Welcome to What’s Left! I’m Amy Hoggart, a writer/comedian with the ideals of a radical but the risk-aversion of a moderate. Each week, I interview someone interesting on the left about their personal politics and the state of the left today.
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Garrett Bucks is an organiser, trainer and writer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is the founder of The Barnraisers Project, which has trained thousands of people across the world who never considered themselves to be organisers on how to build and sustain radical and beautiful local communities. He also writes about all that in his popular newsletter, The White Pages, and his memoir ‘The Right Kind of White’, about how he used to think politics was about just yelling your opinions loudly and puffing yourself up and how it’s not that, actually. He’s a dad, which is fun and hard, and also a neighbour (ditto).
Welcome, Garrett! If there was a version of the political spectrum where zero means you’re a total centrist, -100, an actual fascist and then +100, a radical leftist, where would you put yourself?
I’d be pretty darn 100…
‘Pretty darn 100!’ I absolutely love that phrasing.
But I bet that a lot of leftists or people who would also rank themselves 100 would disagree with me on that for a pretty simple reason: because I am, without exception, a pacifist.
If we’re talking about the world I envision and what kind of systems it does and doesn’t have in it, then I can’t imagine a more left-leaning or leftist take.
I want radical outcomes: a world without private property, without prisons, without police. But I just don’t believe in any form of violent action whatsoever as a means of getting us there. I do believe that radical political change has been and can be brought about nonviolently.
But let’s be honest, a lot of people who talk about violence as a means towards an end would consider me quite milquetoast and liberal for that reason.
That’s fascinating. When I ask people where they fall on the left-right spectrum, one criticism I often get is that you need more axes, like the libertarian-authoritarian one. But it sounds like we could also add a violence-pacifism axis too. What do you think about the argument—anarchist Dean Spade made last week—that violence can be justified because for so many people, the situation is already violent?
The first thing is that it’s pretty darn easy for me to say that I’m a committed practitioner of nonviolence and pacifism. I am a straight, cis, white guy living in America with a college degree and a roof over my head, and with very, very few threats at any point imaginable to my physical safety.
I don’t think there’s a lot of moral or strategic value in my commitment to nonviolence, and being a self-righteous pacifist isn’t of interest to me. Judging others seems more solipsistic than useful.
There are multiple reasons for my pacifism, a lot of which are really unique to me. I’m a Quaker. Part of it is theological for me. If you believe that—God, Spirit, the best of humanity, whatever you want to call it—lives in all of us, then killing or hurting someone becomes really hard from a moral stance.
I would also say that when I look at the history of leftist social movements and leftist beliefs, it seems like acceptance of violence and a small cadre deciding who lives or dies is where it’s gone wrong. Soviet Russia is a great example of that. I’m not proud of leftism in that sense.
But when I look at nonviolent social movements, including toppling dictatorships, there is an incredible record of success.
Pacifism and a commitment to nonviolence are sometimes misunderstood as a commitment to not have violence done to us. But we don’t apply the same logic to violent social movements. A violent social movement met with violence isn’t judged as a failure because of that.
Ideally, participants in a nonviolent social movement go into it ready to put their body on the line for something they believe in, and recognising the potential consequences.
If I make the commitment that I’m not able to physically harm another human being, but I believe in standing up for justice, for what’s right, and for the dignity of other human beings, then that means I need to wrestle with being willing to potentially have the worst happen to me.
I’ve never heard anyone describe that bravery element of pacifism before. You’re willing to be hurt by other people, but not to hurt them back.
Again, it’s easy for me to say, right now, in a cosy, warm space as a straight, cis white guy. But my heroes are folks who 100% showed that bravery in a variety of ways.
What kind of things are you discovering in this project of interviewing folks who identify in different ways as being on the left?
I thought it would be mostly liberals and leftists sounding off against each other, but actually, everyone offers such wildly different perspectives. Would you say that your politics is typical of a Quaker?
Yes, pretty core to our faith is wrestling with the idea that human beings have a wonderful holiness in us and that also the opposite of that.
Can you explain that more?
We believe that the only way to experience what is holy is in other people. But also that we’re products of an unequal society—shaped by capitalism, white supremacy and patriarchy—and so we’re all capable of being both beautiful and terrible to another person.
It’s then: how do you live spiritually, as someone who makes mistakes, and also with the belief that we could be really good to each other?
And so what sort of family did you grow up in? Did you talk about politics at all?
I’m the fifth of six kids, raised by two really cool parents in Montana. My folks have always been inspiring, committed, community-based activists. Whatever my parents’ paid employment was, it was always humble, quiet work that made life better for people who were being screwed by society.
My dad is a national expert on finding corporate tax loopholes and closing them.
Amazing.
In every state he’s ever worked in, he has made life discernibly better for working-class people because he has been able to keep taxes on the poorest working-class folks lower. And while also increasing education funding, health care funding and social service funding. Because he’s found ways both through legislation, but also mostly just reading really, really boring labyrinthine text code and knowing it better than anyone else, to make corporations and really rich people pay more.
He’s an absolute hero, and no one will ever know him. He never did this very, very niche and quiet thing thinking it would give him any spotlight or get lauded as an essential piece of leftist praxis. But that has made life significantly better for people without money and made life a little bit worse for people who are hoarding too much money. And I’m proud of that.
I can imagine!
But that also means that we moved around a whole bunch. And whenever we did, my parents always did an incredible job of asking the question, ‘What kind of work needs to be done in this place? How can we plug into it? What does building community look like?’ That was the lesson from my parents.
I grew up in a house where I would go to bed, and there was still a meeting happening in the living room. So, for me, politics was about knowing your neighbours, asking what needs to be done wherever you are, and doing it without looking for recognition. It was about being useful and getting good at something because no one else was doing it.
So how does that tie into the work that you’re doing now?
For a long time, especially in my twenties, I misunderstood politics as having the right opinions and expressing them loudly, thinking that getting attention for those opinions was the goal. I also thought it was about getting a fancy nonprofit job, climbing the ladder, and making the world better while enjoying the perks.
I got caught up in those cycles—capitalist cycles, competitive cycles, spouting my opinions—only to realise that I wasted my twenties on things like nonprofit board meetings and Facebook posts instead of living a fuller, more fun life.
Eventually, I had to learn my own lessons, and in 2016, I had a come-to-Jesus moment with the rise of Trump.
Oof, tell me about that.
I looked at three parts of my life: my nonprofit work, the things I had written that portrayed my organisation as making a huge difference, and the broader political climate. It was all window dressing. My organisation wasn’t making the difference I thought it was, and I realised that whatever ‘leftist’ or ‘liberal’ project I was part of wasn’t working.
As I watched the rise of Trumpism, I realised it was a reaction to my version of politics: a bunch of loud, self-righteous people yelling at each other while the world got worse. I also realised that, despite living in Milwaukee for years and knowing people through work, I wasn’t really connected to the place. I didn’t know my neighbours and felt lonelier than ever.
This all made me ask myself some big questions about the impact of my professional life, the state of politics, and my personal life. The answer to all those questions wasn’t very good, and it led to a focus on community.
I realised that whatever came next for me had to focus on building community. On creating something with other people, being curious about them, and focusing on something rooted in love and appreciation.
I wanted a politics that was tangible and real, not about soothing my own soul or building a career. The way I built my life after that was much more aligned with the example my parents set.
Garrett, would you regard yourself as optimistic for the future?
100%.
Why is that? And by the way, that’s the answer I want to hear. I wouldn’t have asked to explain more if you’d said you weren’t optimistic.
I believe in the possibility of change. Even though we haven’t figured everything out, there’s a lot of potential to make things better, and I think we’re all heading in the right direction, even if we don’t have all the answers yet. I believe in progress.
I do think that we are living in a time where the answer is clearly connection, trust, and care: for both the immediate people around us and extending that care to people we’ll never meet.
I don’t know a single person across the political spectrum who feels that capitalism is working for them. Or who feels that the promise of social media platforms and tech has worked out the way it was supposed to. There are people who believe AI will be the future, but increasingly, more people are frightened of a world where we can trust that something is coming from another human being less.
The forces of power, money, and domination have overplayed their hands, and for a long time, a lot of us could convince ourselves we could accept some of what they had to sell us. Maybe this app is the good one, or this tech company, or this political platform that doesn’t change anything but keeps the corporate power structure the same.
Increasingly, no one is buying that anymore. There’s a risk that at a time like this, more people might turn to hucksters and people preaching hate and division, but there are also more folks finding not just a political answer, but a social one, saying, ‘I need to trust other people more.’
Do you have any secret conservative beliefs?
Oh, interesting. I think the traditional leftist or liberal relationship to drugs is more complicated than the story we’ve told for a long time.
What do you mean by that? Do you mean in terms of legalisation?
I don’t necessarily have a strong take on legalisation, but I’m ideologically a prison abolitionist and believe in decriminalisation.
What I mean is that when I look at the social movements of the 1960s—especially in the U.S.—there was something individualistic and hedonistic about that era. Some people thought that social revolution could just come from sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.
But that individualistic mindset meant being disconnected from community, and that was a flaw. It was about doing what made you happy without considering others, and it wasn’t a lasting social movement. The libertine side of that movement became very consumerist, which is how a lot of those people ended up as yuppies.
I don’t know if that’s a conservative belief, but it feels a bit like it.
Wow, that’s so interesting! I’ve always wondered about that weird pipeline from ‘70s hippie to the ‘80s yuppie. That’s a good theory.
Yeah, it’s easy to jump from ‘do what makes you feel good,’ like smoking a joint, to ‘do what makes you feel good,’ like becoming a stockbroker.
Ha ha. I don’t think that makes you conservative, but it’s definitely a great answer. I’m trying to get the left to laugh at itself more. Could you make up a fake marginalised community you belong to?
Oh, yeah. I’m really upset about this one actually. My daughter is in third grade, which means I’m now surrounded by younger parents. They look cooler and have better jeans and these electric cargo bikes. They’re always picking up kids and looking more stylish and better-rested than I do, even though their kids are younger than mine.
I feel incredibly oppressed by them as an older parent.
Justice for older, less cool, elementary school parents! I can’t relate yet because my child is only two. But I’m sure I’ll get there. Do you have any books, podcasts, or documentaries you would recommend to leftists?
Oh, a ton. I’m looking at a shelf of books right now. One that stands out is ‘Freedom is an Endless Meeting’, by Francesca Polletta. It’s about the role of meetings and community in social movements, particularly the civil rights movement. It’s a beautiful book and really encapsulates a lot of what I believe politically.
But I’m also really, really pissed off about it because it’s such a perfect title. Authors who pick better titles than I do are also oppressing me, I should note.
Where can people find your work and courses?
The best place is my newsletter, The White Pages. You can also find community organising training courses at The Barn Raisers.
Thank you so much for joining us today, Garret. It’s been so great having you.
Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.
