los Altos High School.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>We’re coming up on a break, though, so let me remind listeners that we are talking with Stuart Slavin, a pediatrician and medical educator and researcher and author of the new book \u003cem>The Success Trap\u003c/em>, and Ananya Kota, a student journalist at Los Altos High School.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And with you, are you a high school student or recent graduate? How did academic pressure affect your mental health? If you’re the parent of an adolescent, have you noticed symptoms of anxiety or depression in your child? What did you find helped relieve the stress that comes with high school or college applications? 866-733-6786 is the number.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And with you, are you a high school student or recent graduate? How did academic pressure affect your mental health? If you’re the parent of an adolescent, have you noticed symptoms of anxiety or depression in your child? What did you find helped relieve the stress that comes with high school or college applications? 866-733-6786 is the number.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Stay with us. This is \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Stay with us. This is \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. We’re talking this hour about the increasing pressure students are facing and feeling in high school. We’re talking about it with Stuart Slavin, who’s written a new book called \u003cem>The Success Trap: How the Pressure to Stand Out Is Fueling Anxiety, Depression, and Burnout in Teens and the Fundamental Fix They Deserve\u003c/em>. He’s a pediatrician and researcher.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. We’re talking this hour about the increasing pressure students are facing and feeling in high school. We’re talking about it with Stuart Slavin, who’s written a new book called \u003cem>The Success Trap: How the Pressure to Stand Out Is Fueling Anxiety, Depression, and Burnout in Teens and the Fundamental Fix They Deserve\u003c/em>. He’s a pediatrician and researcher.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Ananya Kota is also with us, a student journalist at Los Altos High School, who published a piece in May in her student paper detailing the pressure students face there.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Ananya Kota is also with us, a student journalist at Los Altos High School, who published a piece in May in her student paper detailing the pressure students face there.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And you are joining us at the email address \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>, listeners on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum. Tell us if you are a student or a parent of a student and you’ve noticed these types of academic pressures and their effect on students’ mental health.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>And you are joining us at the email address \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>, listeners on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum. Tell us if you are a student or a parent of a student and you’ve noticed these types of academic pressures and their effect on students’ mental health.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Are you a teacher or administrator? Are there policies or changes you’ve made at your school that you have found helped improve student mental health? Or what did you find students or parents helped relieve the stress that comes with high school, college admissions and applications, and also with the demands of extracurricular activities?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Are you a teacher or administrator? Are there policies or changes you’ve made at your school that you have found helped improve student mental health? Or what did you find students or parents helped relieve the stress that comes with high school, college admissions and applications, and also with the demands of extracurricular activities?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Listener on Discord writes, “A student’s fear of disappointing their parents often creates more stress than direct parental pressure.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Listener on Discord writes, “A student’s fear of disappointing their parents often creates more stress than direct parental pressure.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>One of the things you were saying, Stuart, was just how much there is concern among parents about economic anxiety and growing inequality as well driving this. What more would you add to what you feel like is leading students to what you’ve described as really unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>One of the things you were saying, Stuart, was just how much there is concern among parents about economic anxiety and growing inequality as well driving this. What more would you add to what you feel like is leading students to what you’ve described as really unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> You know, I think one way to look at that, Mina, is looking at the survey that we used in these 18 schools, and we asked students to rate 35 different stressors in their life to see how big of a stress factor they were.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> You know, I think one way to look at that, Mina, is looking at the survey that we used in these 18 schools, and we asked students to rate 35 different stressors in their life to see how big of a stress factor they were.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And these included things like school-related, obviously, but boyfriend, girlfriend, family issues, health issues, bullying, cyberbullying, social media. And the thing that really struck me is that in every one of the 18 schools, the top-rated stressors, the biggest stressors in kids’ lives, was school- and achievement-related.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And these included things like school-related, obviously, but boyfriend, girlfriend, family issues, health issues, bullying, cyberbullying, social media. And the thing that really struck me is that in every one of the 18 schools, the top-rated stressors, the biggest stressors in kids’ lives, was school- and achievement-related.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And just to add to that point of your really perceptive learner, who said pressure — pressure to not disappoint parents. In our survey, it was actually ranked higher as a greater stressor than direct pressure from parents. So even as parents, if we’re not putting that direct pressure on them, they know our values and sometimes react to those.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And just to add to that point of your really perceptive learner, who said pressure — pressure to not disappoint parents. In our survey, it was actually ranked higher as a greater stressor than direct pressure from parents. So even as parents, if we’re not putting that direct pressure on them, they know our values and sometimes react to those.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The last thing I’ll say about that, which is true, the number one or number two stressor that was cited by kids in every single school was pressure from self. So what they’re doing is reacting to this pressure-cooker environment and then absorbing all of this, and it’s really creating these mindsets that they’re again going to carry with them to adulthood and contribute to future distress as well.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The last thing I’ll say about that, which is true, the number one or number two stressor that was cited by kids in every single school was pressure from self. So what they’re doing is reacting to this pressure-cooker environment and then absorbing all of this, and it’s really creating these mindsets that they’re again going to carry with them to adulthood and contribute to future distress as well.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, I want to bring into the conversation now a former administrator of the California school district, Dublin Unified, Chris Funk. Chris, welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, I want to bring into the conversation now a former administrator of the California school district, Dublin Unified, Chris Funk. Chris, welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Thank you for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Thank you for having me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So your district is trying something new, and I know you just left as an administrator in the summer, but you really set the stage for this experiment, essentially. What are you trying to do in Dublin?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So your district is trying something new, and I know you just left as an administrator in the summer, but you really set the stage for this experiment, essentially. What are you trying to do in Dublin?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> I just retired in June after 36 years in public education, and the majority of that spent between either two K-12 districts and one high school district.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> I just retired in June after 36 years in public education, and the majority of that spent between either two K-12 districts and one high school district.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It was clear to me that this zero-sum race to the top to get to the best colleges was causing students to have excessive academic course loading that seemed like they were just chasing that grade point average, that boost that you get by taking an honors or Advanced Placement course, as opposed to for the love of learning, the engagement of really trying to be masterful of the content that you’re learning.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It was clear to me that this zero-sum race to the top to get to the best colleges was causing students to have excessive academic course loading that seemed like they were just chasing that grade point average, that boost that you get by taking an honors or Advanced Placement course, as opposed to for the love of learning, the engagement of really trying to be masterful of the content that you’re learning.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so in Dublin last year, the board passed a resolution that limited the number of courses, honors and Advanced Placement courses, that a student could take in a single year as well as across their four years. So they could take up to four classes combined, honors and AP, in a single year, and up to 11 across their four-year high school time.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so in Dublin last year, the board passed a resolution that limited the number of courses, honors and Advanced Placement courses, that a student could take in a single year as well as across their four years. So they could take up to four classes combined, honors and AP, in a single year, and up to 11 across their four-year high school time.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And what are you hoping the effect of this change will be?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And what are you hoping the effect of this change will be?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Well, we’re trying to promote more balance, student well-being and a healthier school culture. Because at all three of my systems that I’ve been a part of, there has been mental health has been kind of that stigma. That stigma, I think, has been reduced now after COVID, and now it becomes an expectation that wellness, mental health, is such an important, vital part of everyone’s life, not just high school students, grownups also.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Well, we’re trying to promote more balance, student well-being and a healthier school culture. Because at all three of my systems that I’ve been a part of, there has been mental health has been kind of that stigma. That stigma, I think, has been reduced now after COVID, and now it becomes an expectation that wellness, mental health, is such an important, vital part of everyone’s life, not just high school students, grownups also.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so we’re just trying to focus on creating a more healthy environment, change that mindset that Dr. Slavin has been talking about. And also focus on all the other amazing aspects of being an adolescent in high school, whether it’s athletics, whether it is extracurricular activities like band and choir and drama and dance, all the amazing things that happen in high school, and less focus on just the academic course loading.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so we’re just trying to focus on creating a more healthy environment, change that mindset that Dr. Slavin has been talking about. And also focus on all the other amazing aspects of being an adolescent in high school, whether it’s athletics, whether it is extracurricular activities like band and choir and drama and dance, all the amazing things that happen in high school, and less focus on just the academic course loading.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And what was the reaction to this decision to limit the number of AP classes offered? And similarly, Discord user Jeff writes, “Did you get pushback from families who worried the AP class limit would disadvantage their kids in college admissions?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And what was the reaction to this decision to limit the number of AP classes offered? And similarly, Discord user Jeff writes, “Did you get pushback from families who worried the AP class limit would disadvantage their kids in college admissions?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Well, I had a unanimous decision by my board, and my board represents the entire district. So that’s a good sign. And yes, there’s always going to be some pushback on any policy that you implement.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Well, I had a unanimous decision by my board, and my board represents the entire district. So that’s a good sign. And yes, there’s always going to be some pushback on any policy that you implement.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I believe the pushback was minor compared to the larger conversation we had around grading, because we did change our grading policy prior to the resolution on limiting AP courses. But most of it was around the fact that families and students felt like they were going to be put at a disadvantage, and just really not understanding the academic entrance requirements into colleges and universities, the idea of what is the official school profile, that you’re really just competing against your own peers at your school and you’re not competing against other schools across the nation.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I believe the pushback was minor compared to the larger conversation we had around grading, because we did change our grading policy prior to the resolution on limiting AP courses. But most of it was around the fact that families and students felt like they were going to be put at a disadvantage, and just really not understanding the academic entrance requirements into colleges and universities, the idea of what is the official school profile, that you’re really just competing against your own peers at your school and you’re not competing against other schools across the nation.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And the reality is that you can get to the very best colleges without having to overload on your course taking. So it’s really about education.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And the reality is that you can get to the very best colleges without having to overload on your course taking. So it’s really about education.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And universities, they do know or have profiles on high schools, right, about how many APs are offered there, so they recognize that if a student is taking a certain number that may be less than another district, it’s just because that district simply didn’t offer that many of them.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And universities, they do know or have profiles on high schools, right, about how many APs are offered there, so they recognize that if a student is taking a certain number that may be less than another district, it’s just because that district simply didn’t offer that many of them.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. That’s exactly it. That is why each school and each district has their school profile.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. That’s exactly it. That is why each school and each district has their school profile.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And the other piece is that there is this idea that the more classes I take, the better chance I have of getting into this college. And the reality is every college, every university recalculates the GPA, and they have the base level, 22 courses, 24 courses that they actually take the GPA of. So if you take 30 courses, six of those courses, depending on which college or university you apply for, aren’t even going to count because they’re not going to calculate that in your GPA.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And the other piece is that there is this idea that the more classes I take, the better chance I have of getting into this college. And the reality is every college, every university recalculates the GPA, and they have the base level, 22 courses, 24 courses that they actually take the GPA of. So if you take 30 courses, six of those courses, depending on which college or university you apply for, aren’t even going to count because they’re not going to calculate that in your GPA.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so what we’re trying to create in Dublin was this concept of focus on the areas that you love, do the very best and master those areas. Focus on the other aspects of being an adolescent and what colleges look for in terms of your extracurricular activities, your community service, and all being that whole child. It has been lost with this race to the top.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so what we’re trying to create in Dublin was this concept of focus on the areas that you love, do the very best and master those areas. Focus on the other aspects of being an adolescent and what colleges look for in terms of your extracurricular activities, your community service, and all being that whole child. It has been lost with this race to the top.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> It’s very interesting because I hear echoes in what Chris Funk is saying with what you’ve said about, maybe we have lost our understanding of what successful means.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> It’s very interesting because I hear echoes in what Chris Funk is saying with what you’ve said about, maybe we have lost our understanding of what successful means.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think that’s exactly right, and I have to say first, kudos to you, Chris, and your board for taking these actions. I think a lot of schools have been really reluctant to take these kind of measures.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think that’s exactly right, and I have to say first, kudos to you, Chris, and your board for taking these actions. I think a lot of schools have been really reluctant to take these kind of measures.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>One of the key things, I think, for listeners to really understand is that I think there’s this idea that if you back off, the performance is going to drop.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>One of the key things, I think, for listeners to really understand is that I think there’s this idea that if you back off, the performance is going to drop.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>A couple of things I would say to counter that: In every school I looked at, kids reported on average getting six and a half hours of sleep per night. The adolescent brain needs eight to ten, so at that level they’re cognitively and emotionally compromised.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>A couple of things I would say to counter that: In every school I looked at, kids reported on average getting six and a half hours of sleep per night. The adolescent brain needs eight to ten, so at that level they’re cognitively and emotionally compromised.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And then the other piece that I think is really important stems from my work with medical students, in which we found high rates of depression and anxiety, reduced pressure, reduced demands, and not only did their mental health improve dramatically, their performance improved as well.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And then the other piece that I think is really important stems from my work with medical students, in which we found high rates of depression and anxiety, reduced pressure, reduced demands, and not only did their mental health improve dramatically, their performance improved as well.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think there’s kind of this false narrative that if we back off, if we reduce the pressure, that somehow performance is going to drop and they aren’t going to be as competitive. And I think that’s just false.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think there’s kind of this false narrative that if we back off, if we reduce the pressure, that somehow performance is going to drop and they aren’t going to be as competitive. And I think that’s just false.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Ananya, though, I was struck by a Chronicle piece that covered what Dublin was doing, and it quoted a student, or just a recent graduate from Dublin, as saying that students are just going to find other ways to stand out if they can’t stand out based on the number of AP courses they’ve taken.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Ananya, though, I was struck by a Chronicle piece that covered what Dublin was doing, and it quoted a student, or just a recent graduate from Dublin, as saying that students are just going to find other ways to stand out if they can’t stand out based on the number of AP courses they’ve taken.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What do you think about that? Do you think that’s likely true?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What do you think about that? Do you think that’s likely true?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I think partially yes, just because, I mean, the AP cap has also been discussed among our districts, and I certainly did hear a lot of pushback from my peers at the idea of being limited about the number of APs. I frankly think some of them find it scary.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I think partially yes, just because, I mean, the AP cap has also been discussed among our districts, and I certainly did hear a lot of pushback from my peers at the idea of being limited about the number of APs. I frankly think some of them find it scary.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But there is also, I know you mentioned it before, like a stigma around extracurriculars, how many you need to take, how they need to stand out. And I think some of that pressure will shift.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But there is also, I know you mentioned it before, like a stigma around extracurriculars, how many you need to take, how they need to stand out. And I think some of that pressure will shift.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But also I do think academics and extracurriculars are two very separate entities, and I do think limiting the number of APs can potentially really help students focus academically and really take the classes they’re passionate about.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But also I do think academics and extracurriculars are two very separate entities, and I do think limiting the number of APs can potentially really help students focus academically and really take the classes they’re passionate about.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I do unfortunately think that it won’t eliminate the pressure and they’ll still feel stressed about it. So I think it will help them, but that pressure might unfortunately feel more prominent just because there’s that underlying worry that if I’m not taking enough AP classes, am I going to be competitive, or do I need to make up for this in my extracurriculars?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But I do unfortunately think that it won’t eliminate the pressure and they’ll still feel stressed about it. So I think it will help them, but that pressure might unfortunately feel more prominent just because there’s that underlying worry that if I’m not taking enough AP classes, am I going to be competitive, or do I need to make up for this in my extracurriculars?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think it honestly completely kind of depends on the student and how they receive that. But yeah, I think they can be received in multiple ways.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think it honestly completely kind of depends on the student and how they receive that. But yeah, I think they can be received in multiple ways.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Let me go to caller Naomi in Berkeley. Naomi, go ahead, you’re on.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Let me go to caller Naomi in Berkeley. Naomi, go ahead, you’re on.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Hi, my students graduated from Berkeley High in 2023 and 2025. And I think the pressure comes not only from the academic achievements, but the community and the parents of friends and the peers themselves.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Hi, my students graduated from Berkeley High in 2023 and 2025. And I think the pressure comes not only from the academic achievements, but the community and the parents of friends and the peers themselves.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>My kids were admitted to fine, decent state and UC schools. And they heard comments from parents at parties or from their peers that they would never allow their kids to apply to that school, or they would never go to that school as only their backup school, and I found that to be, as a parent, to be very distressing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>My kids were admitted to fine, decent state and UC schools. And they heard comments from parents at parties or from their peers that they would never allow their kids to apply to that school, or they would never go to that school as only their backup school, and I found that to be, as a parent, to be very distressing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>My kids were fine students. They had A’s and B’s. I did not allow them, or do not encourage them, to max out their APs. They had, you know, they were varsity athletes, and still, by their peers and the parents in our community, they heard very negative comments, and it was very hurtful.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>My kids were fine students. They had A’s and B’s. I did not allow them, or do not encourage them, to max out their APs. They had, you know, they were varsity athletes, and still, by their peers and the parents in our community, they heard very negative comments, and it was very hurtful.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Naomi, thank you for sharing that. Stuart, what have you found are sort of the most common or problematic ways that parents in communities inadvertently add pressure to kids?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Naomi, thank you for sharing that. Stuart, what have you found are sort of the most common or problematic ways that parents in communities inadvertently add pressure to kids?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so back to that point that pressure to not disappoint parents, even if you’re not putting that direct pressure on, they may know your values by, you know, when you’re talking to friends and somebody mentions that their child is going to Harvard or Stanford, etc., and they just light up. The kids can know your value.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so back to that point that pressure to not disappoint parents, even if you’re not putting that direct pressure on, they may know your values by, you know, when you’re talking to friends and somebody mentions that their child is going to Harvard or Stanford, etc., and they just light up. The kids can know your value.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I think what your caller also really alludes to is that this is widespread in the culture, and I think in some ways it requires some courage on the part of parents and kids to say, no, I’m not going to be influenced and affected by that. I have a sense of my self-worth as a human being that isn’t tied to going to the most, you know, selective, prestigious college possible.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But I think what your caller also really alludes to is that this is widespread in the culture, and I think in some ways it requires some courage on the part of parents and kids to say, no, I’m not going to be influenced and affected by that. I have a sense of my self-worth as a human being that isn’t tied to going to the most, you know, selective, prestigious college possible.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Jane writes, “My 18-year-old has dealt with depression and anxiety and expresses desire to relieve their stress with drugs and alcohol. I feel like saying, well, just don’t do that. But just like abstinence, I know saying just say no is unrealistic. How would you suggest talking to a young adult about drugs and alcohol and moderation in a world filled with anxiety?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Jane writes, “My 18-year-old has dealt with depression and anxiety and expresses desire to relieve their stress with drugs and alcohol. I feel like saying, well, just don’t do that. But just like abstinence, I know saying just say no is unrealistic. How would you suggest talking to a young adult about drugs and alcohol and moderation in a world filled with anxiety?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And it sounds like if they’re using it to relieve anxiety, Stuart.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And it sounds like if they’re using it to relieve anxiety, Stuart.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Oh, it’s a very difficult situation, I feel, for that person, and I think that’s kind of the downstream consequences of having a child who’s living in such a pressurized environment as an adolescent that they enter young adulthood really at risk.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Oh, it’s a very difficult situation, I feel, for that person, and I think that’s kind of the downstream consequences of having a child who’s living in such a pressurized environment as an adolescent that they enter young adulthood really at risk.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And in terms of how to talk to them, I guess, you know, I think with a supportive approach, without a judgmental approach, and ideally encouraging them with you to seek care from a health professional of some kind.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But it is, I think, these are the kind of hidden consequences of what may happen if our kids do feel such enormous pressure and demands as they’re in their early development.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Laura writes, “How do we encourage a kid to work and do well, to put in the time to understand the schoolwork without putting dangerous pressures on them?” Stuart.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Laura writes, “How do we encourage a kid to work and do well, to put in the time to understand the schoolwork without putting dangerous pressures on them?” Stuart.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I guess what I would say is one of the things that I think is important is to focus less. We have a tendency — how’d that test go? What kind of scores are you getting? How’s your grade point average?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I guess what I would say is one of the things that I think is important is to focus less. We have a tendency — how’d that test go? What kind of scores are you getting? How’s your grade point average?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And these electronic dashboards, I think, have become a real problem, where it’s not just kids checking them furiously, but parents are as well.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And these electronic dashboards, I think, have become a real problem, where it’s not just kids checking them furiously, but parents are as well.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think it’s vitally important, it’s just vitally important, for parents to acknowledge and celebrate other identities than their kids’ academic performance: their humor, their creativity, their kindness, their ability to work with others. There are so many things that we need to recognize in our kids that I think get lost in our daily conversations of left cars.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think it’s vitally important, it’s just vitally important, for parents to acknowledge and celebrate other identities than their kids’ academic performance: their humor, their creativity, their kindness, their ability to work with others. There are so many things that we need to recognize in our kids that I think get lost in our daily conversations of left cars.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Talk about where it can lead. You mentioned the phenomenon of crashing out. What is that?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Talk about where it can lead. You mentioned the phenomenon of crashing out. What is that?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Oh, crashing out, I think, Ananya, I’d love to hear what she says, where, you know, what looks like a minor setback to anybody else, you know, if anybody else looks at somebody who gets an A-minus or a B-plus, and, you know, the kid thinks it’s a failure.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Oh, crashing out, I think, Ananya, I’d love to hear what she says, where, you know, what looks like a minor setback to anybody else, you know, if anybody else looks at somebody who gets an A-minus or a B-plus, and, you know, the kid thinks it’s a failure.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s not a failure, but that’s what it feels like. And that’s what these mindsets do. You know, you have the discomfort of a less-than-ideal performance. But the story, the narrative you add to it, that you attach to it, can make the pain much, much worse.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It’s not a failure, but that’s what it feels like. And that’s what these mindsets do. You know, you have the discomfort of a less-than-ideal performance. But the story, the narrative you add to it, that you attach to it, can make the pain much, much worse.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think there are skills that kids can easily learn and that parents can use. Tell them and help them understand these are just stories you’re telling yourself that really aren’t accurate and are harmful. And helping kids change those thought processes, I think, could be incredibly helpful on their journey to adulthood.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think there are skills that kids can easily learn and that parents can use. Tell them and help them understand these are just stories you’re telling yourself that really aren’t accurate and are harmful. And helping kids change those thought processes, I think, could be incredibly helpful on their journey to adulthood.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah. And you write that they manifest as essentially an acute cognitive and emotional breakdown, right? From explosive outbursts to actually emotional withdrawal.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah. And you write that they manifest as essentially an acute cognitive and emotional breakdown, right? From explosive outbursts to actually emotional withdrawal.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think parents just can’t really even comprehend. Again, it’s hard for them to understand why this, what looks like a minor setback, um, feels so profoundly painful.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think parents just can’t really even comprehend. Again, it’s hard for them to understand why this, what looks like a minor setback, um, feels so profoundly painful.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And again, I think it’s what Ananya had described is this culture that people live in, and it’s not just parents, it’s just, you know, teachers, coaches, et cetera, peers that are also creating this environment that is profound.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And again, I think it’s what Ananya had described is this culture that people live in, and it’s not just parents, it’s just, you know, teachers, coaches, et cetera, peers that are also creating this environment that is profound.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And again, as you said, the crashing out can be just breakdowns, perseverative thinking where they just can’t stop thinking about this problem. You know, meltdowns, tears, or anger as well.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>And again, as you said, the crashing out can be just breakdowns, perseverative thinking where they just can’t stop thinking about this problem. You know, meltdowns, tears, or anger as well.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Ananya, we’re coming up on a break, but you wrote about a friend distancing themselves from your friend group for months. How were you able to reach out?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Ananya, we’re coming up on a break, but you wrote about a friend distancing themselves from your friend group for months. How were you able to reach out?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I noticed it initially because she stopped coming to sit with lunch with us, and she stopped talking in our group chats. And I don’t think the pressure she felt was purposeful, I think, because our friends are very aware of the academic pressure, but a lot of them are extremely successful.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I noticed it initially because she stopped coming to sit with lunch with us, and she stopped talking in our group chats. And I don’t think the pressure she felt was purposeful, I think, because our friends are very aware of the academic pressure, but a lot of them are extremely successful.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>All my friends are wonderful. I have a friend that’s going to Stanford and another one is going to Barnard. And I think even just being around such immensely successful people can make you feel, “I’m not doing enough.” And I think that’s what she felt.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>All my friends are wonderful. I have a friend that’s going to Stanford and another one is going to Barnard. And I think even just being around such immensely successful people can make you feel, “I’m not doing enough.” And I think that’s what she felt.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And it’s exactly what he described, the emotional withdrawal. That was the aspect that she was facing. And it really manifested in, not in necessarily like outward outburst, but inward.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>And it’s exactly what he described, the emotional withdrawal. That was the aspect that she was facing. And it really manifested in, not in necessarily like outward outburst, but inward.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re talking about the increasing academic pressures on high school students today. More after the break. I’m Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re talking about the increasing academic pressures on high school students today. More after the break. I’m Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You’re listening to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. We’re talking this hour with Los Altos High School senior Ananya Kota, former superintendent of Dublin Unified School District, Chris Funk, and pediatrician, researcher and author of the new book \u003cem>The Success Trap\u003c/em>, Stuart Slavin, about how to address the increasing anxiety, depression and burnout that students are experiencing as a result of increased parental and social expectations and the desire to stand out in a college admissions process that seems to be demanding more AP courses and extracurriculars.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You’re listening to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. We’re talking this hour with Los Altos High School senior Ananya Kota, former superintendent of Dublin Unified School District, Chris Funk, and pediatrician, researcher and author of the new book \u003cem>The Success Trap\u003c/em>, Stuart Slavin, about how to address the increasing anxiety, depression and burnout that students are experiencing as a result of increased parental and social expectations and the desire to stand out in a college admissions process that seems to be demanding more AP courses and extracurriculars.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Join the conversation with your own experiences and questions about how to address this at 866-733-6786, at the email address \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, and Instagram. We’re at KQED Forum.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Join the conversation with your own experiences and questions about how to address this at 866-733-6786, at the email address \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, and Instagram. We’re at KQED Forum.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Let me go to AJ in Mountain View. Hi, AJ, you’re on.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Let me go to AJ in Mountain View. Hi, AJ, you’re on.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Hi, thanks for taking me on. I actually wanted to share a comment with regards to the pressure even though that comes from extracurricular activities that contribute to, that are important for college.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Hi, thanks for taking me on. I actually wanted to share a comment with regards to the pressure even though that comes from extracurricular activities that contribute to, that are important for college.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I actually know this family. I mean, the child is all of 10 years old at this point. He’s into diving. There’s math class, there’s — I had no class, but of others, but what stood out for me was when the parent actually created a website, took some pictures, printed a calendar, and sold them to fund an NGO.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I actually know this family. I mean, the child is all of 10 years old at this point. He’s into diving. There’s math class, there’s — I had no class, but of others, but what stood out for me was when the parent actually created a website, took some pictures, printed a calendar, and sold them to fund an NGO.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And all of this to support his future college admissions. My concern was when a child is all of 10, I believe it’s going to be under 10 more years before he enters, and the pressure is already on. And this is in Los Altos, so I understand. I hear what Ananya is actually talking about. I actually see it around me and my neighbors.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And all of this to support his future college admissions. My concern was when a child is all of 10, I believe it’s going to be under 10 more years before he enters, and the pressure is already on. And this is in Los Altos, so I understand. I hear what Ananya is actually talking about. I actually see it around me and my neighbors.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Concerning. Well, AJ, thanks so much for sharing that. Stuart, would love to get your reactions to what AJ is describing, and it also seems to underscore the earlier point that you are seeing this younger and younger.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Concerning. Well, AJ, thanks so much for sharing that. Stuart, would love to get your reactions to what AJ is describing, and it also seems to underscore the earlier point that you are seeing this younger and younger.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> When I first started writing this book, and much of the research that supports it was really focused on high school students. But as I was talking to more people and I heard more and more stories of this kind of behavior, I think what it’s reflective of is a phenomenon called intensive parenting, where parents feel enormous social pressure to have their children in a lot of enrichment activities that increasingly have become much more intensive.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> When I first started writing this book, and much of the research that supports it was really focused on high school students. But as I was talking to more people and I heard more and more stories of this kind of behavior, I think what it’s reflective of is a phenomenon called intensive parenting, where parents feel enormous social pressure to have their children in a lot of enrichment activities that increasingly have become much more intensive.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The old days of just, like, you know, rec-league baseball has been replaced by club sports that go year-round, involve travel, sometimes enormous pressure and sense of competition on the kids. So, yeah, you have to wonder and worry about the impact on, goodness, a 10-year-old child. And it starts earlier.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The old days of just, like, you know, rec-league baseball has been replaced by club sports that go year-round, involve travel, sometimes enormous pressure and sense of competition on the kids. So, yeah, you have to wonder and worry about the impact on, goodness, a 10-year-old child. And it starts earlier.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’ve talked to parents of five- and six-year-olds. A quick story, which is a mom who told me, another mom said, “Do you have a soccer coach for your six-year-old?” And she said, “No.” “Well, he’s never gonna get into the travel team.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I’ve talked to parents of five- and six-year-olds. A quick story, which is a mom who told me, another mom said, “Do you have a soccer coach for your six-year-old?” And she said, “No.” “Well, he’s never gonna get into the travel team.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think those pressures are widespread and they’re starting earlier and earlier.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think those pressures are widespread and they’re starting earlier and earlier.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> One of the things you’ve warned against, Stuart, is parent as problem solver, the increasing role they take in that. What do you see as the dangers and how can they pull back?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> One of the things you’ve warned against, Stuart, is parent as problem solver, the increasing role they take in that. What do you see as the dangers and how can they pull back?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I have to admit I was a problem solver in many ways as a parent, and I think there’s a tendency for us to jump in when your kids are struggling. And while that’s important and at times to do, I think what you have to recognize is that if you jump in too quickly and intervene too aggressively, it has unintended consequences of reducing their own self-confidence in dealing with their problems, undermining their ability potentially to deal with challenges in the future.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I have to admit I was a problem solver in many ways as a parent, and I think there’s a tendency for us to jump in when your kids are struggling. And while that’s important and at times to do, I think what you have to recognize is that if you jump in too quickly and intervene too aggressively, it has unintended consequences of reducing their own self-confidence in dealing with their problems, undermining their ability potentially to deal with challenges in the future.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I mean, in many ways, we should be viewing adolescents as this kind of training ground for adulthood, and they need practice in working through and solving their problems as well.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I mean, in many ways, we should be viewing adolescents as this kind of training ground for adulthood, and they need practice in working through and solving their problems as well.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So you should be there to support. Don’t abandon your kids, but don’t fall into the tendency to jump in too quickly to try to rescue and solve problems.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So you should be there to support. Don’t abandon your kids, but don’t fall into the tendency to jump in too quickly to try to rescue and solve problems.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Scott in Sacramento writes, “Does involvement in extracurricular activities like after-school sports or clubs help relieve that stress of everyday student lives, or does it just compound it? As a parent, I feel that it would relieve it, but I didn’t have social media and other modern-day pressures that kids experience nowadays.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Scott in Sacramento writes, “Does involvement in extracurricular activities like after-school sports or clubs help relieve that stress of everyday student lives, or does it just compound it? As a parent, I feel that it would relieve it, but I didn’t have social media and other modern-day pressures that kids experience nowadays.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What do you think, Ananya? Do you think that extracurriculars — do you find them to be a place of relief or do you find them to be added stress?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What do you think, Ananya? Do you think that extracurriculars — do you find them to be a place of relief or do you find them to be added stress?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I think it can be both. Honestly, personally, an extracurricular I find that stress relieving, as I do cross-country, and it’s so nice to have a dedicated time period where I can just exercise. And I know it’s a really good medium of stress relief. So that’s an example of one extracurricular that I think is stress relief.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I think it can be both. Honestly, personally, an extracurricular I find that stress relieving, as I do cross-country, and it’s so nice to have a dedicated time period where I can just exercise. And I know it’s a really good medium of stress relief. So that’s an example of one extracurricular that I think is stress relief.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But also, in turn, I think in the back of my head, “Oh, this is taking a couple hours out of my day, so when am I going to do homework? When am I going to do this? When do I do that?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But also, in turn, I think in the back of my head, “Oh, this is taking a couple hours out of my day, so when am I going to do homework? When am I going to do this? When do I do that?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think it’s a mix of both, and the key to finding an extracurricular that can do stress relief is just time management, knowing that, oh, if I’m gonna do this sport, can I have a time where I can do this other extracurricular or take the time to do homework this other time period?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think it’s a mix of both, and the key to finding an extracurricular that can do stress relief is just time management, knowing that, oh, if I’m gonna do this sport, can I have a time where I can do this other extracurricular or take the time to do homework this other time period?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So don’t cram like seven extracurriculars into one day, because I think that starts to make it more of a pressure than a stress relief. But I think if you can find the key number of extracurriculars you genuinely enjoy, it can definitely be a stress relief.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So don’t cram like seven extracurriculars into one day, because I think that starts to make it more of a pressure than a stress relief. But I think if you can find the key number of extracurriculars you genuinely enjoy, it can definitely be a stress relief.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Have you found helpful, Ananya, as a high school student deep in this, right? Like strategies or things that you have found helped work for you in terms of relieving the stress and pressure?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Have you found helpful, Ananya, as a high school student deep in this, right? Like strategies or things that you have found helped work for you in terms of relieving the stress and pressure?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I think the biggest thing is just being very aware of my limits as a student. I think, like, obviously being surrounded by so much pressure, it’s definitely affected me to the point where, like, sometimes I’ll find myself being like, “Oh, I should have taken that AP class,” even if it’s like not a class I’m necessarily, like, very passionate about.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I think the biggest thing is just being very aware of my limits as a student. I think, like, obviously being surrounded by so much pressure, it’s definitely affected me to the point where, like, sometimes I’ll find myself being like, “Oh, I should have taken that AP class,” even if it’s like not a class I’m necessarily, like, very passionate about.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I think just having a support group around you, friends who don’t encourage, like, the academic pressure or don’t say things like, “Oh, you didn’t get an A on that test. Well, what are you doing?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But I think just having a support group around you, friends who don’t encourage, like, the academic pressure or don’t say things like, “Oh, you didn’t get an A on that test. Well, what are you doing?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think being very aware of your own limits and also communicating that to your peers, especially to your parents, as they’re your main support, can really help with developing an understanding of, this is what I can do and I’m going to stick with it because I don’t want to burn out and I don’t want to fall down that rabbit hole of I’m not doing enough.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think being very aware of your own limits and also communicating that to your peers, especially to your parents, as they’re your main support, can really help with developing an understanding of, this is what I can do and I’m going to stick with it because I don’t want to burn out and I don’t want to fall down that rabbit hole of I’m not doing enough.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Chris, I’m curious what you’ve observed with regard to, you know, parents who seem to have a healthy relationship with their kids’ success levels.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Chris, I’m curious what you’ve observed with regard to, you know, parents who seem to have a healthy relationship with their kids’ success levels.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you see it as has been mentioned. It starts younger and younger. But in terms of the academics, one of the key things or guidelines that happens — measure points — is in middle school math acceleration.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you see it as has been mentioned. It starts younger and younger. But in terms of the academics, one of the key things or guidelines that happens — measure points — is in middle school math acceleration.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I can’t tell you, in all three of my school districts that I was in in 36 years, the goal to take calculus by your junior or even your sophomore year is the new trend. And you start ninth grade in Algebra 2, which is just completely a mindset that has to be changed, because every student that really wants to take calculus can get there in four years of high school math.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I can’t tell you, in all three of my school districts that I was in in 36 years, the goal to take calculus by your junior or even your sophomore year is the new trend. And you start ninth grade in Algebra 2, which is just completely a mindset that has to be changed, because every student that really wants to take calculus can get there in four years of high school math.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>For some, it might require taking a summer course or a bridge course. But for most students, if they are applicable to taking calculus, they’ll be able to do it. But to have kids start to accelerate, taking algebra and geometry in middle school, I think that is way too much pressure.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>For some, it might require taking a summer course or a bridge course. But for most students, if they are applicable to taking calculus, they’ll be able to do it. But to have kids start to accelerate, taking algebra and geometry in middle school, I think that is way too much pressure.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so, same families that put their kids in math acceleration, that also put them in academic classes in the summertime. You know, summertime really should be that time to explore other passions that you have. Just like with teachers, you’ve got to recharge your battery, because the school year is not a sprint, it’s a marathon.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so, same families that put their kids in math acceleration, that also put them in academic classes in the summertime. You know, summertime really should be that time to explore other passions that you have. Just like with teachers, you’ve got to recharge your battery, because the school year is not a sprint, it’s a marathon.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And there are certain stages throughout the year, October, December, end of February, that kids hit the wall, teachers hit the wall. And you got to be able to have that well-groundedness that’s important.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And there are certain stages throughout the year, October, December, end of February, that kids hit the wall, teachers hit the wall. And you got to be able to have that well-groundedness that’s important.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think one other aspect that we haven’t really talked about is that this policy is not a silver bullet. It’s to address one aspect of the academic stress. But grading is a huge discussion that may be for another day, but we have kids that are just chasing points.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think one other aspect that we haven’t really talked about is that this policy is not a silver bullet. It’s to address one aspect of the academic stress. But grading is a huge discussion that may be for another day, but we have kids that are just chasing points.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And that grading actually starts even in elementary school, where they don’t normally have letter grades. But this extra credit, chasing that extra credit, bringing in paper towel dispensers, bringing in hand cleanser for extra points — all that does is boost your grade, but doesn’t necessarily translate, or certainly doesn’t translate, to mastery of that content.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And that grading actually starts even in elementary school, where they don’t normally have letter grades. But this extra credit, chasing that extra credit, bringing in paper towel dispensers, bringing in hand cleanser for extra points — all that does is boost your grade, but doesn’t necessarily translate, or certainly doesn’t translate, to mastery of that content.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>When you’re only chasing points, that’s another stressor on kids that the grading policy has to be addressed.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>When you’re only chasing points, that’s another stressor on kids that the grading policy has to be addressed.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Stuart, you have a whole section about how many of the kids you spoke with have painted a picture of a lack of joy in their lives, which I really feel like is what Chris has been getting to.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Stuart, you have a whole section about how many of the kids you spoke with have painted a picture of a lack of joy in their lives, which I really feel like is what Chris has been getting to.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it is. I think that was the thing that was most striking to me. And one thing I’ll add on to a comment that Ananya made about cross-country: I think she seems to be approaching it in a healthy way, but I’ve talked to people, and this was one of the things that surprised me as I talked to kids, is that the perfectionism they had in their academics was also there in their extracurriculars.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it is. I think that was the thing that was most striking to me. And one thing I’ll add on to a comment that Ananya made about cross-country: I think she seems to be approaching it in a healthy way, but I’ve talked to people, and this was one of the things that surprised me as I talked to kids, is that the perfectionism they had in their academics was also there in their extracurriculars.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So if they had a disappointing cross-country time, they would just beat up on themselves and ruminate on this thought for just forever. So, this is a deep problem that I think kind of is — infiltrates, you know, all aspects of their life. Everything can become a competition.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So if they had a disappointing cross-country time, they would just beat up on themselves and ruminate on this thought for just forever. So, this is a deep problem that I think kind of is — infiltrates, you know, all aspects of their life. Everything can become a competition.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And when everything’s a competition, like the idea of just fun and joy disappears.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And when everything’s a competition, like the idea of just fun and joy disappears.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And last thing I think I would say about that that’s especially true: It isn’t the activities themselves that are a problem. It’s the nature of the activities. There’s great research that shows that it’s not the amount of time you spend in these, but it’s how competitive, how pressured, how controlled by adults is it. Those are the things that seem to correlate with adverse mental health outcomes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And last thing I think I would say about that that’s especially true: It isn’t the activities themselves that are a problem. It’s the nature of the activities. There’s great research that shows that it’s not the amount of time you spend in these, but it’s how competitive, how pressured, how controlled by adults is it. Those are the things that seem to correlate with adverse mental health outcomes.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think we do need to, like, let’s bring some joy and fun back into the lives of our kids.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Do you see the turn to smartphones and screens or social media in part as a symptom of this lack of joy?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Do you see the turn to smartphones and screens or social media in part as a symptom of this lack of joy?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> I think that’s such a good question, and I think how I’d answer that is, yeah, and brief, yes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> I think that’s such a good question, and I think how I’d answer that is, yeah, and brief, yes.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think one of the things that’s really striking to me about it is that our approach largely is, you know, kind of pushing these companies to change their algorithms, et cetera. That’s great. But a lot of it’s like prohibition, like let’s take your phones when you walk in the door at school, et cetera, et cetera.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think one of the things that’s really striking to me about it is that our approach largely is, you know, kind of pushing these companies to change their algorithms, et cetera. That’s great. But a lot of it’s like prohibition, like let’s take your phones when you walk in the door at school, et cetera, et cetera.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think we need to be working on the other side of the engagement. I think kids are turning to these devices because in many ways their virtual lives are more interesting and pleasant than their real ones.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think we need to be working on the other side of the engagement. I think kids are turning to these devices because in many ways their virtual lives are more interesting and pleasant than their real ones.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So one of the ways we maybe can work to get kids off their screens is actually to make their real lives more pleasant, more joyful, more enjoyable.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So one of the ways we maybe can work to get kids off their screens is actually to make their real lives more pleasant, more joyful, more enjoyable.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Let me remind listeners, you are listening to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. I’m going to caller Jonathan in San Francisco. Go ahead, Jonathan. You’re on.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Let me remind listeners, you are listening to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. I’m going to caller Jonathan in San Francisco. Go ahead, Jonathan. You’re on.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> I mean, I think this is a great topic that you guys have covered in a very well-rounded way. As a parent of a freshman and a seventh grader, I’m kind of in the middle of seeing a lot of this happening.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> I mean, I think this is a great topic that you guys have covered in a very well-rounded way. As a parent of a freshman and a seventh grader, I’m kind of in the middle of seeing a lot of this happening.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think there’s kind of a bifurcated set of forces that haven’t entirely been hit on yet on both sides of the collegiate experience.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think there’s kind of a bifurcated set of forces that haven’t entirely been hit on yet on both sides of the collegiate experience.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>On the high school side, more and more, as parents, we keep hearing, and the kids you’re hearing, but straight A is kind of the entry level, the bare minimum of what you need to get accepted at the top colleges. You need to have published papers. You need to be a part of research projects at reputable institutions. They’re not even just looking at the AP courses you took, they’re looking at how many AP courses did your high school offer? And then what percentage of those did you take?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>On the high school side, more and more, as parents, we keep hearing, and the kids you’re hearing, but straight A is kind of the entry level, the bare minimum of what you need to get accepted at the top colleges. You need to have published papers. You need to be a part of research projects at reputable institutions. They’re not even just looking at the AP courses you took, they’re looking at how many AP courses did your high school offer? And then what percentage of those did you take?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so those pressures really mount on the kids because I hear the kids talking about it a lot and comparing their strategies for getting into these sought-after schools.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so those pressures really mount on the kids because I hear the kids talking about it a lot and comparing their strategies for getting into these sought-after schools.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And then on the other side of the collegiate experience, looking at where AI is going, I hear kids talking, a lot of my kids’ friends talking about, we’re worried that there’s not gonna be as many jobs. We’re hearing, you know, people that have graduated into college are now struggling to find work. And it’s a small percentage, but it’s still enough that it’s a part of the conversation.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And then on the other side of the collegiate experience, looking at where AI is going, I hear kids talking, a lot of my kids’ friends talking about, we’re worried that there’s not gonna be as many jobs. We’re hearing, you know, people that have graduated into college are now struggling to find work. And it’s a small percentage, but it’s still enough that it’s a part of the conversation.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so they’re worried that they have to work even harder to achieve even more to make sure that they’ll have a shot at what’s going to be left over after that unknown piece takes a bite out of the workforce.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so they’re worried that they have to work even harder to achieve even more to make sure that they’ll have a shot at what’s going to be left over after that unknown piece takes a bite out of the workforce.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think those two forces are kind of creating or adding to that pressure cooker as well.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think those two forces are kind of creating or adding to that pressure cooker as well.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Jonathan, thanks for saying that. Yeah, Chris, I mean, I’m wondering if you see, you know, Stuart is talking about worries of insufficiency, right? Essentially that the child is, you know, not — is going to have to face a very difficult economic situation and so on. But the other thing is, is this sense — I’m wondering if you’re seeing that is adding to it — that we’re also sort of living under threat, like the threat of climate change or dangerous AI agents, right, among other things, that are driving parents to put a lot of pressure on their teens.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Jonathan, thanks for saying that. Yeah, Chris, I mean, I’m wondering if you see, you know, Stuart is talking about worries of insufficiency, right? Essentially that the child is, you know, not — is going to have to face a very difficult economic situation and so on. But the other thing is, is this sense — I’m wondering if you’re seeing that is adding to it — that we’re also sort of living under threat, like the threat of climate change or dangerous AI agents, right, among other things, that are driving parents to put a lot of pressure on their teens.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think those are all very valid points. And the reality is the society that I grew up in, and even my two older sons who are in their late 20s, early 30s, things have changed just since COVID.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think those are all very valid points. And the reality is the society that I grew up in, and even my two older sons who are in their late 20s, early 30s, things have changed just since COVID.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And the amount of pressure that’s out there on society, whether it’s the national — the way we communicate with each other nationally started stemming from the very top, the White House, to all these other pressures, as you mentioned, climate change, AI, do I wanna take on student debt and maybe not even find a job that will pay that student debt off in five to 10 years, but it’ll be 20 to 25, 30 years of student debt.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And the amount of pressure that’s out there on society, whether it’s the national — the way we communicate with each other nationally started stemming from the very top, the White House, to all these other pressures, as you mentioned, climate change, AI, do I wanna take on student debt and maybe not even find a job that will pay that student debt off in five to 10 years, but it’ll be 20 to 25, 30 years of student debt.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Um, you know, there’s always the exception to the rule. There are certain kids that just by their nature and their intelligence and what have you, they’re going to go — they want to go to MIT, they want to go to Stanford, they’re gonna go to Stanford because they’re just exceptional.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Um, you know, there’s always the exception to the rule. There are certain kids that just by their nature and their intelligence and what have you, they’re going to go — they want to go to MIT, they want to go to Stanford, they’re gonna go to Stanford because they’re just exceptional.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I just think trying to get to the very top colleges is extremely overrated for the majority of students. It’s the college experience that is, just like the high school experience is what’s amazing. And you can go to beautiful, wonderful colleges, get a great education and not have that student debt that some are chasing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I just think trying to get to the very top colleges is extremely overrated for the majority of students. It’s the college experience that is, just like the high school experience is what’s amazing. And you can go to beautiful, wonderful colleges, get a great education and not have that student debt that some are chasing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"\n\u003cp>Um, yeah, maybe I just live in an old world, but one of the issues that we face and we intentionally try to create time for our kids is kids don’t play with their friends in the neighborhood anymore. You don’t go down to the local park and play baseball on the weekend, pick-up baseball in the summertime, because kids are so scheduled now by their families, by their parents, or they’re traveling so much to get to whatever the competition may be. It could be a chess tournament, it could be athletics.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There’s just not enough downtime to allow kids to be kids and to allow them to be creative. Creativity has just fallen off the board, especially in school.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And it doesn’t even sound like, Stuart, that once the kid achieves a top college placement that the issues go away.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, they don’t. And I think one of the things, especially if they’ve suffered with depression or anxiety along the way, parents need to keep in mind that if you look at the causes of kids dropping out from college, cost is a big one. But mental health and emotional challenges are four times more likely than lack of academic preparation leading to kids dropping out.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, they don’t. And I think one of the things, especially if they’ve suffered with depression or anxiety along the way, parents need to keep in mind that if you look at the causes of kids dropping out from college, cost is a big one. But mental health and emotional challenges are four times more likely than lack of academic preparation leading to kids dropping out.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so I think what Chris said is really important. I think we’ve really focused too much on that you have to go to the best college possible or the most selective. It isn’t — you shouldn’t even say best college, most selective, highly prestigious, or your life will be compromised. And I think that’s just a false narrative.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so I think what Chris said is really important. I think we’ve really focused too much on that you have to go to the best college possible or the most selective. It isn’t — you shouldn’t even say best college, most selective, highly prestigious, or your life will be compromised. And I think that’s just a false narrative.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There are many great colleges across this country that students can thrive in.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> It’s the end of the hour, but what’s the good news, Stuart? I noted in your book that you have said that not a single one of the mindsets and the situations that these kids find themselves in is fixed.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> It’s the end of the hour, but what’s the good news, Stuart? I noted in your book that you have said that not a single one of the mindsets and the situations that these kids find themselves in is fixed.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think that what I would end with is absolutely so that kids can learn how to manage these mindsets in ways that cause less distress.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think that what I would end with is absolutely so that kids can learn how to manage these mindsets in ways that cause less distress.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I’m encouraged by stories like Chris, where there are communities that are saying, this is not okay. We need to change what we’re doing for our kids, and the changes that need to be made I don’t think have to be revolutionary or too expensive in terms of school demands and culture.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I’m encouraged by stories like Chris, where there are communities that are saying, this is not okay. We need to change what we’re doing for our kids, and the changes that need to be made I don’t think have to be revolutionary or too expensive in terms of school demands and culture.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Stuart Slavin, the book is \u003cem>The Success Trap\u003c/em>. Ananya Kota, Los Altos High School senior. Chris Funk, former superintendent of Dublin Unified. Thanks to all of you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Stuart Slavin, the book is \u003cem>The Success Trap\u003c/em>. Ananya Kota, Los Altos High School senior. Chris Funk, former superintendent of Dublin Unified. Thanks to all of you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Thank you, listeners. Thank you, Jeremy Garza, for producing this segment. You’ve been listening to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Thank you, listeners. Thank you, Jeremy Garza, for producing this segment. You’ve been listening to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n"
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Tuesday, September 29, 2026 at 10 am\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Extreme academic workloads and relentless achievement culture are driving a youth mental health crisis in classrooms nationwide — especially among students trying to get into top colleges. That’s according to Stuart Slavin, a pediatrician who researches how to improve student mental health and the author of “The Success Trap.” We’ll hear from Slavin, a former school administrator and a high school journalist about how to escape “The Success Trap” and how parents can help their kids navigate this pressure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin, \u003c/strong>pediatrician, medical educator, researcher; author, \u003cem>The Success Trap: How the Pressure to Stand Out Is Fueling Anxiety, Depression, and Burnout in Teens—And the Fundamental Fix They Deserve\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota,\u003c/strong> student journalist, Los Altos High School – published an article in May in student paper detailing the pressures students face\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk,\u003c/strong> former superintendent, Dublin Unified School District – initiated policy limiting the number of AP/honors courses students can take yearly\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, I’m Mina Kim. Anxiety, depression, and burnout are increasingly common among high school students, especially these days as they apply to top colleges. Pediatrician Stuart Slavin says the phenomenon that was largely concentrated in affluent neighborhoods two decades ago has spread like a contagion, infecting a wider socioeconomic swath. And far more than smartphones and social media are the culprits. Slavin says it’s the pressure cooker of academic and extracurricular demands: performance expectations from teachers, coaches, parents, and the students themselves.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And this hour, we hear from a student, a school administrator, and from Slavin, whose new book is called \u003cem>The Success Trap\u003c/em>. And listeners, if this sounds familiar to you, give us a call at 866-733-6786. Find us on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum, or call us at 866-733-6786. Are you a student, a recent graduate, a parent of a student? How has academic pressure affected you?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’d also like to welcome to the program now Los Altos High School senior Ananya Kota. Ananya, welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And of course, Stuart Slavin, pediatrician, medical educator and researcher, and author of \u003cem>The Success Trap\u003c/em>. Stuart, welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much, Mina. Pleasure to be here with you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So, Ananya, I’ll start with you. You wrote a piece for your student paper in May about the pressure a student faced. So tell me, what made you write the piece?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> Yeah, of course. So I’ve always kind of been aware of the academic pressure that was in the Bay Area, and generally I felt that it manifested differently in different schools. And I was really curious how the academic pressure affected Los Altos High School in particular.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, I was kind of mulling it over, and while I was thinking about it, unfortunately, a student had committed suicide in one of our school districts nearby, and I think that kind of made me realize just how horrible the academic pressure could be. And I really wanted to understand by speaking to students and getting their experiences, speaking to teachers and understanding how does it affect our school particularly, and why do students feel the need to overperform so much.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So how were you seeing it manifest? How was it affecting you and your peers?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I honestly primarily saw it manifest within the student community itself. So, when I started writing the article, I had to — it was a little difficult, honestly — turn myself into an observer of a community I was already so integrated in.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I was constantly observing and seeing the interactions between students, where students should be like, “Oh, I just got a B on this test. I’m going to fail.” And I was just thinking in the back of my head, like, no, you’re not going to fail. I mean, the standard is so high, and students are making very casual comments that kind of inflate that standard.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I just think, like, a lot of the times when we get, for example, grades back, or there’s the SAT or the ACT, AP scores, it’s always the highest standard that’s expected among students. If students don’t get a five on their AP exam, they’re automatically disappointed and assume that they’re failing. If they get a B, they’re automatically panicked and assuming, “I’m failing.” Anything less than the standard feels like failing to a lot of the students. That’s sort of the impression that I got while observing my community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Did you find that people were talking about having trouble sleeping, that they were, you know, experiencing some degree of not feeling like they were good enough?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> Definitely. It’s very common for me to hear, like, “Oh, I only got like three hours of sleep. I was studying for this test,” or, “Oh, I barely slept yesterday.” And it feels very normal. But when I think about it objectively, I’m just like, that’s not healthy at all. Like, you should be getting sleep. You should be eating well. But all these basic things are being sacrificed for studying and getting those perfect grades.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I do think that students have placed the entirety of their self-worth on their grades and these numbers and these letters, and you can really see how it affects their mindset, how it affects the basic care they do for themselves.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> I was also struck from the outset that you talked about the Bay Area, how things were specific to the Bay Area in your high school. Tell me about how you think your community plays a role in the pressure that these students feel.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> Of course. So when I was doing research for the article, I was drawn to the city and the Silicon Valley in particular because I noticed that in the Silicon Valley, in the Bay Area, there’s a lot of upper-class people who have very high median incomes. And I thought perhaps that contributed because the standard of success in the Bay Area in particular is very inflated.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s like a tech hub. We see all these successful companies, these successful tech companies. And when students see that, I think they think that’s the standard of success, that’s a baseline level of success. When you’re surrounded by so much success and so much opportunity, if you don’t take that or if you don’t meet that, it can feel automatically like failure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so I think there really is, like, it’s amazing to live here in Silicon Valley and have so much opportunity at your fingertips, but with that opportunity comes like an unsaid sort of expectation to meet all of that and have to achieve that, and everyone else is trying to do the exact same thing as you are.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I was struck by this line in your piece where you say, “Even as I write this article and acknowledge these issues, the idea of breaking away from the culture is scary.” Talk about that. It’s hard even as you’re aware of it, right, to be able to adopt, you know, things that might reduce the pressure yourself.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I would say personally I, of course, am in the student community and I feel those pressures firsthand. I think that I also value my academics a lot, and it sometimes feels like, you know, if I get anything less than an A, I’m automatically, like, extremely upset at myself. And I think, like, while perhaps I understand, like, objectively it’s not the end of the world, after you’re just surrounded by that pressure for so many years, it kind of becomes your norm.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You automatically feel those before you can really catch yourself and realize, hey, no, I’m not a failure. I’m feeling I’m gonna fail because I got a B in a class.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I do think that the first step to breaking away, as I said, from these expectations is acknowledgement because it is such a deep-rooted issue that it doesn’t even start in high school. It starts from when your academic journey begins in middle school. You’re taught that, like, academics are the be-all and end-all, and that doesn’t end in high school. It doesn’t — like, and when you go to college, I think when you grow up around that environment, it sticks with you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Would you say it was middle school where you started to feel it, or did you even feel it as early as elementary?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I would say, like, personally, it didn’t really affect me until high school, but I don’t think that’s the case at all for my peers, because I did see my peers very frequently panicking over their grades.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And when I entered as a freshman in high school, I could already see that academic pressure around, and I think that — I don’t think it all of a sudden manifested in the first couple months of freshman year. I think it had been there since middle school, and that’s why so many freshmen were already anxious about their grades.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Stuart, Ananya mentions acknowledgement, and that’s what you’re trying to do, acknowledge this issue. And I imagine what she’s saying also sounds familiar to you after serving more than 18,000 teenagers in some 18 high schools, I understand, including in California.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yes, absolutely. The first schools that I looked at were all in the Bay Area. And I have to say, Ananya really encapsulated so beautifully, or eloquently, the challenges kids are facing these days and the pressure-cooker environment that they’re facing in communities across this country.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And even your own child was not immune, right? You share a very relatable experience of her feeling like she couldn’t stop to eat dinner because of all the homework she had and bursting into tears.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, this really started me on this journey. So I’m a pediatrician, and I was watching my daughters in a high school that was reputedly kind of the most progressive school in the St. Louis region, but the amounts of homework and academic pressure they were facing was just extraordinary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so that really launched me on this journey to look at this issue and really raise awareness about it, because I think it could almost be viewed as a problem hiding in plain sight, that we’re so hyper-focused on phones and screens as a source of the adolescent mental health crisis. I have deep concerns about those, but I think it’s led us to kind of ignore this problem, which I think Ananya has really described.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, how do you know that what your daughter was expressing, or what you see happening around you, is not, you know, temporary stress or momentary drama, but a bigger, more serious structural problem?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Well, there are a couple of layers to that that I would say. One is, if your child as an adolescent suffers from depression or anxiety, it markedly increases their likelihood of having those mental health problems as adults.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But the other that Ananya kind of alluded to is there are these kind of mindsets. I’ll describe a couple of them. One is maladaptive perfectionism that’s been on the rise for 35 years, where an A-minus or a B isn’t good enough and it feels just terrible. Another is performance as identity. It’s not that you got the score, it’s you are that score.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Those don’t disappear. Kids are internalizing these and then carrying them into adulthood in ways that then can contribute to their distress later as young adults and on into adulthood.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And you have seen this as widespread. Like, what do the stats tell you, and also widening? I quoted you saying that you were also seeing this in much broader economic swaths and also happening younger even than high school. Can you help us understand sort of the scope of what you’re seeing?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, the scope I describe in a few ways. I mean, I have done research then in California and Missouri, and also in Ohio. And I also had the opportunity over the last eight years or so in my job to travel the country and just talk to families and talk to kids.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it became very clear that what used to be, I think, really in very affluent communities and on both coasts has spread like wildfire really across the country. And I think to a great degree, it’s understandably kind of — it is driven by, I think, a sense of economic insecurity. A sense that the divide between the haves and the have-nots is growing and that to have a middle-class existence is increasingly difficult.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So a lot of this, I think, is well-intended efforts to launch kids to success, which sadly I don’t think are actually even achieving that goal.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Hmm. Actually, this Discord user Nicole writes — no, well, writes: “This extreme academic pressure is a symptom of our growing inequality.” And I think you have some thoughts on that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’re coming up on a break, though, so let me remind listeners that we are talking with Stuart Slavin, a pediatrician and medical educator and researcher and author of the new book \u003cem>The Success Trap\u003c/em>, and Ananya Kota, a student journalist at Los Altos High School.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And with you, are you a high school student or recent graduate? How did academic pressure affect your mental health? If you’re the parent of an adolescent, have you noticed symptoms of anxiety or depression in your child? What did you find helped relieve the stress that comes with high school or college applications? 866-733-6786 is the number.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Stay with us. This is \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Welcome back to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. We’re talking this hour about the increasing pressure students are facing and feeling in high school. We’re talking about it with Stuart Slavin, who’s written a new book called \u003cem>The Success Trap: How the Pressure to Stand Out Is Fueling Anxiety, Depression, and Burnout in Teens and the Fundamental Fix They Deserve\u003c/em>. He’s a pediatrician and researcher.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Ananya Kota is also with us, a student journalist at Los Altos High School, who published a piece in May in her student paper detailing the pressure students face there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And you are joining us at the email address \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>, listeners on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum. Tell us if you are a student or a parent of a student and you’ve noticed these types of academic pressures and their effect on students’ mental health.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Are you a teacher or administrator? Are there policies or changes you’ve made at your school that you have found helped improve student mental health? Or what did you find students or parents helped relieve the stress that comes with high school, college admissions and applications, and also with the demands of extracurricular activities?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Listener on Discord writes, “A student’s fear of disappointing their parents often creates more stress than direct parental pressure.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>One of the things you were saying, Stuart, was just how much there is concern among parents about economic anxiety and growing inequality as well driving this. What more would you add to what you feel like is leading students to what you’ve described as really unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> You know, I think one way to look at that, Mina, is looking at the survey that we used in these 18 schools, and we asked students to rate 35 different stressors in their life to see how big of a stress factor they were.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And these included things like school-related, obviously, but boyfriend, girlfriend, family issues, health issues, bullying, cyberbullying, social media. And the thing that really struck me is that in every one of the 18 schools, the top-rated stressors, the biggest stressors in kids’ lives, was school- and achievement-related.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And just to add to that point of your really perceptive learner, who said pressure — pressure to not disappoint parents. In our survey, it was actually ranked higher as a greater stressor than direct pressure from parents. So even as parents, if we’re not putting that direct pressure on them, they know our values and sometimes react to those.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The last thing I’ll say about that, which is true, the number one or number two stressor that was cited by kids in every single school was pressure from self. So what they’re doing is reacting to this pressure-cooker environment and then absorbing all of this, and it’s really creating these mindsets that they’re again going to carry with them to adulthood and contribute to future distress as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, I want to bring into the conversation now a former administrator of the California school district, Dublin Unified, Chris Funk. Chris, welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Thank you for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So your district is trying something new, and I know you just left as an administrator in the summer, but you really set the stage for this experiment, essentially. What are you trying to do in Dublin?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> I just retired in June after 36 years in public education, and the majority of that spent between either two K-12 districts and one high school district.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It was clear to me that this zero-sum race to the top to get to the best colleges was causing students to have excessive academic course loading that seemed like they were just chasing that grade point average, that boost that you get by taking an honors or Advanced Placement course, as opposed to for the love of learning, the engagement of really trying to be masterful of the content that you’re learning.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so in Dublin last year, the board passed a resolution that limited the number of courses, honors and Advanced Placement courses, that a student could take in a single year as well as across their four years. So they could take up to four classes combined, honors and AP, in a single year, and up to 11 across their four-year high school time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And what are you hoping the effect of this change will be?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Well, we’re trying to promote more balance, student well-being and a healthier school culture. Because at all three of my systems that I’ve been a part of, there has been mental health has been kind of that stigma. That stigma, I think, has been reduced now after COVID, and now it becomes an expectation that wellness, mental health, is such an important, vital part of everyone’s life, not just high school students, grownups also.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so we’re just trying to focus on creating a more healthy environment, change that mindset that Dr. Slavin has been talking about. And also focus on all the other amazing aspects of being an adolescent in high school, whether it’s athletics, whether it is extracurricular activities like band and choir and drama and dance, all the amazing things that happen in high school, and less focus on just the academic course loading.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And what was the reaction to this decision to limit the number of AP classes offered? And similarly, Discord user Jeff writes, “Did you get pushback from families who worried the AP class limit would disadvantage their kids in college admissions?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Well, I had a unanimous decision by my board, and my board represents the entire district. So that’s a good sign. And yes, there’s always going to be some pushback on any policy that you implement.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I believe the pushback was minor compared to the larger conversation we had around grading, because we did change our grading policy prior to the resolution on limiting AP courses. But most of it was around the fact that families and students felt like they were going to be put at a disadvantage, and just really not understanding the academic entrance requirements into colleges and universities, the idea of what is the official school profile, that you’re really just competing against your own peers at your school and you’re not competing against other schools across the nation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the reality is that you can get to the very best colleges without having to overload on your course taking. So it’s really about education.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And universities, they do know or have profiles on high schools, right, about how many APs are offered there, so they recognize that if a student is taking a certain number that may be less than another district, it’s just because that district simply didn’t offer that many of them.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. That’s exactly it. That is why each school and each district has their school profile.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the other piece is that there is this idea that the more classes I take, the better chance I have of getting into this college. And the reality is every college, every university recalculates the GPA, and they have the base level, 22 courses, 24 courses that they actually take the GPA of. So if you take 30 courses, six of those courses, depending on which college or university you apply for, aren’t even going to count because they’re not going to calculate that in your GPA.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so what we’re trying to create in Dublin was this concept of focus on the areas that you love, do the very best and master those areas. Focus on the other aspects of being an adolescent and what colleges look for in terms of your extracurricular activities, your community service, and all being that whole child. It has been lost with this race to the top.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> It’s very interesting because I hear echoes in what Chris Funk is saying with what you’ve said about, maybe we have lost our understanding of what successful means.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think that’s exactly right, and I have to say first, kudos to you, Chris, and your board for taking these actions. I think a lot of schools have been really reluctant to take these kind of measures.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>One of the key things, I think, for listeners to really understand is that I think there’s this idea that if you back off, the performance is going to drop.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A couple of things I would say to counter that: In every school I looked at, kids reported on average getting six and a half hours of sleep per night. The adolescent brain needs eight to ten, so at that level they’re cognitively and emotionally compromised.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then the other piece that I think is really important stems from my work with medical students, in which we found high rates of depression and anxiety, reduced pressure, reduced demands, and not only did their mental health improve dramatically, their performance improved as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think there’s kind of this false narrative that if we back off, if we reduce the pressure, that somehow performance is going to drop and they aren’t going to be as competitive. And I think that’s just false.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Ananya, though, I was struck by a Chronicle piece that covered what Dublin was doing, and it quoted a student, or just a recent graduate from Dublin, as saying that students are just going to find other ways to stand out if they can’t stand out based on the number of AP courses they’ve taken.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What do you think about that? Do you think that’s likely true?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I think partially yes, just because, I mean, the AP cap has also been discussed among our districts, and I certainly did hear a lot of pushback from my peers at the idea of being limited about the number of APs. I frankly think some of them find it scary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But there is also, I know you mentioned it before, like a stigma around extracurriculars, how many you need to take, how they need to stand out. And I think some of that pressure will shift.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But also I do think academics and extracurriculars are two very separate entities, and I do think limiting the number of APs can potentially really help students focus academically and really take the classes they’re passionate about.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I do unfortunately think that it won’t eliminate the pressure and they’ll still feel stressed about it. So I think it will help them, but that pressure might unfortunately feel more prominent just because there’s that underlying worry that if I’m not taking enough AP classes, am I going to be competitive, or do I need to make up for this in my extracurriculars?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think it honestly completely kind of depends on the student and how they receive that. But yeah, I think they can be received in multiple ways.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Let me go to caller Naomi in Berkeley. Naomi, go ahead, you’re on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Hi, my students graduated from Berkeley High in 2023 and 2025. And I think the pressure comes not only from the academic achievements, but the community and the parents of friends and the peers themselves.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>My kids were admitted to fine, decent state and UC schools. And they heard comments from parents at parties or from their peers that they would never allow their kids to apply to that school, or they would never go to that school as only their backup school, and I found that to be, as a parent, to be very distressing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>My kids were fine students. They had A’s and B’s. I did not allow them, or do not encourage them, to max out their APs. They had, you know, they were varsity athletes, and still, by their peers and the parents in our community, they heard very negative comments, and it was very hurtful.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Naomi, thank you for sharing that. Stuart, what have you found are sort of the most common or problematic ways that parents in communities inadvertently add pressure to kids?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, so back to that point that pressure to not disappoint parents, even if you’re not putting that direct pressure on, they may know your values by, you know, when you’re talking to friends and somebody mentions that their child is going to Harvard or Stanford, etc., and they just light up. The kids can know your value.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I think what your caller also really alludes to is that this is widespread in the culture, and I think in some ways it requires some courage on the part of parents and kids to say, no, I’m not going to be influenced and affected by that. I have a sense of my self-worth as a human being that isn’t tied to going to the most, you know, selective, prestigious college possible.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Jane writes, “My 18-year-old has dealt with depression and anxiety and expresses desire to relieve their stress with drugs and alcohol. I feel like saying, well, just don’t do that. But just like abstinence, I know saying just say no is unrealistic. How would you suggest talking to a young adult about drugs and alcohol and moderation in a world filled with anxiety?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it sounds like if they’re using it to relieve anxiety, Stuart.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Oh, it’s a very difficult situation, I feel, for that person, and I think that’s kind of the downstream consequences of having a child who’s living in such a pressurized environment as an adolescent that they enter young adulthood really at risk.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And in terms of how to talk to them, I guess, you know, I think with a supportive approach, without a judgmental approach, and ideally encouraging them with you to seek care from a health professional of some kind.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But it is, I think, these are the kind of hidden consequences of what may happen if our kids do feel such enormous pressure and demands as they’re in their early development.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Laura writes, “How do we encourage a kid to work and do well, to put in the time to understand the schoolwork without putting dangerous pressures on them?” Stuart.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I guess what I would say is one of the things that I think is important is to focus less. We have a tendency — how’d that test go? What kind of scores are you getting? How’s your grade point average?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And these electronic dashboards, I think, have become a real problem, where it’s not just kids checking them furiously, but parents are as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think it’s vitally important, it’s just vitally important, for parents to acknowledge and celebrate other identities than their kids’ academic performance: their humor, their creativity, their kindness, their ability to work with others. There are so many things that we need to recognize in our kids that I think get lost in our daily conversations of left cars.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Talk about where it can lead. You mentioned the phenomenon of crashing out. What is that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Oh, crashing out, I think, Ananya, I’d love to hear what she says, where, you know, what looks like a minor setback to anybody else, you know, if anybody else looks at somebody who gets an A-minus or a B-plus, and, you know, the kid thinks it’s a failure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s not a failure, but that’s what it feels like. And that’s what these mindsets do. You know, you have the discomfort of a less-than-ideal performance. But the story, the narrative you add to it, that you attach to it, can make the pain much, much worse.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think there are skills that kids can easily learn and that parents can use. Tell them and help them understand these are just stories you’re telling yourself that really aren’t accurate and are harmful. And helping kids change those thought processes, I think, could be incredibly helpful on their journey to adulthood.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah. And you write that they manifest as essentially an acute cognitive and emotional breakdown, right? From explosive outbursts to actually emotional withdrawal.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think parents just can’t really even comprehend. Again, it’s hard for them to understand why this, what looks like a minor setback, um, feels so profoundly painful.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And again, I think it’s what Ananya had described is this culture that people live in, and it’s not just parents, it’s just, you know, teachers, coaches, et cetera, peers that are also creating this environment that is profound.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And again, as you said, the crashing out can be just breakdowns, perseverative thinking where they just can’t stop thinking about this problem. You know, meltdowns, tears, or anger as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Ananya, we’re coming up on a break, but you wrote about a friend distancing themselves from your friend group for months. How were you able to reach out?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I noticed it initially because she stopped coming to sit with lunch with us, and she stopped talking in our group chats. And I don’t think the pressure she felt was purposeful, I think, because our friends are very aware of the academic pressure, but a lot of them are extremely successful.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>All my friends are wonderful. I have a friend that’s going to Stanford and another one is going to Barnard. And I think even just being around such immensely successful people can make you feel, “I’m not doing enough.” And I think that’s what she felt.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it’s exactly what he described, the emotional withdrawal. That was the aspect that she was facing. And it really manifested in, not in necessarily like outward outburst, but inward.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re talking about the increasing academic pressures on high school students today. More after the break. I’m Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You’re listening to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. We’re talking this hour with Los Altos High School senior Ananya Kota, former superintendent of Dublin Unified School District, Chris Funk, and pediatrician, researcher and author of the new book \u003cem>The Success Trap\u003c/em>, Stuart Slavin, about how to address the increasing anxiety, depression and burnout that students are experiencing as a result of increased parental and social expectations and the desire to stand out in a college admissions process that seems to be demanding more AP courses and extracurriculars.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Join the conversation with your own experiences and questions about how to address this at 866-733-6786, at the email address \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, and Instagram. We’re at KQED Forum.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Let me go to AJ in Mountain View. Hi, AJ, you’re on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> Hi, thanks for taking me on. I actually wanted to share a comment with regards to the pressure even though that comes from extracurricular activities that contribute to, that are important for college.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I actually know this family. I mean, the child is all of 10 years old at this point. He’s into diving. There’s math class, there’s — I had no class, but of others, but what stood out for me was when the parent actually created a website, took some pictures, printed a calendar, and sold them to fund an NGO.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And all of this to support his future college admissions. My concern was when a child is all of 10, I believe it’s going to be under 10 more years before he enters, and the pressure is already on. And this is in Los Altos, so I understand. I hear what Ananya is actually talking about. I actually see it around me and my neighbors.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Concerning. Well, AJ, thanks so much for sharing that. Stuart, would love to get your reactions to what AJ is describing, and it also seems to underscore the earlier point that you are seeing this younger and younger.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> When I first started writing this book, and much of the research that supports it was really focused on high school students. But as I was talking to more people and I heard more and more stories of this kind of behavior, I think what it’s reflective of is a phenomenon called intensive parenting, where parents feel enormous social pressure to have their children in a lot of enrichment activities that increasingly have become much more intensive.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The old days of just, like, you know, rec-league baseball has been replaced by club sports that go year-round, involve travel, sometimes enormous pressure and sense of competition on the kids. So, yeah, you have to wonder and worry about the impact on, goodness, a 10-year-old child. And it starts earlier.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’ve talked to parents of five- and six-year-olds. A quick story, which is a mom who told me, another mom said, “Do you have a soccer coach for your six-year-old?” And she said, “No.” “Well, he’s never gonna get into the travel team.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think those pressures are widespread and they’re starting earlier and earlier.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> One of the things you’ve warned against, Stuart, is parent as problem solver, the increasing role they take in that. What do you see as the dangers and how can they pull back?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I have to admit I was a problem solver in many ways as a parent, and I think there’s a tendency for us to jump in when your kids are struggling. And while that’s important and at times to do, I think what you have to recognize is that if you jump in too quickly and intervene too aggressively, it has unintended consequences of reducing their own self-confidence in dealing with their problems, undermining their ability potentially to deal with challenges in the future.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I mean, in many ways, we should be viewing adolescents as this kind of training ground for adulthood, and they need practice in working through and solving their problems as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So you should be there to support. Don’t abandon your kids, but don’t fall into the tendency to jump in too quickly to try to rescue and solve problems.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Scott in Sacramento writes, “Does involvement in extracurricular activities like after-school sports or clubs help relieve that stress of everyday student lives, or does it just compound it? As a parent, I feel that it would relieve it, but I didn’t have social media and other modern-day pressures that kids experience nowadays.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What do you think, Ananya? Do you think that extracurriculars — do you find them to be a place of relief or do you find them to be added stress?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I think it can be both. Honestly, personally, an extracurricular I find that stress relieving, as I do cross-country, and it’s so nice to have a dedicated time period where I can just exercise. And I know it’s a really good medium of stress relief. So that’s an example of one extracurricular that I think is stress relief.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But also, in turn, I think in the back of my head, “Oh, this is taking a couple hours out of my day, so when am I going to do homework? When am I going to do this? When do I do that?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think it’s a mix of both, and the key to finding an extracurricular that can do stress relief is just time management, knowing that, oh, if I’m gonna do this sport, can I have a time where I can do this other extracurricular or take the time to do homework this other time period?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So don’t cram like seven extracurriculars into one day, because I think that starts to make it more of a pressure than a stress relief. But I think if you can find the key number of extracurriculars you genuinely enjoy, it can definitely be a stress relief.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Have you found helpful, Ananya, as a high school student deep in this, right? Like strategies or things that you have found helped work for you in terms of relieving the stress and pressure?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ananya Kota:\u003c/strong> I think the biggest thing is just being very aware of my limits as a student. I think, like, obviously being surrounded by so much pressure, it’s definitely affected me to the point where, like, sometimes I’ll find myself being like, “Oh, I should have taken that AP class,” even if it’s like not a class I’m necessarily, like, very passionate about.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I think just having a support group around you, friends who don’t encourage, like, the academic pressure or don’t say things like, “Oh, you didn’t get an A on that test. Well, what are you doing?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think being very aware of your own limits and also communicating that to your peers, especially to your parents, as they’re your main support, can really help with developing an understanding of, this is what I can do and I’m going to stick with it because I don’t want to burn out and I don’t want to fall down that rabbit hole of I’m not doing enough.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Chris, I’m curious what you’ve observed with regard to, you know, parents who seem to have a healthy relationship with their kids’ success levels.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you see it as has been mentioned. It starts younger and younger. But in terms of the academics, one of the key things or guidelines that happens — measure points — is in middle school math acceleration.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I can’t tell you, in all three of my school districts that I was in in 36 years, the goal to take calculus by your junior or even your sophomore year is the new trend. And you start ninth grade in Algebra 2, which is just completely a mindset that has to be changed, because every student that really wants to take calculus can get there in four years of high school math.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>For some, it might require taking a summer course or a bridge course. But for most students, if they are applicable to taking calculus, they’ll be able to do it. But to have kids start to accelerate, taking algebra and geometry in middle school, I think that is way too much pressure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, same families that put their kids in math acceleration, that also put them in academic classes in the summertime. You know, summertime really should be that time to explore other passions that you have. Just like with teachers, you’ve got to recharge your battery, because the school year is not a sprint, it’s a marathon.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And there are certain stages throughout the year, October, December, end of February, that kids hit the wall, teachers hit the wall. And you got to be able to have that well-groundedness that’s important.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think one other aspect that we haven’t really talked about is that this policy is not a silver bullet. It’s to address one aspect of the academic stress. But grading is a huge discussion that may be for another day, but we have kids that are just chasing points.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And that grading actually starts even in elementary school, where they don’t normally have letter grades. But this extra credit, chasing that extra credit, bringing in paper towel dispensers, bringing in hand cleanser for extra points — all that does is boost your grade, but doesn’t necessarily translate, or certainly doesn’t translate, to mastery of that content.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>When you’re only chasing points, that’s another stressor on kids that the grading policy has to be addressed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Stuart, you have a whole section about how many of the kids you spoke with have painted a picture of a lack of joy in their lives, which I really feel like is what Chris has been getting to.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, it is. I think that was the thing that was most striking to me. And one thing I’ll add on to a comment that Ananya made about cross-country: I think she seems to be approaching it in a healthy way, but I’ve talked to people, and this was one of the things that surprised me as I talked to kids, is that the perfectionism they had in their academics was also there in their extracurriculars.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So if they had a disappointing cross-country time, they would just beat up on themselves and ruminate on this thought for just forever. So, this is a deep problem that I think kind of is — infiltrates, you know, all aspects of their life. Everything can become a competition.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And when everything’s a competition, like the idea of just fun and joy disappears.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And last thing I think I would say about that that’s especially true: It isn’t the activities themselves that are a problem. It’s the nature of the activities. There’s great research that shows that it’s not the amount of time you spend in these, but it’s how competitive, how pressured, how controlled by adults is it. Those are the things that seem to correlate with adverse mental health outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think we do need to, like, let’s bring some joy and fun back into the lives of our kids.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Do you see the turn to smartphones and screens or social media in part as a symptom of this lack of joy?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> I think that’s such a good question, and I think how I’d answer that is, yeah, and brief, yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think one of the things that’s really striking to me about it is that our approach largely is, you know, kind of pushing these companies to change their algorithms, et cetera. That’s great. But a lot of it’s like prohibition, like let’s take your phones when you walk in the door at school, et cetera, et cetera.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think we need to be working on the other side of the engagement. I think kids are turning to these devices because in many ways their virtual lives are more interesting and pleasant than their real ones.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So one of the ways we maybe can work to get kids off their screens is actually to make their real lives more pleasant, more joyful, more enjoyable.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Let me remind listeners, you are listening to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim. I’m going to caller Jonathan in San Francisco. Go ahead, Jonathan. You’re on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Caller:\u003c/strong> I mean, I think this is a great topic that you guys have covered in a very well-rounded way. As a parent of a freshman and a seventh grader, I’m kind of in the middle of seeing a lot of this happening.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think there’s kind of a bifurcated set of forces that haven’t entirely been hit on yet on both sides of the collegiate experience.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>On the high school side, more and more, as parents, we keep hearing, and the kids you’re hearing, but straight A is kind of the entry level, the bare minimum of what you need to get accepted at the top colleges. You need to have published papers. You need to be a part of research projects at reputable institutions. They’re not even just looking at the AP courses you took, they’re looking at how many AP courses did your high school offer? And then what percentage of those did you take?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so those pressures really mount on the kids because I hear the kids talking about it a lot and comparing their strategies for getting into these sought-after schools.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then on the other side of the collegiate experience, looking at where AI is going, I hear kids talking, a lot of my kids’ friends talking about, we’re worried that there’s not gonna be as many jobs. We’re hearing, you know, people that have graduated into college are now struggling to find work. And it’s a small percentage, but it’s still enough that it’s a part of the conversation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so they’re worried that they have to work even harder to achieve even more to make sure that they’ll have a shot at what’s going to be left over after that unknown piece takes a bite out of the workforce.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think those two forces are kind of creating or adding to that pressure cooker as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Jonathan, thanks for saying that. Yeah, Chris, I mean, I’m wondering if you see, you know, Stuart is talking about worries of insufficiency, right? Essentially that the child is, you know, not — is going to have to face a very difficult economic situation and so on. But the other thing is, is this sense — I’m wondering if you’re seeing that is adding to it — that we’re also sort of living under threat, like the threat of climate change or dangerous AI agents, right, among other things, that are driving parents to put a lot of pressure on their teens.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Chris Funk:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think those are all very valid points. And the reality is the society that I grew up in, and even my two older sons who are in their late 20s, early 30s, things have changed just since COVID.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the amount of pressure that’s out there on society, whether it’s the national — the way we communicate with each other nationally started stemming from the very top, the White House, to all these other pressures, as you mentioned, climate change, AI, do I wanna take on student debt and maybe not even find a job that will pay that student debt off in five to 10 years, but it’ll be 20 to 25, 30 years of student debt.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Um, you know, there’s always the exception to the rule. There are certain kids that just by their nature and their intelligence and what have you, they’re going to go — they want to go to MIT, they want to go to Stanford, they’re gonna go to Stanford because they’re just exceptional.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I just think trying to get to the very top colleges is extremely overrated for the majority of students. It’s the college experience that is, just like the high school experience is what’s amazing. And you can go to beautiful, wonderful colleges, get a great education and not have that student debt that some are chasing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Um, yeah, maybe I just live in an old world, but one of the issues that we face and we intentionally try to create time for our kids is kids don’t play with their friends in the neighborhood anymore. You don’t go down to the local park and play baseball on the weekend, pick-up baseball in the summertime, because kids are so scheduled now by their families, by their parents, or they’re traveling so much to get to whatever the competition may be. It could be a chess tournament, it could be athletics.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There’s just not enough downtime to allow kids to be kids and to allow them to be creative. Creativity has just fallen off the board, especially in school.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And it doesn’t even sound like, Stuart, that once the kid achieves a top college placement that the issues go away.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, they don’t. And I think one of the things, especially if they’ve suffered with depression or anxiety along the way, parents need to keep in mind that if you look at the causes of kids dropping out from college, cost is a big one. But mental health and emotional challenges are four times more likely than lack of academic preparation leading to kids dropping out.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so I think what Chris said is really important. I think we’ve really focused too much on that you have to go to the best college possible or the most selective. It isn’t — you shouldn’t even say best college, most selective, highly prestigious, or your life will be compromised. And I think that’s just a false narrative.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There are many great colleges across this country that students can thrive in.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> It’s the end of the hour, but what’s the good news, Stuart? I noted in your book that you have said that not a single one of the mindsets and the situations that these kids find themselves in is fixed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stuart Slavin:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I think that what I would end with is absolutely so that kids can learn how to manage these mindsets in ways that cause less distress.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I’m encouraged by stories like Chris, where there are communities that are saying, this is not okay. We need to change what we’re doing for our kids, and the changes that need to be made I don’t think have to be revolutionary or too expensive in terms of school demands and culture.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Stuart Slavin, the book is \u003cem>The Success Trap\u003c/em>. Ananya Kota, Los Altos High School senior. Chris Funk, former superintendent of Dublin Unified. Thanks to all of you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Thank you, listeners. Thank you, Jeremy Garza, for producing this segment. You’ve been listening to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Announcer:\u003c/strong> Funds for the production of \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> are provided by the Jenerosity Family Fund and the members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Tuesday, August 18, 2026 at 10 AM\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The San Andreas Fault is under more pressure now than it has been in the last 1,000 years. That’s according to new research from seismologists who study earthquakes along the Pacific Rim. With recent earthquakes in Japan, Colombia and Venezuela making headlines, we look at the latest science, how prepared California is for “the Big One” and why we still can’t predict earthquakes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Katherine Sharer, \u003c/strong>geologist, U.S. Geological Survey\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Wendy Bohon, \u003c/strong>seismic hazards and earthquake engineering branch chief, California Geological Survey\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Brian Strong, \u003c/strong>chief resilience officer, San Francisco Office of Resilience and Capital Planning\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, I’m Mina Kim. Earthquake preparedness may have taken a backseat to wildfires and other major issues California faces, but seismologists say it wouldn’t be a bad idea to make it top of mind again. That’s because sections of the San Andreas Fault are at their highest level of strain in the last thousand years. And there’s only one way to meaningfully release that pressure: a big earthquake.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So where might the big one hit, and what kind of damage could it create? Joining me first is Kate Sharer, geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and co-author of the recent article in the Journal of Geophysical Research about stress accumulation along the San Andreas Fault. Kate, welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Hi, thanks so much for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So many Californians have been hearing about the San Andreas Fault all our lives, but can you remind us how far it stretches, what makes it unique?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. It’s quite long. It extends all the way from Northern California down through the Bay Area, all through the more quiet sections that we don’t tend to frequent in Central California, and then goes along the backside of the mountains here in Southern California and finally cuts through into the Salton Sea. So it’s quite long.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And it acts as the primary boundary, right, between the Pacific and North American plates?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. Most of the slip rate between those two plates slowly and inexorably sort of accumulates along the San Andreas. You know, in the Bay Area, you guys all know your 1906 earthquake, and we have one down here in Southern California. Our equivalent would be the one that occurred in 1857 as the largest earthquake that we had in historic times on the San Andreas.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So then what kind of magnitude quake is the San Andreas capable of?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> It would be quite reasonable to see something between 6 and then certainly approaching 8. We know from looking at the length of the earthquake in 1906 and also in 1857 that those earthquakes were around 7.9 or 8. We didn’t have seismometers then, so we have to do it by looking at about how long the rupture was and calculating estimated magnitude. So it’s done a little differently, but those two give us evidence that we can expect very large earthquakes on the system.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And even though the San Andreas is infamous, you’re saying that really the last significant rupture along that main fault is 1906 in San Francisco and 1857 in Los Angeles. So the ones we’ve had in between, right? Like the Napa quake and the Northridge quake and even Loma Prieta was not along that main fault.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> That’s right. Loma Prieta is a little bit of a question mark, but really most of the stress that was released in those earthquakes — Napa, where we had Ridgecrest and other ones, Northridge down here in Southern California — those are on the distributed network of faults that surround the San Andreas. So although the San Andreas takes up the lion’s share of the tectonic motion between the plates, we have all these other faults that also can contribute to the hazard underneath our feet.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Right. So in the absence of major quake activity along the main fault, what has it been doing all this time?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> It’s been accumulating energy. So we often talk about — you hear the analogy that the plates move about as fast as your nails grow. So very slowly, you know, the plates are just moving past each other. But when you get close to these faults, they are locked for the most part. And so you can think of it like a coiled spring or like a stick that you’re trying to break. You keep putting energy into that, eventually that stick will snap. And so the analogy for an earthquake is the fault snaps and releases all of the, you know, decades to centuries of strain that have accumulated along that fault, and it has to be released in large earthquakes like you said in the opener.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> And really, the small ones don’t do it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Correct. They don’t really do anything for us to dig, except for, you know, very important, which is to remind us to be prepared and that we do live in an active tectonic environment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So essentially you’re saying it’s not a question of if the fault will release this pressure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> It’s when. Yeah, I think we can expect in Southern California and Northern California that we’ve had earthquakes in the past. We’ll certainly experience them in the future. I know many people want to know when it’s going to occur. And I like to emphasize that, although that’s useful, there’s many things, and I think we’ll get into this a little bit more in the second half. But from a preparedness standpoint and engineering, we need to know now kind of about the average time between earthquakes, not necessarily if they’re gonna happen on a Tuesday, so that we can design buildings and bridges and hospitals to be prepared for those whenever they do occur.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Well, I want to invite listeners into the conversation. What questions do you have about the San Andreas Fault, the stress it’s under, and the risks that it poses? And listeners, what earthquakes have you experienced and how are you preparing, or what questions do you have about how to prepare? You can tell us by emailing forum at kqed.org, finding us on Discord, Blue Sky, Facebook or Instagram. We’re at KQED Forum. And you can call us at 866-733-6786. 866-733-6786.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So where are the biggest areas of pressure? What region of the fault did you home in on, Kate?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> The study, and it’s received a lot of attention, I think the title and the idea that the stress is at this highest level that we’ve seen in a thousand years is very striking to people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> So for folks that have kind of been hearing this over the last couple of months, I would emphasize that the paper has to calculate that. We don’t have any technique or ability to actually measure directly how much stress is accumulating along a fault network. So we know about how fast the energy is accumulating, and we can sort of estimate how it’s been released in past earthquakes. And that’s how we come up with an estimate of how much is still around today.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, another idea that I like to put in folks’ heads is that earthquakes happen really quite deep, and this is why we can’t measure the stress along the fault directly. So when you’re flying in an airplane and the pilot says, all right, we’ve reached 30,000 feet, you can, you know, undo your seatbelt, that’s about the same height above the ground as earthquakes, actually. Big earthquakes are generated below the ground. So we’re talking about events and big amounts of energy and complex systems that are quite deep. And we don’t have any techniques that would facilitate us really penetrating that deep with, say, drilling. There’s some that reached halfway there, but not all the way. So that’s a little background on the paper.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, but tell me, you focused on something called the Cajon Pass.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Sure. That’s an interesting area in Southern California and has received a lot of attention because it’s an infrastructure corridor. It’s also where the San Andreas and the San Jacinto Fault cut through all of that infrastructure. So the San Jacinto Fault is sort of the sister fault to the San Andreas. Down here in the Bay Area, you have the Hayward Fault. It takes up also a reasonable portion of the tectonic stress.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so there’s been quite an emphasis on Cajon Pass because it’s where I-10 is, I-15, all of the gas and electric lines come through there, or many of them. So it’s really a lifeline corridor. And so understanding the history of earthquakes through there is important.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And in the study, we looked at how stress has been accumulated and released over the last thousand years by looking at the geologic record. And we find that it is a little bit higher than it has been over the past, according to the dates that we have for those prehistoric earthquakes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And so basically it’s in a position now where, I guess, that the current stress level is similar to what preceded previous —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Major ruptures? That’s right. It’s been about the same amount of time, but sort of the average time between earthquakes in that area were a little bit longer than the average. And that’s consistent with, you know, long-term estimates for hazard in Southern California that put the odds of large earthquakes quite high for us because of the time period between the elapsed time since previous large earthquakes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Kate, can you help us wrap our mind around if that area does rupture with a 7.8 or so magnitude earthquake? Since we really have not known one, as I understand now from preparing for the show, in the modern era — one of that magnitude not since 1906. So, you know, if it was to strike the Southern San Andreas around the area that you looked at, what would happen?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Sure. The way I like to present that is that people that have been around California for a while have experienced sort of mid-magnitude 6 earthquakes, so Loma Prieta and Northridge. If they lived in the Mojave Desert, they’ve experienced some sevens. Those tend to — and Northridge and Loma Prieta are good examples of earthquakes that are very impactful to sort of part of your region.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So here in Southern California, you know, the San Fernando Valley was certainly impacted quite strongly by the Northridge earthquake. The difference between that and a large earthquake that, when you’re getting up to magnitudes of 7.5 and larger, is that you’re starting to expand the damage over a much broader area. So the shaking happens to more buildings, the fault ruptures more lifelines and roads as the earthquake traverses the system. And so the impacts just sort of expand outward. They may be slightly stronger felt in some places, but overall you just start to increase the number of people and towns that are impacted directly by the earthquake.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I read that the violent shaking could be felt not just in Riverside and San Bernardino, but in Orange, you know, Los Angeles, and maybe even Ventura.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Yes, that’s right. In some of the ground motion models, we expect that you would have significant shaking pretty far out as the waves traverse through the basins of Southern California.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Trish in Redwood City asks, given all of our technology, is there any way that the pressure on the faults can be alleviated in the same way that avalanches are averted? Like, is there anything we can do besides a giant earthquake?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> It’s a great question, but there is not. It’s so much energy that we don’t really know where we would exactly start the event. And we also don’t know exactly what would happen. So I think it’s the kind of thing that’s only in sci-fi movies, basically.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re talking with Kate Sharer, geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, about the historic level of pressure building up along the San Andreas Fault and what that means. And you, our listeners, are joining the conversation, and we’ll have more with you and with Kate and more guests after the break. Stay with us. This is \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The San Andreas Fault is under more pressure now than it has been in the last 1,000 years. That’s according to new research from seismologists who study earthquakes along the Pacific Rim. With recent earthquakes in Japan, Colombia and Venezuela making headlines, we look at the latest science, how prepared California is for “the Big One” and why we still can’t predict earthquakes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, I’m Mina Kim. Earthquake preparedness may have taken a backseat to wildfires and other major issues California faces, but seismologists say it wouldn’t be a bad idea to make it top of mind again. That’s because sections of the San Andreas Fault are at their highest level of strain in the last thousand years. And there’s only one way to meaningfully release that pressure: a big earthquake.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, I’m Mina Kim. Earthquake preparedness may have taken a backseat to wildfires and other major issues California faces, but seismologists say it wouldn’t be a bad idea to make it top of mind again. That’s because sections of the San Andreas Fault are at their highest level of strain in the last thousand years. And there’s only one way to meaningfully release that pressure: a big earthquake.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So where might the big one hit, and what kind of damage could it create? Joining me first is Kate Sharer, geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and co-author of the recent article in the Journal of Geophysical Research about stress accumulation along the San Andreas Fault. Kate, welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So where might the big one hit, and what kind of damage could it create? Joining me first is Kate Sharer, geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and co-author of the recent article in the Journal of Geophysical Research about stress accumulation along the San Andreas Fault. Kate, welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Hi, thanks so much for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So many Californians have been hearing about the San Andreas Fault all our lives, but can you remind us how far it stretches, what makes it unique?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So many Californians have been hearing about the San Andreas Fault all our lives, but can you remind us how far it stretches, what makes it unique?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. It’s quite long. It extends all the way from Northern California down through the Bay Area, all through the more quiet sections that we don’t tend to frequent in Central California, and then goes along the backside of the mountains here in Southern California and finally cuts through into the Salton Sea. So it’s quite long.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. It’s quite long. It extends all the way from Northern California down through the Bay Area, all through the more quiet sections that we don’t tend to frequent in Central California, and then goes along the backside of the mountains here in Southern California and finally cuts through into the Salton Sea. So it’s quite long.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And it acts as the primary boundary, right, between the Pacific and North American plates?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. Most of the slip rate between those two plates slowly and inexorably sort of accumulates along the San Andreas. You know, in the Bay Area, you guys all know your 1906 earthquake, and we have one down here in Southern California. Our equivalent would be the one that occurred in 1857 as the largest earthquake that we had in historic times on the San Andreas.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. Most of the slip rate between those two plates slowly and inexorably sort of accumulates along the San Andreas. You know, in the Bay Area, you guys all know your 1906 earthquake, and we have one down here in Southern California. Our equivalent would be the one that occurred in 1857 as the largest earthquake that we had in historic times on the San Andreas.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So then what kind of magnitude quake is the San Andreas capable of?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> It would be quite reasonable to see something between 6 and then certainly approaching 8. We know from looking at the length of the earthquake in 1906 and also in 1857 that those earthquakes were around 7.9 or 8. We didn’t have seismometers then, so we have to do it by looking at about how long the rupture was and calculating estimated magnitude. So it’s done a little differently, but those two give us evidence that we can expect very large earthquakes on the system.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> It would be quite reasonable to see something between 6 and then certainly approaching 8. We know from looking at the length of the earthquake in 1906 and also in 1857 that those earthquakes were around 7.9 or 8. We didn’t have seismometers then, so we have to do it by looking at about how long the rupture was and calculating estimated magnitude. So it’s done a little differently, but those two give us evidence that we can expect very large earthquakes on the system.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And even though the San Andreas is infamous, you’re saying that really the last significant rupture along that main fault is 1906 in San Francisco and 1857 in Los Angeles. So the ones we’ve had in between, right? Like the Napa quake and the Northridge quake and even Loma Prieta was not along that main fault.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And even though the San Andreas is infamous, you’re saying that really the last significant rupture along that main fault is 1906 in San Francisco and 1857 in Los Angeles. So the ones we’ve had in between, right? Like the Napa quake and the Northridge quake and even Loma Prieta was not along that main fault.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> That’s right. Loma Prieta is a little bit of a question mark, but really most of the stress that was released in those earthquakes — Napa, where we had Ridgecrest and other ones, Northridge down here in Southern California — those are on the distributed network of faults that surround the San Andreas. So although the San Andreas takes up the lion’s share of the tectonic motion between the plates, we have all these other faults that also can contribute to the hazard underneath our feet.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> That’s right. Loma Prieta is a little bit of a question mark, but really most of the stress that was released in those earthquakes — Napa, where we had Ridgecrest and other ones, Northridge down here in Southern California — those are on the distributed network of faults that surround the San Andreas. So although the San Andreas takes up the lion’s share of the tectonic motion between the plates, we have all these other faults that also can contribute to the hazard underneath our feet.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Right. So in the absence of major quake activity along the main fault, what has it been doing all this time?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Right. So in the absence of major quake activity along the main fault, what has it been doing all this time?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> It’s been accumulating energy. So we often talk about — you hear the analogy that the plates move about as fast as your nails grow. So very slowly, you know, the plates are just moving past each other. But when you get close to these faults, they are locked for the most part. And so you can think of it like a coiled spring or like a stick that you’re trying to break. You keep putting energy into that, eventually that stick will snap. And so the analogy for an earthquake is the fault snaps and releases all of the, you know, decades to centuries of strain that have accumulated along that fault, and it has to be released in large earthquakes like you said in the opener.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> It’s been accumulating energy. So we often talk about — you hear the analogy that the plates move about as fast as your nails grow. So very slowly, you know, the plates are just moving past each other. But when you get close to these faults, they are locked for the most part. And so you can think of it like a coiled spring or like a stick that you’re trying to break. You keep putting energy into that, eventually that stick will snap. And so the analogy for an earthquake is the fault snaps and releases all of the, you know, decades to centuries of strain that have accumulated along that fault, and it has to be released in large earthquakes like you said in the opener.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> And really, the small ones don’t do it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Correct. They don’t really do anything for us to dig, except for, you know, very important, which is to remind us to be prepared and that we do live in an active tectonic environment.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Correct. They don’t really do anything for us to dig, except for, you know, very important, which is to remind us to be prepared and that we do live in an active tectonic environment.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So essentially you’re saying it’s not a question of if the fault will release this pressure.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So essentially you’re saying it’s not a question of if the fault will release this pressure.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> It’s when. Yeah, I think we can expect in Southern California and Northern California that we’ve had earthquakes in the past. We’ll certainly experience them in the future. I know many people want to know when it’s going to occur. And I like to emphasize that, although that’s useful, there’s many things, and I think we’ll get into this a little bit more in the second half. But from a preparedness standpoint and engineering, we need to know now kind of about the average time between earthquakes, not necessarily if they’re gonna happen on a Tuesday, so that we can design buildings and bridges and hospitals to be prepared for those whenever they do occur.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> It’s when. Yeah, I think we can expect in Southern California and Northern California that we’ve had earthquakes in the past. We’ll certainly experience them in the future. I know many people want to know when it’s going to occur. And I like to emphasize that, although that’s useful, there’s many things, and I think we’ll get into this a little bit more in the second half. But from a preparedness standpoint and engineering, we need to know now kind of about the average time between earthquakes, not necessarily if they’re gonna happen on a Tuesday, so that we can design buildings and bridges and hospitals to be prepared for those whenever they do occur.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Well, I want to invite listeners into the conversation. What questions do you have about the San Andreas Fault, the stress it’s under, and the risks that it poses? And listeners, what earthquakes have you experienced and how are you preparing, or what questions do you have about how to prepare? You can tell us by emailing forum at kqed.org, finding us on Discord, Blue Sky, Facebook or Instagram. We’re at KQED Forum. And you can call us at 866-733-6786. 866-733-6786.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Well, I want to invite listeners into the conversation. What questions do you have about the San Andreas Fault, the stress it’s under, and the risks that it poses? And listeners, what earthquakes have you experienced and how are you preparing, or what questions do you have about how to prepare? You can tell us by emailing forum at kqed.org, finding us on Discord, Blue Sky, Facebook or Instagram. We’re at KQED Forum. And you can call us at 866-733-6786. 866-733-6786.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So where are the biggest areas of pressure? What region of the fault did you home in on, Kate?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> The study, and it’s received a lot of attention, I think the title and the idea that the stress is at this highest level that we’ve seen in a thousand years is very striking to people.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> The study, and it’s received a lot of attention, I think the title and the idea that the stress is at this highest level that we’ve seen in a thousand years is very striking to people.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yes.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> So for folks that have kind of been hearing this over the last couple of months, I would emphasize that the paper has to calculate that. We don’t have any technique or ability to actually measure directly how much stress is accumulating along a fault network. So we know about how fast the energy is accumulating, and we can sort of estimate how it’s been released in past earthquakes. And that’s how we come up with an estimate of how much is still around today.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> So for folks that have kind of been hearing this over the last couple of months, I would emphasize that the paper has to calculate that. We don’t have any technique or ability to actually measure directly how much stress is accumulating along a fault network. So we know about how fast the energy is accumulating, and we can sort of estimate how it’s been released in past earthquakes. And that’s how we come up with an estimate of how much is still around today.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, another idea that I like to put in folks’ heads is that earthquakes happen really quite deep, and this is why we can’t measure the stress along the fault directly. So when you’re flying in an airplane and the pilot says, all right, we’ve reached 30,000 feet, you can, you know, undo your seatbelt, that’s about the same height above the ground as earthquakes, actually. Big earthquakes are generated below the ground. So we’re talking about events and big amounts of energy and complex systems that are quite deep. And we don’t have any techniques that would facilitate us really penetrating that deep with, say, drilling. There’s some that reached halfway there, but not all the way. So that’s a little background on the paper.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, another idea that I like to put in folks’ heads is that earthquakes happen really quite deep, and this is why we can’t measure the stress along the fault directly. So when you’re flying in an airplane and the pilot says, all right, we’ve reached 30,000 feet, you can, you know, undo your seatbelt, that’s about the same height above the ground as earthquakes, actually. Big earthquakes are generated below the ground. So we’re talking about events and big amounts of energy and complex systems that are quite deep. And we don’t have any techniques that would facilitate us really penetrating that deep with, say, drilling. There’s some that reached halfway there, but not all the way. So that’s a little background on the paper.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, but tell me, you focused on something called the Cajon Pass.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, but tell me, you focused on something called the Cajon Pass.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Sure. That’s an interesting area in Southern California and has received a lot of attention because it’s an infrastructure corridor. It’s also where the San Andreas and the San Jacinto Fault cut through all of that infrastructure. So the San Jacinto Fault is sort of the sister fault to the San Andreas. Down here in the Bay Area, you have the Hayward Fault. It takes up also a reasonable portion of the tectonic stress.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so there’s been quite an emphasis on Cajon Pass because it’s where I-10 is, I-15, all of the gas and electric lines come through there, or many of them. So it’s really a lifeline corridor. And so understanding the history of earthquakes through there is important.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And in the study, we looked at how stress has been accumulated and released over the last thousand years by looking at the geologic record. And we find that it is a little bit higher than it has been over the past, according to the dates that we have for those prehistoric earthquakes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And in the study, we looked at how stress has been accumulated and released over the last thousand years by looking at the geologic record. And we find that it is a little bit higher than it has been over the past, according to the dates that we have for those prehistoric earthquakes.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And so basically it’s in a position now where, I guess, that the current stress level is similar to what preceded previous —\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Major ruptures? That’s right. It’s been about the same amount of time, but sort of the average time between earthquakes in that area were a little bit longer than the average. And that’s consistent with, you know, long-term estimates for hazard in Southern California that put the odds of large earthquakes quite high for us because of the time period between the elapsed time since previous large earthquakes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Kate, can you help us wrap our mind around if that area does rupture with a 7.8 or so magnitude earthquake? Since we really have not known one, as I understand now from preparing for the show, in the modern era — one of that magnitude not since 1906. So, you know, if it was to strike the Southern San Andreas around the area that you looked at, what would happen?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Sure. The way I like to present that is that people that have been around California for a while have experienced sort of mid-magnitude 6 earthquakes, so Loma Prieta and Northridge. If they lived in the Mojave Desert, they’ve experienced some sevens. Those tend to — and Northridge and Loma Prieta are good examples of earthquakes that are very impactful to sort of part of your region.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So here in Southern California, you know, the San Fernando Valley was certainly impacted quite strongly by the Northridge earthquake. The difference between that and a large earthquake that, when you’re getting up to magnitudes of 7.5 and larger, is that you’re starting to expand the damage over a much broader area. So the shaking happens to more buildings, the fault ruptures more lifelines and roads as the earthquake traverses the system. And so the impacts just sort of expand outward. They may be slightly stronger felt in some places, but overall you just start to increase the number of people and towns that are impacted directly by the earthquake.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So here in Southern California, you know, the San Fernando Valley was certainly impacted quite strongly by the Northridge earthquake. The difference between that and a large earthquake that, when you’re getting up to magnitudes of 7.5 and larger, is that you’re starting to expand the damage over a much broader area. So the shaking happens to more buildings, the fault ruptures more lifelines and roads as the earthquake traverses the system. And so the impacts just sort of expand outward. They may be slightly stronger felt in some places, but overall you just start to increase the number of people and towns that are impacted directly by the earthquake.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I read that the violent shaking could be felt not just in Riverside and San Bernardino, but in Orange, you know, Los Angeles, and maybe even Ventura.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I read that the violent shaking could be felt not just in Riverside and San Bernardino, but in Orange, you know, Los Angeles, and maybe even Ventura.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Yes, that’s right. In some of the ground motion models, we expect that you would have significant shaking pretty far out as the waves traverse through the basins of Southern California.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Trish in Redwood City asks, given all of our technology, is there any way that the pressure on the faults can be alleviated in the same way that avalanches are averted? Like, is there anything we can do besides a giant earthquake?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> It’s a great question, but there is not. It’s so much energy that we don’t really know where we would exactly start the event. And we also don’t know exactly what would happen. So I think it’s the kind of thing that’s only in sci-fi movies, basically.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re talking with Kate Sharer, geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, about the historic level of pressure building up along the San Andreas Fault and what that means. And you, our listeners, are joining the conversation, and we’ll have more with you and with Kate and more guests after the break. Stay with us. This is \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Tuesday, August 18, 2026 at 10 AM\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The San Andreas Fault is under more pressure now than it has been in the last 1,000 years. That’s according to new research from seismologists who study earthquakes along the Pacific Rim. With recent earthquakes in Japan, Colombia and Venezuela making headlines, we look at the latest science, how prepared California is for “the Big One” and why we still can’t predict earthquakes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Katherine Sharer, \u003c/strong>geologist, U.S. Geological Survey\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Wendy Bohon, \u003c/strong>seismic hazards and earthquake engineering branch chief, California Geological Survey\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Brian Strong, \u003c/strong>chief resilience officer, San Francisco Office of Resilience and Capital Planning\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>, I’m Mina Kim. Earthquake preparedness may have taken a backseat to wildfires and other major issues California faces, but seismologists say it wouldn’t be a bad idea to make it top of mind again. That’s because sections of the San Andreas Fault are at their highest level of strain in the last thousand years. And there’s only one way to meaningfully release that pressure: a big earthquake.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So where might the big one hit, and what kind of damage could it create? Joining me first is Kate Sharer, geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and co-author of the recent article in the Journal of Geophysical Research about stress accumulation along the San Andreas Fault. Kate, welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Hi, thanks so much for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So many Californians have been hearing about the San Andreas Fault all our lives, but can you remind us how far it stretches, what makes it unique?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. It’s quite long. It extends all the way from Northern California down through the Bay Area, all through the more quiet sections that we don’t tend to frequent in Central California, and then goes along the backside of the mountains here in Southern California and finally cuts through into the Salton Sea. So it’s quite long.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And it acts as the primary boundary, right, between the Pacific and North American plates?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. Most of the slip rate between those two plates slowly and inexorably sort of accumulates along the San Andreas. You know, in the Bay Area, you guys all know your 1906 earthquake, and we have one down here in Southern California. Our equivalent would be the one that occurred in 1857 as the largest earthquake that we had in historic times on the San Andreas.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So then what kind of magnitude quake is the San Andreas capable of?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> It would be quite reasonable to see something between 6 and then certainly approaching 8. We know from looking at the length of the earthquake in 1906 and also in 1857 that those earthquakes were around 7.9 or 8. We didn’t have seismometers then, so we have to do it by looking at about how long the rupture was and calculating estimated magnitude. So it’s done a little differently, but those two give us evidence that we can expect very large earthquakes on the system.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And even though the San Andreas is infamous, you’re saying that really the last significant rupture along that main fault is 1906 in San Francisco and 1857 in Los Angeles. So the ones we’ve had in between, right? Like the Napa quake and the Northridge quake and even Loma Prieta was not along that main fault.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> That’s right. Loma Prieta is a little bit of a question mark, but really most of the stress that was released in those earthquakes — Napa, where we had Ridgecrest and other ones, Northridge down here in Southern California — those are on the distributed network of faults that surround the San Andreas. So although the San Andreas takes up the lion’s share of the tectonic motion between the plates, we have all these other faults that also can contribute to the hazard underneath our feet.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Right. So in the absence of major quake activity along the main fault, what has it been doing all this time?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> It’s been accumulating energy. So we often talk about — you hear the analogy that the plates move about as fast as your nails grow. So very slowly, you know, the plates are just moving past each other. But when you get close to these faults, they are locked for the most part. And so you can think of it like a coiled spring or like a stick that you’re trying to break. You keep putting energy into that, eventually that stick will snap. And so the analogy for an earthquake is the fault snaps and releases all of the, you know, decades to centuries of strain that have accumulated along that fault, and it has to be released in large earthquakes like you said in the opener.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> And really, the small ones don’t do it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Correct. They don’t really do anything for us to dig, except for, you know, very important, which is to remind us to be prepared and that we do live in an active tectonic environment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> So essentially you’re saying it’s not a question of if the fault will release this pressure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> It’s when. Yeah, I think we can expect in Southern California and Northern California that we’ve had earthquakes in the past. We’ll certainly experience them in the future. I know many people want to know when it’s going to occur. And I like to emphasize that, although that’s useful, there’s many things, and I think we’ll get into this a little bit more in the second half. But from a preparedness standpoint and engineering, we need to know now kind of about the average time between earthquakes, not necessarily if they’re gonna happen on a Tuesday, so that we can design buildings and bridges and hospitals to be prepared for those whenever they do occur.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Well, I want to invite listeners into the conversation. What questions do you have about the San Andreas Fault, the stress it’s under, and the risks that it poses? And listeners, what earthquakes have you experienced and how are you preparing, or what questions do you have about how to prepare? You can tell us by emailing forum at kqed.org, finding us on Discord, Blue Sky, Facebook or Instagram. We’re at KQED Forum. And you can call us at 866-733-6786. 866-733-6786.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So where are the biggest areas of pressure? What region of the fault did you home in on, Kate?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> The study, and it’s received a lot of attention, I think the title and the idea that the stress is at this highest level that we’ve seen in a thousand years is very striking to people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> So for folks that have kind of been hearing this over the last couple of months, I would emphasize that the paper has to calculate that. We don’t have any technique or ability to actually measure directly how much stress is accumulating along a fault network. So we know about how fast the energy is accumulating, and we can sort of estimate how it’s been released in past earthquakes. And that’s how we come up with an estimate of how much is still around today.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, another idea that I like to put in folks’ heads is that earthquakes happen really quite deep, and this is why we can’t measure the stress along the fault directly. So when you’re flying in an airplane and the pilot says, all right, we’ve reached 30,000 feet, you can, you know, undo your seatbelt, that’s about the same height above the ground as earthquakes, actually. Big earthquakes are generated below the ground. So we’re talking about events and big amounts of energy and complex systems that are quite deep. And we don’t have any techniques that would facilitate us really penetrating that deep with, say, drilling. There’s some that reached halfway there, but not all the way. So that’s a little background on the paper.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, but tell me, you focused on something called the Cajon Pass.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Sure. That’s an interesting area in Southern California and has received a lot of attention because it’s an infrastructure corridor. It’s also where the San Andreas and the San Jacinto Fault cut through all of that infrastructure. So the San Jacinto Fault is sort of the sister fault to the San Andreas. Down here in the Bay Area, you have the Hayward Fault. It takes up also a reasonable portion of the tectonic stress.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so there’s been quite an emphasis on Cajon Pass because it’s where I-10 is, I-15, all of the gas and electric lines come through there, or many of them. So it’s really a lifeline corridor. And so understanding the history of earthquakes through there is important.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And in the study, we looked at how stress has been accumulated and released over the last thousand years by looking at the geologic record. And we find that it is a little bit higher than it has been over the past, according to the dates that we have for those prehistoric earthquakes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> And so basically it’s in a position now where, I guess, that the current stress level is similar to what preceded previous —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Major ruptures? That’s right. It’s been about the same amount of time, but sort of the average time between earthquakes in that area were a little bit longer than the average. And that’s consistent with, you know, long-term estimates for hazard in Southern California that put the odds of large earthquakes quite high for us because of the time period between the elapsed time since previous large earthquakes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Kate, can you help us wrap our mind around if that area does rupture with a 7.8 or so magnitude earthquake? Since we really have not known one, as I understand now from preparing for the show, in the modern era — one of that magnitude not since 1906. So, you know, if it was to strike the Southern San Andreas around the area that you looked at, what would happen?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Sure. The way I like to present that is that people that have been around California for a while have experienced sort of mid-magnitude 6 earthquakes, so Loma Prieta and Northridge. If they lived in the Mojave Desert, they’ve experienced some sevens. Those tend to — and Northridge and Loma Prieta are good examples of earthquakes that are very impactful to sort of part of your region.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So here in Southern California, you know, the San Fernando Valley was certainly impacted quite strongly by the Northridge earthquake. The difference between that and a large earthquake that, when you’re getting up to magnitudes of 7.5 and larger, is that you’re starting to expand the damage over a much broader area. So the shaking happens to more buildings, the fault ruptures more lifelines and roads as the earthquake traverses the system. And so the impacts just sort of expand outward. They may be slightly stronger felt in some places, but overall you just start to increase the number of people and towns that are impacted directly by the earthquake.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I read that the violent shaking could be felt not just in Riverside and San Bernardino, but in Orange, you know, Los Angeles, and maybe even Ventura.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> Yes, that’s right. In some of the ground motion models, we expect that you would have significant shaking pretty far out as the waves traverse through the basins of Southern California.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> Well, Trish in Redwood City asks, given all of our technology, is there any way that the pressure on the faults can be alleviated in the same way that avalanches are averted? Like, is there anything we can do besides a giant earthquake?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Sharer:\u003c/strong> It’s a great question, but there is not. It’s so much energy that we don’t really know where we would exactly start the event. And we also don’t know exactly what would happen. So I think it’s the kind of thing that’s only in sci-fi movies, basically.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mina Kim:\u003c/strong> We’re talking with Kate Sharer, geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, about the historic level of pressure building up along the San Andreas Fault and what that means. And you, our listeners, are joining the conversation, and we’ll have more with you and with Kate and more guests after the break. Stay with us. This is \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Wednesday, August 5, 2026 at 10 AM\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>With domestic demand down and retaliatory tariffs from Canada hurting international sales, California’s wine industry is struggling. But beyond this year’s challenges, grape growers and winemakers are confronting the broader threat of climate change, which is already transforming places like Napa and Sonoma and could ultimately threaten the entire industry. We’ll talk to researchers and winemakers about the looming threats and what changes are necessary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander\u003c/strong>, senior wine reporter, San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre,\u003c/strong> founder, McIntyre Family Wines\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Ben Montpetit,\u003c/strong> Richard M. Kunde Endowed Chair in Viticulture and Enology and Professor & Marvin Sands Department Chair at UC Davis\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Lesley McClurg. I’m in today for Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The wine industry is under a lot of stress right now. And honestly, it’s kind of hard for me to make sense of all the changes that are confronting the industry. I mean, some growers are removing — in some cases, burning — vineyards because demand has dropped so, so sharply.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And at the same time, hotter temperatures are disrupting growing conditions so much that iconic grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon may eventually need to be grown in different places — not in California.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m joined by \u003cstrong>Jess Lander\u003c/strong>, senior wine reporter at the \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em>. Welcome, Jess.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> Thank you. Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> So give us a pulse point. How critical is this moment for the wine industry? How bad is it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> It’s pretty bad. You know, I don’t want to sound alarmist, but the industry is facing, as you said, a myriad of challenges. They’re kind of getting it from all sides, and it feels like there’s not one big solution to fix the problems.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I would say the biggest issue, though, that the wine industry is confronting is declining alcohol consumption — wine consumption across the country and across the globe. That’s really making it difficult for a turnaround.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And what is driving that? I mean, I’ve heard that younger drinkers are not drinking as much wine. Are there other factors that are at play? And why are people — younger people included — drinking less?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> There are a lot of factors. That is one that people talk a lot about. However, I have recently seen a study that shows that younger drinkers, as they become of legal drinking age, are catching up a bit. So, hopefully we see more of that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They also are drinking a lot of cocktails and seltzers and alternative beverages instead of wine. That’s cutting into the wine industry.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We also have this movement around health and wellness, with people cutting back on their drinking and drinking less. You have baby boomers, who really drove the boom of the wine industry in the last 20 or 30 years, starting to cut back. They’re getting older. Their doctors are telling them to stop drinking.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Some people talk about a kind of neo-prohibitionist movement happening. You have GLP-1s. There’s a lot of factors to it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> What about cannabis? Is it a factor as more people maybe turn to cannabis for relaxation?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> A lot of people do bring that up as a possible factor. I did report on a Gallup poll a year or two ago about the decline of alcohol consumption, and those researchers found that cannabis is not having a meaningful impact. But it’s definitely something that people are talking about.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And I’ve seen these headlines where growers are literally burning their vineyards. Is that one vineyard? Is that a large problem in the industry? Give us a sense of that. And why are they doing that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> You know, that headline I’m assuming you pulled from the \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> article that came out last week.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think one point that a lot of the industry would like to make is that they’re not just lighting their vineyards on fire. When growers pull out their vines, they make these big piles, and burning them is just a common farming practice. It’s something that’s been done for decades.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So that’s not quite what’s happening.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But California growers pulled out more than 40,000 acres of vineyards last year, and probably tens of thousands the year before. There is this big push to remove vineyards because there is an oversupply and there’s a correction that needs to be made. So that is something that is happening.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And are people not only leaving grapes unpicked and doing what you’re saying, but also selling off land? Are they leaving the industry as well? Is it that bad?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> Yes. Unfortunately, there are a lot of farmers who are reporting that they’re just throwing in the towel and abandoning their land, or making it fallow and maybe considering another crop.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But it’s definitely happening, especially in certain parts of California — not necessarily Napa and Sonoma counties, but in the Central Valley. And it is sad. Farmers are struggling.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Because there is this oversupply of wine and grapes, they’re really struggling even to make a profit on their grapes or to find buyers. So this year will be much of the same. We’ll see a lot of grapes, unfortunately, left unpicked.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And is there a thought that this may shift? I mean, do these drinking trends tend to go up and down? Is there hope that we’ll start lapping it up in the future?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. I think experts caution people that we’re probably not going to see the massive boom or the kind of growth we’ve experienced in the past.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But there are signs that we’re hitting the bottom and that the wine industry will soon start recovering and move back into a position of growth — maybe one or two percent in the next couple of years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> Is the reason it feels potentially so bad right now — and again, I’m not right at the pulse point where you are, so tell me if I’m accurate at all — that we got real thirsty during the pandemic and then potentially kind of dried up afterwards?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Is this moment feeling particularly bad because maybe we had oversupply during the pandemic?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> Absolutely.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think a lot of wineries were enjoying such great growth that now that things have slowed so much, it probably feels more dramatic than if they were comparing this to pre-pandemic times.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A lot of Americans stocked up on alcohol, and because sales were going so well, wineries increased production. Now that things have slowed, they have more wine than they can sell. The vintages are backing up, and they can’t sell it in the wholesale market.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like I said, there’s this correction that needs to happen. It’s coming from the vineyard side, where people are removing vines so there won’t be as many vineyards supplying the industry. Then, once we move through the excess inventory, it’ll correct a bit more on the wine side as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> There’s some correction ahead.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I want to bring in \u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre\u003c/strong>, founder of McIntyre Family Wines.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Steve, welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre:\u003c/strong> Thank you. Thank you!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> Is declining demand hitting your business in the Carmel Valley?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre:\u003c/strong> It certainly is. And so is it hitting our parent company, Monterey Pacific.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We farm about 18,000 acres through four different counties along the coast of California. So we understand all too well the challenges, both on the production side and the growing side.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And then, Jess, there’s global politics also at play. So how are tariffs affecting the industry?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> I would say that tariffs are definitely affecting the industry. It’s probably not the biggest problem that producers are dealing with, but tariffs have raised the cost of a lot of supplies that the wine industry uses.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So corks and glass and screw caps — all those types of things have gone up because a lot of those products are bought from other countries.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then Canada has been a big stressor because not only were there tariffs, but in retaliation they have pretty much removed U.S. alcohol from their shelves for over a year now. That is a pretty big hit to a lot of California wineries that export there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s the U.S.’s biggest export market for alcohol, worth about $1 billion. So any wineries that were exporting to Canada are definitely feeling that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And that may not reverse, right? Because I’ve read that Canadian sales of homegrown wines have soared, which means buyers may turn to their local supplies instead. That may be a permanent change that we could see.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I hope not. I think even a lot of Canadians would like to have their American alcohol back on the shelves. There are a lot more options.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Obviously, they’re probably buying more European wines now. So we’ll see. I have faith that it’s not permanent, but I will admit I’m pretty surprised at how long it’s gone on. I thought it might only last a few months, and they’re still holding strong.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> Steve, what about you? Have tariffs hit your business?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre:\u003c/strong> Yeah, they certainly have. We were getting all of our glass from China, and that tariff, of course, was one of the worst.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And to build on what Jess said about Canada, one of our biggest markets in California is Palm Desert. We see the Canadian snowbirds there, and they’re still drinking a lot of California wine, and they really miss it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But it’s a shame we have these political barriers to contend with.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And are those costs already trickling down to the consumer? Have you had to raise your prices because of the tariffs?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre:\u003c/strong> We’ve not been able to raise prices because of the supply being so large. There’s not enough demand to really increase prices.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Those that have certainly have suffered the consequences with declining depletion. So no, we can’t pass it down. It’s nothing more than a tax, that’s for sure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And so you’re getting squeezed. Basically, the business itself is getting squeezed. You’re having to absorb those financial hits.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre:\u003c/strong> That’s exactly right. The entire business is. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> Well, I want to bring in \u003cstrong>Ben Montpetit\u003c/strong>, Richard M. Kunde Endowed Chair in Viticulture and Enology and Professor & Marvin Sands Department Chair at UC Davis.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Just to kind of cap what we’ve heard there from Jess and Steve, how are you viewing this moment, Ben? Do you feel like this is just a hard moment, or is this a longer trend that we’ll see?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Montpetit:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In talking to stakeholders across California and what we’re seeing, it really is a bit of a change. It’s not going to be just a dip and then come back.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The change is really going to be on the industry side. They’re thinking about how to engage with the next generation of consumers, what they’re looking for in these products. They’re thinking about innovation and opportunities for change.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So that’s where I remain optimistic about the future. Talking to those stakeholders, they’re not sitting idle. They’re looking to innovate and bring new products to market.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Even the discussion we’ve been having about fields and vines being ripped out — I know many producers who are thinking about the opportunities there to plant new varieties and do something a little bit different.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> Well, we’ll talk about some of those innovations after the break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’d love to hear from listeners. Are you drinking less wine? Why are you drinking less wine? Maybe you’re Gen Z. Do you drink wine? Why or why not? Do you like to buy from specific California regions? Tell us about those.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You can email your comments or questions to \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on any of the social platforms — Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram — we’re @KQEDForum.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Or you can give us a call right now at 866-733-6786. Again, that’s 866-733-6786.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Maybe you’re in the business. Maybe you’re feeling some of these stress points. We’d love to hear about it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Stay with us. We’ll be right back after this break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Lesley McClurg.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>With domestic demand down and retaliatory tariffs from Canada hurting international sales, California’s wine industry is struggling. But beyond this year’s challenges, grape growers and winemakers are confronting the broader threat of climate change, which is already transforming places like Napa and Sonoma and could ultimately threaten the entire industry. We’ll talk to researchers and winemakers about the looming threats and what changes are necessary.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The wine industry is under a lot of stress right now. And honestly, it’s kind of hard for me to make sense of all the changes that are confronting the industry. I mean, some growers are removing — in some cases, burning — vineyards because demand has dropped so, so sharply.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> So give us a pulse point. How critical is this moment for the wine industry? How bad is it?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I would say the biggest issue, though, that the wine industry is confronting is declining alcohol consumption — wine consumption across the country and across the globe. That’s really making it difficult for a turnaround.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I would say the biggest issue, though, that the wine industry is confronting is declining alcohol consumption — wine consumption across the country and across the globe. That’s really making it difficult for a turnaround.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And what is driving that? I mean, I’ve heard that younger drinkers are not drinking as much wine. Are there other factors that are at play? And why are people — younger people included — drinking less?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And what is driving that? I mean, I’ve heard that younger drinkers are not drinking as much wine. Are there other factors that are at play? And why are people — younger people included — drinking less?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> There are a lot of factors. That is one that people talk a lot about. However, I have recently seen a study that shows that younger drinkers, as they become of legal drinking age, are catching up a bit. So, hopefully we see more of that.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> There are a lot of factors. That is one that people talk a lot about. However, I have recently seen a study that shows that younger drinkers, as they become of legal drinking age, are catching up a bit. So, hopefully we see more of that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They also are drinking a lot of cocktails and seltzers and alternative beverages instead of wine. That’s cutting into the wine industry.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>They also are drinking a lot of cocktails and seltzers and alternative beverages instead of wine. That’s cutting into the wine industry.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We also have this movement around health and wellness, with people cutting back on their drinking and drinking less. You have baby boomers, who really drove the boom of the wine industry in the last 20 or 30 years, starting to cut back. They’re getting older. Their doctors are telling them to stop drinking.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>We also have this movement around health and wellness, with people cutting back on their drinking and drinking less. You have baby boomers, who really drove the boom of the wine industry in the last 20 or 30 years, starting to cut back. They’re getting older. Their doctors are telling them to stop drinking.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Some people talk about a kind of neo-prohibitionist movement happening. You have GLP-1s. There’s a lot of factors to it.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Some people talk about a kind of neo-prohibitionist movement happening. You have GLP-1s. There’s a lot of factors to it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> What about cannabis? Is it a factor as more people maybe turn to cannabis for relaxation?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> What about cannabis? Is it a factor as more people maybe turn to cannabis for relaxation?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> A lot of people do bring that up as a possible factor. I did report on a Gallup poll a year or two ago about the decline of alcohol consumption, and those researchers found that cannabis is not having a meaningful impact. But it’s definitely something that people are talking about.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> A lot of people do bring that up as a possible factor. I did report on a Gallup poll a year or two ago about the decline of alcohol consumption, and those researchers found that cannabis is not having a meaningful impact. But it’s definitely something that people are talking about.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And I’ve seen these headlines where growers are literally burning their vineyards. Is that one vineyard? Is that a large problem in the industry? Give us a sense of that. And why are they doing that?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And I’ve seen these headlines where growers are literally burning their vineyards. Is that one vineyard? Is that a large problem in the industry? Give us a sense of that. And why are they doing that?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> You know, that headline I’m assuming you pulled from the \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> article that came out last week.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> You know, that headline I’m assuming you pulled from the \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> article that came out last week.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think one point that a lot of the industry would like to make is that they’re not just lighting their vineyards on fire. When growers pull out their vines, they make these big piles, and burning them is just a common farming practice. It’s something that’s been done for decades.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think one point that a lot of the industry would like to make is that they’re not just lighting their vineyards on fire. When growers pull out their vines, they make these big piles, and burning them is just a common farming practice. It’s something that’s been done for decades.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So that’s not quite what’s happening.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>So that’s not quite what’s happening.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But California growers pulled out more than 40,000 acres of vineyards last year, and probably tens of thousands the year before. There is this big push to remove vineyards because there is an oversupply and there’s a correction that needs to be made. So that is something that is happening.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>But California growers pulled out more than 40,000 acres of vineyards last year, and probably tens of thousands the year before. There is this big push to remove vineyards because there is an oversupply and there’s a correction that needs to be made. So that is something that is happening.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And are people not only leaving grapes unpicked and doing what you’re saying, but also selling off land? Are they leaving the industry as well? Is it that bad?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And are people not only leaving grapes unpicked and doing what you’re saying, but also selling off land? Are they leaving the industry as well? Is it that bad?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> Yes. Unfortunately, there are a lot of farmers who are reporting that they’re just throwing in the towel and abandoning their land, or making it fallow and maybe considering another crop.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> Yes. Unfortunately, there are a lot of farmers who are reporting that they’re just throwing in the towel and abandoning their land, or making it fallow and maybe considering another crop.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But it’s definitely happening, especially in certain parts of California — not necessarily Napa and Sonoma counties, but in the Central Valley. And it is sad. Farmers are struggling.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>But it’s definitely happening, especially in certain parts of California — not necessarily Napa and Sonoma counties, but in the Central Valley. And it is sad. Farmers are struggling.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Because there is this oversupply of wine and grapes, they’re really struggling even to make a profit on their grapes or to find buyers. So this year will be much of the same. We’ll see a lot of grapes, unfortunately, left unpicked.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Because there is this oversupply of wine and grapes, they’re really struggling even to make a profit on their grapes or to find buyers. So this year will be much of the same. We’ll see a lot of grapes, unfortunately, left unpicked.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And is there a thought that this may shift? I mean, do these drinking trends tend to go up and down? Is there hope that we’ll start lapping it up in the future?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And is there a thought that this may shift? I mean, do these drinking trends tend to go up and down? Is there hope that we’ll start lapping it up in the future?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. I think experts caution people that we’re probably not going to see the massive boom or the kind of growth we’ve experienced in the past.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. I think experts caution people that we’re probably not going to see the massive boom or the kind of growth we’ve experienced in the past.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But there are signs that we’re hitting the bottom and that the wine industry will soon start recovering and move back into a position of growth — maybe one or two percent in the next couple of years.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>But there are signs that we’re hitting the bottom and that the wine industry will soon start recovering and move back into a position of growth — maybe one or two percent in the next couple of years.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> Is the reason it feels potentially so bad right now — and again, I’m not right at the pulse point where you are, so tell me if I’m accurate at all — that we got real thirsty during the pandemic and then potentially kind of dried up afterwards?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> Is the reason it feels potentially so bad right now — and again, I’m not right at the pulse point where you are, so tell me if I’m accurate at all — that we got real thirsty during the pandemic and then potentially kind of dried up afterwards?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Is this moment feeling particularly bad because maybe we had oversupply during the pandemic?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Is this moment feeling particularly bad because maybe we had oversupply during the pandemic?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> Absolutely.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> Absolutely.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think a lot of wineries were enjoying such great growth that now that things have slowed so much, it probably feels more dramatic than if they were comparing this to pre-pandemic times.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>I think a lot of wineries were enjoying such great growth that now that things have slowed so much, it probably feels more dramatic than if they were comparing this to pre-pandemic times.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>A lot of Americans stocked up on alcohol, and because sales were going so well, wineries increased production. Now that things have slowed, they have more wine than they can sell. The vintages are backing up, and they can’t sell it in the wholesale market.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>A lot of Americans stocked up on alcohol, and because sales were going so well, wineries increased production. Now that things have slowed, they have more wine than they can sell. The vintages are backing up, and they can’t sell it in the wholesale market.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like I said, there’s this correction that needs to happen. It’s coming from the vineyard side, where people are removing vines so there won’t be as many vineyards supplying the industry. Then, once we move through the excess inventory, it’ll correct a bit more on the wine side as well.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like I said, there’s this correction that needs to happen. It’s coming from the vineyard side, where people are removing vines so there won’t be as many vineyards supplying the industry. Then, once we move through the excess inventory, it’ll correct a bit more on the wine side as well.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> There’s some correction ahead.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> There’s some correction ahead.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I want to bring in \u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre\u003c/strong>, founder of McIntyre Family Wines.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>I want to bring in \u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre\u003c/strong>, founder of McIntyre Family Wines.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Steve, welcome.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Steve, welcome.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre:\u003c/strong> Thank you. Thank you!\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre:\u003c/strong> Thank you. Thank you!\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> Is declining demand hitting your business in the Carmel Valley?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> Is declining demand hitting your business in the Carmel Valley?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre:\u003c/strong> It certainly is. And so is it hitting our parent company, Monterey Pacific.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre:\u003c/strong> It certainly is. And so is it hitting our parent company, Monterey Pacific.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We farm about 18,000 acres through four different counties along the coast of California. So we understand all too well the challenges, both on the production side and the growing side.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>We farm about 18,000 acres through four different counties along the coast of California. So we understand all too well the challenges, both on the production side and the growing side.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And then, Jess, there’s global politics also at play. So how are tariffs affecting the industry?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And then, Jess, there’s global politics also at play. So how are tariffs affecting the industry?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> I would say that tariffs are definitely affecting the industry. It’s probably not the biggest problem that producers are dealing with, but tariffs have raised the cost of a lot of supplies that the wine industry uses.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> I would say that tariffs are definitely affecting the industry. It’s probably not the biggest problem that producers are dealing with, but tariffs have raised the cost of a lot of supplies that the wine industry uses.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So corks and glass and screw caps — all those types of things have gone up because a lot of those products are bought from other countries.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So corks and glass and screw caps — all those types of things have gone up because a lot of those products are bought from other countries.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And then Canada has been a big stressor because not only were there tariffs, but in retaliation they have pretty much removed U.S. alcohol from their shelves for over a year now. That is a pretty big hit to a lot of California wineries that export there.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>And then Canada has been a big stressor because not only were there tariffs, but in retaliation they have pretty much removed U.S. alcohol from their shelves for over a year now. That is a pretty big hit to a lot of California wineries that export there.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s the U.S.’s biggest export market for alcohol, worth about $1 billion. So any wineries that were exporting to Canada are definitely feeling that.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>It’s the U.S.’s biggest export market for alcohol, worth about $1 billion. So any wineries that were exporting to Canada are definitely feeling that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And that may not reverse, right? Because I’ve read that Canadian sales of homegrown wines have soared, which means buyers may turn to their local supplies instead. That may be a permanent change that we could see.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And that may not reverse, right? Because I’ve read that Canadian sales of homegrown wines have soared, which means buyers may turn to their local supplies instead. That may be a permanent change that we could see.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I hope not. I think even a lot of Canadians would like to have their American alcohol back on the shelves. There are a lot more options.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I hope not. I think even a lot of Canadians would like to have their American alcohol back on the shelves. There are a lot more options.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Obviously, they’re probably buying more European wines now. So we’ll see. I have faith that it’s not permanent, but I will admit I’m pretty surprised at how long it’s gone on. I thought it might only last a few months, and they’re still holding strong.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Obviously, they’re probably buying more European wines now. So we’ll see. I have faith that it’s not permanent, but I will admit I’m pretty surprised at how long it’s gone on. I thought it might only last a few months, and they’re still holding strong.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> Steve, what about you? Have tariffs hit your business?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> Steve, what about you? Have tariffs hit your business?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre:\u003c/strong> Yeah, they certainly have. We were getting all of our glass from China, and that tariff, of course, was one of the worst.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre:\u003c/strong> Yeah, they certainly have. We were getting all of our glass from China, and that tariff, of course, was one of the worst.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And to build on what Jess said about Canada, one of our biggest markets in California is Palm Desert. We see the Canadian snowbirds there, and they’re still drinking a lot of California wine, and they really miss it.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>And to build on what Jess said about Canada, one of our biggest markets in California is Palm Desert. We see the Canadian snowbirds there, and they’re still drinking a lot of California wine, and they really miss it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But it’s a shame we have these political barriers to contend with.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But it’s a shame we have these political barriers to contend with.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And are those costs already trickling down to the consumer? Have you had to raise your prices because of the tariffs?\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And are those costs already trickling down to the consumer? Have you had to raise your prices because of the tariffs?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre:\u003c/strong> We’ve not been able to raise prices because of the supply being so large. There’s not enough demand to really increase prices.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre:\u003c/strong> We’ve not been able to raise prices because of the supply being so large. There’s not enough demand to really increase prices.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Those that have certainly have suffered the consequences with declining depletion. So no, we can’t pass it down. It’s nothing more than a tax, that’s for sure.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Those that have certainly have suffered the consequences with declining depletion. So no, we can’t pass it down. It’s nothing more than a tax, that’s for sure.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And so you’re getting squeezed. Basically, the business itself is getting squeezed. You’re having to absorb those financial hits.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And so you’re getting squeezed. Basically, the business itself is getting squeezed. You’re having to absorb those financial hits.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre:\u003c/strong> That’s exactly right. The entire business is. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> Well, I want to bring in \u003cstrong>Ben Montpetit\u003c/strong>, Richard M. Kunde Endowed Chair in Viticulture and Enology and Professor & Marvin Sands Department Chair at UC Davis.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Just to kind of cap what we’ve heard there from Jess and Steve, how are you viewing this moment, Ben? Do you feel like this is just a hard moment, or is this a longer trend that we’ll see?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Montpetit:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In talking to stakeholders across California and what we’re seeing, it really is a bit of a change. It’s not going to be just a dip and then come back.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The change is really going to be on the industry side. They’re thinking about how to engage with the next generation of consumers, what they’re looking for in these products. They’re thinking about innovation and opportunities for change.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So that’s where I remain optimistic about the future. Talking to those stakeholders, they’re not sitting idle. They’re looking to innovate and bring new products to market.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> Well, we’ll talk about some of those innovations after the break.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’d love to hear from listeners. Are you drinking less wine? Why are you drinking less wine? Maybe you’re Gen Z. Do you drink wine? Why or why not? Do you like to buy from specific California regions? Tell us about those.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You can email your comments or questions to \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on any of the social platforms — Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram — we’re @KQEDForum.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Stay with us. We’ll be right back after this break.\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Airdate: Wednesday, August 5, 2026 at 10 AM\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>With domestic demand down and retaliatory tariffs from Canada hurting international sales, California’s wine industry is struggling. But beyond this year’s challenges, grape growers and winemakers are confronting the broader threat of climate change, which is already transforming places like Napa and Sonoma and could ultimately threaten the entire industry. We’ll talk to researchers and winemakers about the looming threats and what changes are necessary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander\u003c/strong>, senior wine reporter, San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre,\u003c/strong> founder, McIntyre Family Wines\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Ben Montpetit,\u003c/strong> Richard M. Kunde Endowed Chair in Viticulture and Enology and Professor & Marvin Sands Department Chair at UC Davis\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> Welcome to \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. I’m Lesley McClurg. I’m in today for Mina Kim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The wine industry is under a lot of stress right now. And honestly, it’s kind of hard for me to make sense of all the changes that are confronting the industry. I mean, some growers are removing — in some cases, burning — vineyards because demand has dropped so, so sharply.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And at the same time, hotter temperatures are disrupting growing conditions so much that iconic grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon may eventually need to be grown in different places — not in California.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m joined by \u003cstrong>Jess Lander\u003c/strong>, senior wine reporter at the \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em>. Welcome, Jess.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> Thank you. Thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> So give us a pulse point. How critical is this moment for the wine industry? How bad is it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> It’s pretty bad. You know, I don’t want to sound alarmist, but the industry is facing, as you said, a myriad of challenges. They’re kind of getting it from all sides, and it feels like there’s not one big solution to fix the problems.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I would say the biggest issue, though, that the wine industry is confronting is declining alcohol consumption — wine consumption across the country and across the globe. That’s really making it difficult for a turnaround.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And what is driving that? I mean, I’ve heard that younger drinkers are not drinking as much wine. Are there other factors that are at play? And why are people — younger people included — drinking less?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> There are a lot of factors. That is one that people talk a lot about. However, I have recently seen a study that shows that younger drinkers, as they become of legal drinking age, are catching up a bit. So, hopefully we see more of that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They also are drinking a lot of cocktails and seltzers and alternative beverages instead of wine. That’s cutting into the wine industry.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We also have this movement around health and wellness, with people cutting back on their drinking and drinking less. You have baby boomers, who really drove the boom of the wine industry in the last 20 or 30 years, starting to cut back. They’re getting older. Their doctors are telling them to stop drinking.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Some people talk about a kind of neo-prohibitionist movement happening. You have GLP-1s. There’s a lot of factors to it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> What about cannabis? Is it a factor as more people maybe turn to cannabis for relaxation?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> A lot of people do bring that up as a possible factor. I did report on a Gallup poll a year or two ago about the decline of alcohol consumption, and those researchers found that cannabis is not having a meaningful impact. But it’s definitely something that people are talking about.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And I’ve seen these headlines where growers are literally burning their vineyards. Is that one vineyard? Is that a large problem in the industry? Give us a sense of that. And why are they doing that?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> You know, that headline I’m assuming you pulled from the \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> article that came out last week.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think one point that a lot of the industry would like to make is that they’re not just lighting their vineyards on fire. When growers pull out their vines, they make these big piles, and burning them is just a common farming practice. It’s something that’s been done for decades.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So that’s not quite what’s happening.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But California growers pulled out more than 40,000 acres of vineyards last year, and probably tens of thousands the year before. There is this big push to remove vineyards because there is an oversupply and there’s a correction that needs to be made. So that is something that is happening.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And are people not only leaving grapes unpicked and doing what you’re saying, but also selling off land? Are they leaving the industry as well? Is it that bad?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> Yes. Unfortunately, there are a lot of farmers who are reporting that they’re just throwing in the towel and abandoning their land, or making it fallow and maybe considering another crop.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But it’s definitely happening, especially in certain parts of California — not necessarily Napa and Sonoma counties, but in the Central Valley. And it is sad. Farmers are struggling.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Because there is this oversupply of wine and grapes, they’re really struggling even to make a profit on their grapes or to find buyers. So this year will be much of the same. We’ll see a lot of grapes, unfortunately, left unpicked.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And is there a thought that this may shift? I mean, do these drinking trends tend to go up and down? Is there hope that we’ll start lapping it up in the future?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. I think experts caution people that we’re probably not going to see the massive boom or the kind of growth we’ve experienced in the past.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But there are signs that we’re hitting the bottom and that the wine industry will soon start recovering and move back into a position of growth — maybe one or two percent in the next couple of years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> Is the reason it feels potentially so bad right now — and again, I’m not right at the pulse point where you are, so tell me if I’m accurate at all — that we got real thirsty during the pandemic and then potentially kind of dried up afterwards?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Is this moment feeling particularly bad because maybe we had oversupply during the pandemic?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> Absolutely.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think a lot of wineries were enjoying such great growth that now that things have slowed so much, it probably feels more dramatic than if they were comparing this to pre-pandemic times.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A lot of Americans stocked up on alcohol, and because sales were going so well, wineries increased production. Now that things have slowed, they have more wine than they can sell. The vintages are backing up, and they can’t sell it in the wholesale market.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like I said, there’s this correction that needs to happen. It’s coming from the vineyard side, where people are removing vines so there won’t be as many vineyards supplying the industry. Then, once we move through the excess inventory, it’ll correct a bit more on the wine side as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> There’s some correction ahead.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I want to bring in \u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre\u003c/strong>, founder of McIntyre Family Wines.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Steve, welcome.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre:\u003c/strong> Thank you. Thank you!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> Is declining demand hitting your business in the Carmel Valley?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre:\u003c/strong> It certainly is. And so is it hitting our parent company, Monterey Pacific.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We farm about 18,000 acres through four different counties along the coast of California. So we understand all too well the challenges, both on the production side and the growing side.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And then, Jess, there’s global politics also at play. So how are tariffs affecting the industry?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> I would say that tariffs are definitely affecting the industry. It’s probably not the biggest problem that producers are dealing with, but tariffs have raised the cost of a lot of supplies that the wine industry uses.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So corks and glass and screw caps — all those types of things have gone up because a lot of those products are bought from other countries.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then Canada has been a big stressor because not only were there tariffs, but in retaliation they have pretty much removed U.S. alcohol from their shelves for over a year now. That is a pretty big hit to a lot of California wineries that export there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s the U.S.’s biggest export market for alcohol, worth about $1 billion. So any wineries that were exporting to Canada are definitely feeling that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And that may not reverse, right? Because I’ve read that Canadian sales of homegrown wines have soared, which means buyers may turn to their local supplies instead. That may be a permanent change that we could see.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lander:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I hope not. I think even a lot of Canadians would like to have their American alcohol back on the shelves. There are a lot more options.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Obviously, they’re probably buying more European wines now. So we’ll see. I have faith that it’s not permanent, but I will admit I’m pretty surprised at how long it’s gone on. I thought it might only last a few months, and they’re still holding strong.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> Steve, what about you? Have tariffs hit your business?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre:\u003c/strong> Yeah, they certainly have. We were getting all of our glass from China, and that tariff, of course, was one of the worst.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And to build on what Jess said about Canada, one of our biggest markets in California is Palm Desert. We see the Canadian snowbirds there, and they’re still drinking a lot of California wine, and they really miss it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But it’s a shame we have these political barriers to contend with.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And are those costs already trickling down to the consumer? Have you had to raise your prices because of the tariffs?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre:\u003c/strong> We’ve not been able to raise prices because of the supply being so large. There’s not enough demand to really increase prices.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Those that have certainly have suffered the consequences with declining depletion. So no, we can’t pass it down. It’s nothing more than a tax, that’s for sure.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> And so you’re getting squeezed. Basically, the business itself is getting squeezed. You’re having to absorb those financial hits.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve McIntyre:\u003c/strong> That’s exactly right. The entire business is. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> Well, I want to bring in \u003cstrong>Ben Montpetit\u003c/strong>, Richard M. Kunde Endowed Chair in Viticulture and Enology and Professor & Marvin Sands Department Chair at UC Davis.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Just to kind of cap what we’ve heard there from Jess and Steve, how are you viewing this moment, Ben? Do you feel like this is just a hard moment, or is this a longer trend that we’ll see?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Montpetit:\u003c/strong> Yeah, thanks for having me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In talking to stakeholders across California and what we’re seeing, it really is a bit of a change. It’s not going to be just a dip and then come back.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The change is really going to be on the industry side. They’re thinking about how to engage with the next generation of consumers, what they’re looking for in these products. They’re thinking about innovation and opportunities for change.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So that’s where I remain optimistic about the future. Talking to those stakeholders, they’re not sitting idle. They’re looking to innovate and bring new products to market.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Even the discussion we’ve been having about fields and vines being ripped out — I know many producers who are thinking about the opportunities there to plant new varieties and do something a little bit different.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg:\u003c/strong> Well, we’ll talk about some of those innovations after the break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’d love to hear from listeners. Are you drinking less wine? Why are you drinking less wine? Maybe you’re Gen Z. Do you drink wine? Why or why not? Do you like to buy from specific California regions? Tell us about those.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You can email your comments or questions to \u003ca href=\"mailto:forum@kqed.org\">forum@kqed.org\u003c/a>. You can find us on any of the social platforms — Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram — we’re @KQEDForum.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Or you can give us a call right now at 866-733-6786. Again, that’s 866-733-6786.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Maybe you’re in the business. Maybe you’re feeling some of these stress points. We’d love to hear about it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Stay with us. We’ll be right back after this break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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