Happy Aries season, y’all!
The astrological new year and spring equinox arrived on March 20. We made it through the depths of winter, through Pisces season, two eclipses, and a Mercury retrograde. As much as I love Pisces season because it is my season, it marks the end of the zodiac cycle and brings themes of surrender and release. It asks us: where do we need to let go in order to prepare for renewal? Now that we’ve entered Aries season, which is ruled by Mars, the energy shifts toward action. This is the time to move forward, to plant the seeds that will grow and bloom in the months ahead. So that’s what I’m focusing on (from London).
I’m thrilled to kick off season two of the podcast with Abby Phillip, the senior political correspondent and host of NightNews on CNN. I met Abby briefly at a dinner event in the fall. First of all, I was surprised that she even knew who I was—but as we started chatting, I was dying to dig into how she takes care of herself when the political landscape is so intense. She hosts a show in which people of all different political views and agendas talk about current events—and sometimes those conversations get really heated. We didn’t get a chance to get into it all before we had to take our seats for dinner, so I knew I had to ask her to be a guest on the podcast.
I really believe in staying current on what’s going on in the world—even when things feel as harrowing as they do right now. I try not to doomscroll, but I do keep up with major headlines. Aside from reading the news, Abby’s NightNews is the only political show I really engage with. It brings together people from across the political spectrum to discuss the biggest stories of the moment. Her show also often goes viral on my feed because of its more conservative guests who engage in shallow talking points or revisionist history. My blood pressure would be through the roof, so I really admire the way Abby handles her guests and guides conversations—she never loses her cool, even when she’s holding their feet to the fire.
One of my favorite parts of this conversation was hearing her share how they cultivate guests with different viewpoints —and how she navigates those high-intensity moments in real time.
Listen to the full episode to hear how Abby found her way into journalism after starting college as a pre-med student—and why she doesn’t believe in five-year plans. We also discuss whether debate is becoming a lost art, her post-show wind-down routine, and how she avoids falling into the doomscrolling trap.
Below, you’ll find a condensed and edited version of our conversation.
Welcome, Abby. I'm so honored to talk to you today. How are you doing?
Abby Phillip: I'm doing great. Thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me on.
To kick it off, I would love for you to take us back and tell us what you were like as a kid. Who was 8-year-old Abby?
Abby: I was the kid who always wanted to push the cart in the grocery store and do all the grown-up tasks and, you know, hold the babies. I was always just the type of child who wanted to do things that older people did. I guess you could call it precocious. I was not the loudest child or the biggest talker or anything like that, but I was more of a doer.
As you were going through school, what thoughts were you having about what you wanted to do with your life?
Abby: I never really had this strong sense of, I must do this for the rest of my life, and that used to scare me. Eventually, you develop a sense of what you're passionate about or what you're at least interested in, and that becomes a thing. Just being transparent, I really didn't feel like I was one of those kids who was like, I always knew I was gonna be a journalist, and I was writing for my high school paper, and I was the editor in chief, and I was writing letters to Tom Brokaw when I was a kid. No, I wasn't doing any of those things. I was just trying to get good grades and be a good student. It wasn't until later in my life that I really developed a sense of what I'm interested in. And I think that what I took away from that is that that's okay.
That's so fascinating to me, though. Because as I interview people for my newsletter, I love hearing, obviously, the stories of people where there were little Easter eggs in their childhoods that really spoke to what they were gonna end up doing. But that's really not always the case. I have two older brothers, and I knew from the time I hit middle school that I wanted to work in fashion. Then one of my other brothers is a pilot, and he's been obsessed with planes since he was like eight years old. But then our other brother was definitely one of the people who just kind of had to move through life to really figure out what he was good at.
Abby: You saying that just reminds me, when I was in middle school, maybe early high school, I used to really wanna be a volunteer paramedic. I used to read in books that fire departments would hire teenagers to help them— it was sort of like a volunteer job. I don't think that's a real thing anymore because I couldn't get anybody to hire me to do this. I was like, well, maybe I wanna be a doctor. And I thought that was sort of the next way to figure that out. But my interests shifted over time and over my life. I think the one thing that maybe remains consistent throughout all of these things is maybe my belief in my ability to do whatever that thing is. I guess I never really thought I needed some sort of special skills or special sauce to do something that I wanted to do. So when it came time to pivot, which I did in college...
You were pre-med, right?
Abby: I was pre-med. I was very interested, and I still am, to be honest, in science and medicine. I was doing a neuroscience minor, and I still love all of that stuff. I just realized that I didn't want it to be my profession. When it came time to pivot, it was like, okay, well, now it's time to just apply the work ethic to something else. And I think that's what made pivoting easier.
So why did you end up switching to journalism?
Abby: Well, I think it starts with realizing that what I was doing wasn't making me feel fulfilled. I had this sense of obligation about taking these classes and, of course, doing all the things that pre-med kids do. I'm realizing these other kids love it, and I don't. I'm interested in it, but I'm not loving it to a degree that it's worth the pain. So I had to be really honest with myself. It was hard to do that because I didn't want to walk away from something that I had kind of convinced myself was my dream. So when I finally decided to do that, I was like, let me go figure out something I can do. So I started working on writing, and I started working on the paper, The Crimson at Harvard. You get trained at the beginning, so I was going through that process and realizing, you know what, I love this. I love talking to people about things, although I am an introvert, so there are limits. But I love learning in this way. The process of putting it down on paper was challenging but fulfilling. It was one of those things where I was working insane hours at the paper until two and three in the morning, and I still loved it, you know? It wasn't draining me in the way that the other things were. So that was my first clue: when you're doing something where the work feels enjoyable, that's a sign you're doing the right thing. So I just kept pursuing that feeling, and eventually it was possible for me to make this a career, although that was not clear at the beginning. But by the time I graduated, I was offered a job, and I was like, okay, let's do this. Let's see where it goes.
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Now, did your family have any thoughts about you switching from pre-med to journalism? Because I know your parents are from Trinidad, right? Are you first-generation?
Abby: Yes. Yes. Both of my parents are from Trinidad, born and raised. My siblings and I were born and mostly raised here.
So I'm sure they had a lot of thoughts around your education and what you were gonna do with your life. My parents are Jamaican. So tell me a bit about that.
Abby: They were supportive. But I will say that there was always sort of like, are you sure you don't wanna go to law school? To be honest, I hadn't ruled it out myself because I was like, maybe I do need to go to law school and get a real degree, just in case this doesn't work out. I think that they were supportive but cautious about where this could be headed. At the same time, Trinidadians are very into politics and current events, and my parents were no exception. We grew up in a household where we were only allowed to listen to either Christian music or NPR in the car, and The Washington Post was delivered every day. A lot of our dinner time was about politics, so that was normal in our household. So I think my parents were okay with that idea. And especially when I actually did get a job covering politics in Washington, I think they were actually super excited because it was something that I think they never really thought of as being a possibility for me or for their children. But they understood its importance.
The fear may have been more mine than theirs because I was like, what if I screw this up? You know, after all of this, I go to Harvard, they've sacrificed so much to get me here, and then I can't find a job, and I'm not even a doctor or a lawyer? So I was maybe more worried than they were because, you know, you just know as the child of immigrants how important it is not to let their sacrifice be in vain.
Oh my god, of course. It's something you carry with you every single day. I do feel quite lucky that my parents were always supportive of me doing whatever I wanted. As long as I went to college and got an education. I think sometimes going into these more creative professions feels really risky to them. When I was leaving my full-time job, they had a lot of feelings around that, when I was like, actually, I'm gonna work for myself. My dad was like, you're not gonna leave your job until you have another job lined up, right?
Abby: It's hard to make those decisions and take risks, you know?
It really is. So it took some time for me to convince them that this is a very calculated risk. And pulling them into what was going on behind the scenes for me, because I was getting opportunities to create content for brands and whatnot, so it just felt like the right thing to leave my full-time job to pursue that and just do my own thing. So I was like, it's gonna be okay. Don't worry.
Abby: Yeah, and it does end up being okay. I will say, tapping into the risk-taking, I actually think, is something that I still work on because in some ways, our parents have taken plenty of risks in their lives, right? So then that next generation, there's a risk that you become risk-averse because you're like, well, I don't wanna screw this up, or, you know, what if? I think I'm always trying to tap into that sort of entrepreneurial risk-taking, doing it smartly, in a calculated way, but doing it with confidence and boldness because. I think that's really the freedom we all want for our children. It is not that they are so cautious that they only do prescribed things, but that they are so free that they can do whatever they think is necessary in order to achieve the things they wanna achieve.
So there's also this idea of needing to have everything figured out by the time you're in, like, your mid-twenties— it really persists into your thirties. How did you navigate the uncertainty when you were moving through your journalism career?
Abby: It's nothing but uncertainty. In the journalism business, there's not a lot of certainty in this world that we're in. So from a very early point in my career, you just kind of have to do what's in front of you. I was never a five-year-plan, ten-year-plan kind of person.
Thank you! I’m not either.
Abby: I also just think it doesn't really apply to this business that we're in because what's five years from now? Five years from now, we have no idea what the media environment's going to look like. It's probably going to be completely different from the one that we're in right now. If I had started when I graduated, thinking five years ahead and thinking, okay, I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna do that, I would've been completely wrong. I always approached it as, especially early in my career, what are the building blocks of the skills that I need to develop in order to be able to do certain things by the time I get further along in my career? And that takes some self-reflection because it's about understanding your strengths and your weaknesses. Sometimes you get to that point on your own. Sometimes you get to that point because other people put your weaknesses on blast, and you have to deal with it— both are valid. Sometimes it's a combination of the two.
I've had both happen to me in my career, where I'm fully aware of the things I need to work on, and then I've had editors and supervisors tell me that I'm not doing enough of this, or this isn't strong enough, or I miss out on opportunities because I'm not doing this or that. You can take that as, oh, life is unfair, they just don't like me, all of this stuff. Or you can take it as, okay, here's what I need to work on. How do I bridge these gaps so that no one can ever say that about me again?
So I approached my career like that for probably the first 10 years, where what I was seeking was not positions or titles, but skills. When I started covering the White House, that was my first job out of college. And that was a job that probably a lot of people would've just stayed in because it's such a great title, and it's great to go to parties and tell people that you cover the White House. After a while, I was very convinced that I wanted more of a deeper study of politics. So I went from that job to covering campaign finance and lobbying. I was basically covering the influence game in Washington, which, frankly, is the foundation of how this place works, whether you like it or not. That job was so important. It taught me so many things. It gave me such a broad sense of Washington, the players, how they work together, and how bills are put together, and all of that stuff. So I just kept seeking knowledge and skills. Then I went from there to ABC. I was like, okay, maybe I've gotta figure out this video thing. Everything's becoming more multimedia. I went from ABC back to The Washington Post because I was like, you know what? I need to be closely edited, and I wanted to be in a newsroom where I knew I would receive strong editing from really good, experienced editors. So that's what I did, building block after building block for a decade. I think it really paid off. It was really an exercise in self-reflection and growth. I think that's the most important thing that you can do in those years of your career.
I feel like in the media/journalism business, you're just trying to get from one opportunity to the next and seeing what feels right. But speaking of uncertainty, I left my full-time job at Harper's Bazaar six weeks before we went into lockdown. There was no way I could have ever planned for that. So I think it is also important to stay nimble in our business. And chances are, if you're pursuing something that you're really passionate about, things are gonna work themselves out. I really believe in that.
Abby: I really believe in it, too. I think that the flexibility to make whatever opportunity has opened its door to you into something meaningful is also very important. I really feel like every job that I've had, even when I've hated it, because don't be mistaken, I have had many jobs that I have hated, even when I have hated it, finding where you can grow in those roles is the most important skill. Making the best of the situation you're in, being resourceful, and finding your bright spot can be the most important thing you do. Sometimes I think people are so worried about feeling happy all the time in their jobs, and sorry, it's not gonna always feel good.
Even when you're doing something that you love and are passionate about it.
Abby: It's not always going to be like that. You're not always going to know where this is going to take you, but you’ve got to figure out how what you're doing in that moment is going to make you better. Sometimes, I will say this, I've had jobs or roles or been in situations where the job itself, what I'm actually doing, is kind of silly. But what I'm learning is actually how to navigate the people around me, how to navigate the bureaucracy, or, you know, it's more the people skills that I learn. So it can be a lot of different things that you learn in these types of jobs. And you just have to be kind of clued in to what am I really getting out of this? And there've been some jobs where I felt like I'm not getting anything out of the thing that I'm actually doing. But what I am learning is how to advocate for myself. And by advocating for myself, I'm getting myself out of the situation that I don't wanna be in.
Well, speaking to finding your bright spot, you are now moderating some of the most important conversations in America at CNN. What has that been like?
Abby: You know, it's been actually a fun ride. It's been interesting and unpredictable. I have maybe the least boring job on television, and I am really proud of that because it keeps it interesting for me and for people at home. Of course, you never know what you're gonna get on that show. And that's okay because I think we need a little bit of the element of surprise these days. So it has been an interesting process of, frankly, going from not really thinking that a job like this would be in the cards for me, mostly because it just wasn't something, speaking of not having any five-year or ten-year plans, it just was not something that was on my agenda for myself, particularly. But sometimes when you get the opportunity to do things, you say yes, and you do it. It's been really thrilling and a lot of responsibility, honestly, to be in that chair when there's a lot of really important stuff happening. It's enough to, I think, make people really kind of freeze up with anxiety if you're not prepared for it. I've been prepared, I've been ready, and I work hard to try to make those conversations around a lot of topics, whether it's politics or foreign affairs or a lot of times we're just covering unimaginable tragedies, and having all of those things kind of feel authentic and have the right emotion when they need it, have the right kind of information value to people, maybe even a dose of skepticism when it's necessary. All of that, I think, there's a range of skills that's required, and it's so challenging and fun, and it's never a dull moment that it feels lucky to be in a job where I don't feel like I'm on autopilot ever.
Is it weird to have your show go viral so often because of things that are being said on it?
Abby: Yeah. I guess it's good in a way because there are so many people who come up to me and they say, “Okay, this is how I watch your show. I see the clips online, or I watch it on YouTube.” I'm like, okay, cool, that's good. I do wish more people were able to watch it fully and get the context because I think my biggest frustration with clip culture is that it lacks context. It's usually like 45 seconds or 90 seconds of an exchange that went on for seven minutes. Clearly, there are things being missed here.
The other thing is that one of the things that's changed, when I first started my career, I was in that generation of journalists where Twitter was life, right? Twitter was how we communicated, how we shared our stories, how we talked to each other, how we got the news, everything. It's been interesting because since I've been doing this show, I use social media so much less now. I don't use it as much for a lot of reasons. One, I don't find it as useful. But the other reason is that I don't wanna get into back-and-forths with people about the things that they're saying about what happens on the show, because you can fall into an endless black hole of discourse that is not useful to anyone. One of the things you learn very quickly is that people have their own agendas when it comes to sharing things. Sometimes they're deceptively clipping things to make certain points and so on. You really can't police that. The more that there's a conversation and a dialogue about what you're doing on the air, the less it is within your control. You have to let that go. So I don't really engage 90 percent of the time because it actually has kind of taken on a life of its own. There's a lot of conversation about the show, and that's good. That's a reflection of its success, yeah. But you can't be the one to be like, well, you didn't really, you know, that's deceptively edited, you didn't really see what actually happened or what was said. You're just wasting your breath.
I feel like there's also been a lot of talk about the kinds of guests you're having on the show who have certain opinions and whatnot, and people are like, why is Abby having them on the show? And I don't know if you can lift the veil on what the booking process is actually like?
Abby: We are always trying to actively find fresh voices. I think sometimes that means we have people on the show I don't know well, but we may think we should give them an opportunity to show what they can do and what their point of view is. I think finding people with a point of view is part of what we do on the show. The truth is that some people just don't ever want to hear from people whose points of view they disagree with. That's the reality. Most of the time, these complaints are not really in good faith. They're really because sometimes people are like, why are you talking to somebody that I disagree with? How dare you? And that is not what we do here. We actually talk to people who have opposing points of view on purpose. So that's the starting point. Now, that doesn't always mean that it goes well, right? We don't know. We don't know everything that's in people's minds, or the choices they make in the moment about what to say. Sometimes people say things that surprise us. Sometimes people say things that are out of pocket and they don't get invited back. Sometimes people actually just don't have what it takes to engage in a real debate. That happens really often, that most of the time, what we encounter is that a lot of people are not practiced at debate, and they don't know how to defend their points of view. They don't know how to respond. They aren't quick on their feet.
Is debate a lost art?
Abby: Yes, I truly think so. It is hard because it requires you to be confronted with disagreements and then know how to react and come back from them. Some people are really good at it, and some people are not. That becomes very, very clear at our table every night. So, it is a process. I don't take that criticism particularly seriously. I think we do our due diligence to make sure we are bringing on people who aren't crazy or, you know, just really out there on any side of the spectrum. But we are not afraid to bring people on who are not typical people that you see on television. I think there's a bias in TV to bring on the people with suits and who have lobbying jobs, and they're working for some comm, whatever it is. They have these sorts of acceptable titles, and we think that by virtue of that, they are the only opinions that matter. I think that there are actually a lot of other kinds of voices that we bring to the table, whether it's people who do local radio or podcasters or cultural writers or whatever it is. People who come from different backgrounds, from different parts of the country, that we bring to the table, who might look and sound different from what people are used to. We allow them to show whether they have the ability to state their point of view and defend it. And that's what, I think, to your point, is a lost art. But again, most of the people complaining about why are you platforming this person and that person just simply don't want to hear certain points of view. I think that should be what they say instead of what they are saying.
What is it like going through your mind and your body when things are getting really heated? How do you stay calm?
Abby: Honestly, what goes through my mind is: wait a second, let's slow this down. I think sometimes what really happens is people want to speed through the crazy thing they've just said. And really, what works best is to actually stop and ask for clarity on that one specific thing, and actually ask people to defend the thing that they just said. So in other words, I think that sometimes people are so used to just repeating their talking points, things that are familiar in their social circles, right, and they've never really been forced to prove or defend the truthfulness or validity of those points. So when that happens, people will often see me basically saying, hold up, let's stop right there on that point. You just said this. What proof do you have of that? What evidence do you have of that? How can you say that when we also know that this is true? So, my instinct is really to slow things down, to pause on the talking point and unravel it a little bit in conversation because that doesn't happen enough. Sometimes we just let people be like runaway trains with this stuff, and it just gets said, and it goes out into the ether and gets accepted as if it's just true. And it's like, wait, hold on a second.
You’re fact-checking in real life
Abby: We can't even pursue this conversation if we're not dealing in the same fact basis. So that's whyI guess you can read that as calm or whatever you wanna read it as. For me, it's about clarity and understanding. If I feel like we're on a runaway train and we don't really know, we're not really actually agreeing on the basis of the conversation, chances are I'm gonna stop the conversation and go back to the basics and the fundamentals of what we're really talking about and try to get us on the same page. And that's how I try to navigate some of these conversations because otherwise I think we're just in this talking point back and forth that has no end and doesn't illuminate anything and doesn't challenge people. And so, you know, I never get upset when I hear things. I'm just like, prove it. Just tell me. If you are saying something, and I mean, sometimes I have reason to believe that it's not true, but I'll give you the opportunity. Prove it.
As we know, day by day, the political landscape feels more and more intense. How much news do you personally consume, and how do you balance staying prepared for your show without going down rabbit holes?
Abby: I consume a lot of news just by default. I always have because it's always been my job. So I'm just constantly reading headlines and scanning social media. There's a sort of baseline level of what I'm consuming, but I've actually always had boundaries around this from very early in my career. I think it was a bit of a defense mechanism for my own mental health because, you know, most of my journalism jobs have been like this, where the work never really turns off, and that's always been true. But in one of my earlier jobs, I was stressed, and I was not able to be present ever. Nights, weekends, whatever. I just didn't like myself when I was like that.
As I've gotten older and I've gotten to a different place in my career, especially when I have a better understanding of the news environment, it doesn't take me quite as long to get caught up. I don't read the news on the weekends that much, and certainly no social media. If there's a war breaking out, I'm on it. But the sort of day-to-day back and forth, I know how to catch up on that quickly, Sunday night, Monday morning. My platform of choice is Instagram, which allows me to curate the vibe a little bit better. I've got my interior decorating, my fashion and beauty, my actual friends, and baby pictures and all of that, right? I can curate what that looks like for me. I'm really a big believer in creating guardrails around this, around the news. I'm in the news. I do this every single day. Yeah, I consume a lot of it, but there are limits to that. I think every healthy person needs to understand where those limits are for them. We don't watch the news, for the most part, at home. We used to watch more news, but I have a four-and-a-half-year-old now. She knows that I work at CNN, and she knows that I work in the news, but if she comes home and the TV's on, she'll be like, "Mommy, why is the TV on? Why do you have the news on? Turn it off. You need to turn off the TV.” And she's right.
So tell me what your wind-down rituals look like to preserve your mental health. Say like after you've done the show or after a long day of work. How are you taking care of yourself?
Abby: Well, this has evolved, especially in the last year, because I've never been a big self-care person. I think it's a buzzword, and I never really bought into it as a lifestyle. But I am really big on physically and mentally releasing stress and tension and all of that stuff because, you know, you and I are similar in age. You get to a certain point in your life, and you realize, yeah, all of that stuff just adds up. It doesn't just get held inside and then disappear. If it's being held in, it just adds up. So what I've been doing lately is, I get home late, like 11:30 at night, and I would really, honestly, otherwise be in bed at 10. Then I realized that actually my stress levels are probably peaking at the very moment that they should be going down. So no matter how many times I've showered in the day, I take a shower at night when I get home, a hot shower, just to try to start that process. I'm not very good at this, but I've been trying to put my phone down and not touch it until the morning. You know, scrolling at night is a bad habit, and I do it sometimes, but I've been trying not to. We all do it, right?
I've also been doing acupuncture, which has been so good. It's not for everyone, although I do think most people, even if you are not a needle person, should try it because it's actually not as bad as you might think. That has been great for me because I struggle with meditation. I've wanted to be a meditator, and I've dabbled in it, like 10-minute, 15-minute increments, that sort of thing. But it is hard for me because when you're in kind of constant demand, you feel like, how can I not be doing anything for half an hour or an hour?
20 minutes, I think, is actually the sweet spot for meditation. But listen, you can do it for five, 10 minutes—it’s still impactful.
Abby: Sometimes, on a really busy day, you just find a spot where you can sit or lie down for 10 minutes, and it can radically change your energy levels. In a similar vein, acupuncture to me is basically forced meditation. You cannot move. You probably will fall asleep. The place that you get to as you're drifting off is kind of a meditative state. It's been that experience for me.
All that being said, one of the things that I've really been trying to be a student of is what does meditation even mean? Like, what is it that we're trying to do? I'm realizing that it is the act of not doing, not thinking, not planning, not sort of pushing into the future, but being present in the now. That is a very powerful concept for busy people because busy people don't know how to do that. In fact, many of them don't believe in doing that. But what I've also found is that many of the people who I really admire, who are doing incredible things and seemingly getting 30 hours out of their 24-hour day, guess what they all do? They all have some kind of meditation practice. They really do. So it is something that I think really high-performing people figure out over time, and it's something that I'm actively working on because it's about allowing yourself to rest and your mind to rest and releasing anxiety and stress and the things that are sort of physically holding you in so that you can move forward with purpose.
You know, everyone has an idea that meditation has to look like sitting in a dark room with your legs folded and your hands like this (in gyan mudra position), and actually going out for a walk outside can be meditative or even dancing. I've been a big meditator over the years because I really struggled with anxiety. So that was actually one of the first practices my first therapist taught me. But now I rarely find myself meditating in the traditional sense because I actually feel like it's trained my mind, so I know what my mind needs to do, so I don't need to, like, okay, put on this app and press play and spend five minutes doing this. Meditation is being able to let thoughts go.
I think a lot of people also think that the point of meditation is that your mind should be blank. Your mind is not going to be blank. That's not what it is. It's that you're always gonna have thoughts coming in. But how do you let them go? How do you just let them pass by? Like they’re clouds in the sky just passing you by. That's the most important part: not to latch onto them.
Abby: It is about a way of being, and sometimes all you have time for is to take a few deep breaths. Breathwork is a form of meditation, and you can do it at any point and at any time. So many people don't realize how much they're holding their breath in their day-to-day lives. Just the act of breathing deeply can be an incredibly powerful tool to reset. But I think it's this self-discipline, self-mastery, I guess. It's not discipline, but self-mastery that I think a lot of people can benefit from. I've never been diagnosed with anxiety, but trust me, I have it.
I also wanna quickly touch upon the fact that you wrote a book about Jesse Jackson, who just recently passed away. What initially inspired you to write a book about him?
Abby: This book had been in the works for a while, since late 2020. I initially wanted to write this book for a few reasons. One, because I have been covering politics my whole career, and just looking at the political moment that the country was in between the 2016 election and Bernie Sanders against Hillary Clinton and the emergence of Donald Trump, and then 2020 when a lot of those themes came back up again, it was clear to me that Jesse Jackson was a part of that story and people didn't know it.
I wanted to write about the history and the origin story of his brand of populism and how that influenced a lot of the people that we see today, like the Bernies of the world, and even in some ways, Trump, because they kind of were in the same era in the 1980s. And the things that Trump is talking about now in terms of manufacturing jobs and the damage that he says trade pacts have done to middle America, Jesse Jackson was actually talking about that in the eighties. So I wanted to write that story.
I also thought it was really important to do it while he was still with us because it really struck me, because John Lewis had passed away around that same time. I was like, man, we are getting to the end of an era. These incredible Black leaders and heroes of their generation are not gonna be with us forever. If we don't really tell and contextualize their stories, no one else will. So it felt really important to do it at that particular time, while not just Reverend Jackson was with us, but a lot of the other people who helped make those campaigns possible were also around. So I'm glad that I was able to write this book, having a chance to spend time with him and speak with him and with his family and his staff and all this stuff. And that it was published while he was alive, and he knew that it was out. I think it was a real blessing to complete it, you know? Because it was a tough project.
For people who are feeling overwhelmed, disillusioned, and powerless right now, what perspective can you offer?
Abby: The way I think about this country and our politics and the ups and downs of it is that we've always had cycles of tension and progress and more tension and progress. It is this sort of roller coaster. Another way of putting it, as someone put it to me, periods of contraction and expansion and contraction and expansion. The contraction periods are just as necessary as the expansion periods. So when I think about the present moment, I always think about it in the context of history, which is that there have always been times like this in the past. If you think that things are bad, guess what? They have been worse. We've had a civil war. We've had post-Reconstruction terror. We've had Jim Crow. We've even had the 1950s and the 1960s, when every 18 months someone was getting assassinated in this country. So we've had tough periods as a nation before. The thing to remember is that periods of contraction can be followed by periods of expansion, but only if you do something about it. It's not just inevitable.
So that's why participation in democracy is just as important as observation. It's more important than handwringing. It's more important than just being mad. Participation is what changes the trajectory of this nation. So I personally tell people, if they're worried about how things are going, do something about it because that is the only thing that has made a difference.
Absolutely. Where are you finding optimism right now? What is bringing you joy?
Abby: I feel like the truth is every day is a real blessing, and it's the real simple things that bring me joy. Waking up in the morning, seeing the sunlight, and having my family around me. I think that there is joy in every moment, and recognizing that is the most important thing. I think I've gotten to that place over a long period of time, looking for joy in all kinds of different places, when the reality is sometimes that appreciation for where you are in a particular moment is where you can find it. So, I find optimism in life and in simply having the opportunity to do the things I do on a day-to-day basis.
Abby Phillip’s Reading List
A great book to help you understand the role of politics and policy in determining the future of humankind in the era of AI.
Julie’s investigative reporting is essential reading if you want to understand today’s news cycle around the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
Snyder is a scholar on 20th-century authoritarian movements, but really, he’s an expert on when and how Democracies slide away from their core principles. This book is a concise collection of the most important lessons from history and how a 250-year-old nation might navigate this moment in history.
