The Battles We Pick

About The Battles We Pick

What can we learn about making social and political change from talking to professional change-makers? This work takes a combination of persistence, shrewdness, and luck. On the Battles We Pick podcast, skilled advocates and organizers talk about how they deal with the various challenges they confront. Theme music by generous permission of recording artist Stephen.

Publisher

David Shorr

Category

business · government

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

15 May 2023

Latest episode

7 Jan 2025

Latest episodes

41 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   7 Jan 2025

   Civic Strategist Caitie Whelan on "Giving folks the tools to make public policy for the people"

   Send us a textCivic strategist Caitie Whelan's professional mission is to level the playing field of public policy. As she puts it on her website, "If regular folks don’t know how to have a voice in policymaking, lobbyists do. And they are very good at shaping it for their special interests." Caitie's work helping clients climb the learning curve of policy change advocacy made her a great guest for the podcast.As she guides clients along the advocacy learning curve, Catie focuses on three cor...

2. 

   11 Sept 2024

   White nationalism researcher Hannah Gais on the overlap of hate groups and the GOP

   The Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center is well known for tracking and exposing the activities of hate and extremist groups. So it was great to have one of their researchers, Hannah Gais, as a guest on the podcast. Discussing her work on White nationalist and Neo-Nazi groups, Hannah told me about the extremist voices and ideas that the MAGA Republicans have welcomed into their Party. As one example, Hannah gave the back story on the Holocaust-denier who appeared recently o...

3. 

   7 Aug 2024

   Veteran immigrant rights advocate Charles Kamasaki on the last comprehensive reform, and the next

   It is often noted that the last time Congress enacted comprehensive immigration reform was in the 1980s. Charles Kamasaki was not only deeply involved in shaping that legislation as an advocate, but he's also written an authoritative history of the effort titled Immigration Reform: The Corpse That Will Not Die. Kamasaki has for several decades guided the work of the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization, Unidos US, formerly known as the National Council of La ...

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

145

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Podcast Authority Score: 51 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

76

Social presence

0

YouTube

64

Engagement

0

Contact The Battles We Pick

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.