Zander Moricz: Facism in Florida

Zander Moricz:

I think there's the assumption that when evil people start doing evil things, that someone's going to stop them. And what we've seen in Florida over the last three years is that no one has stopped evil people from doing evil things because we weren't ready for it.

Ken Harbaugh:

I'm Ken Harbaugh, and this is Burn the Boats, a podcast about big decisions.

My guest today is Zander Moricz, the founder and executive director of the SEE Alliance. He was the youngest plaintiff in the lawsuit challenging Florida's Don't Say Gay Bill.

And you may remember him from his viral graduation speech or his brutally effective takedown of Moms for Liberty co-founder, Bridget Ziegler at a recent Florida School Board meeting.

Zander, welcome to the show.

Zander Moricz:

Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

Ken Harbaugh:

I really want to talk about what you are doing now, but we have to start with what propelled you onto the national stage, which is your ability to channel the energy and the online activism of young people and bring it into the real world.

I am talking of course about that graduation speech and the high school walkout you organized, which was a very real risk and the other public and IRL actions you have taken.

How did you come to the decision that that kind of activism is necessary and worthwhile?

Zander Moricz:

I think for a lot of students in Florida right now, the decisions are just being made and we're going through them. What's happening is an emergency, and so we're doing our best and we're reacting to what's happening to us.

And a lot of it just feels instinctual. When you watch your school board members do things that have been done during the Holocaust and that do not align with democracy, you have to do something about it.

And I think more and more people are identifying themselves with that type of action, and more and more people are willing to do something because I think there's the assumption that when evil people start doing evil things, that someone's going to stop them.

And what we've seen in Florida over the last three years is that no one has stopped evil people from doing evil things because we weren't ready for it.

When we had our governor drop the very first political endorsements in our school boards that we've ever seen in our state's history, we weren't ready for that. That's never happened before.

People weren't ready to pivot and start reacting to an entirely new model of school board organizing. And I think people just are now.

And I think that's the difference in what we're seeing in Florida is we just needed a second to get together to get on the same page. And now, that we are, people have had enough.

The model of fascism disguised as Republicanism was never going to work in the long term. We just needed enough time to get people aligned on what's going on.

Ken Harbaugh:

You say we are in an emergency. What I would love your help with is conveying to this audience that unless you are a member of a targeted group or care deeply about someone who is a member of a targeted group, it is really hard to understand how menacing this creeping authoritarianism can feel until you yourself are on the receiving end.

But as a member of a marginalized community, a directly targeted community that actually criminalized in certain contexts, talking about who you were, can you please help us understand how being on the receiving end of that kind of authoritarianism feels?

Zander Moricz:

Well, I'll do it in two lanes. The first is that public schools are meant to be nonpolitical. They're meant to be a service for our young folks.

They're meant to be, in reality, a way to fund the workforce of the United States of America. They were not prepared to insulate themselves for a political overtaken.

And so, when we describe what's happening in our schools and we describe the fact that libraries are being tarped, books are being banned, students are being outed, black history is being erased, people are trying to bring in new models of teaching slavery that shows black children that it was actually beneficial to black communities. Slavery was beneficial to black communities. That's evil.

And when we tried to discuss these different things happening in our public schools, a lot of people can't understand or accept that these things are actually happening because they went to public schools and it was so significantly different.

And that's the conversation we're needing to have over and over again is no, it's changed that much. It's changed so severely because these public school systems were so vulnerable to someone like Governor DeSantis making it his political playground. Things actually have changed so significantly.

And if it doesn't sound anything like when you went to school, it's because it was nothing like when you went to school. The public school I went to isn't even like when I attended it two years ago.

And so, I think people need to understand that things have changed so significantly and so drastically that we need to start taking students' words for what's happening.

I think a lot of times we don't understand what's happening and we don't know how to figure out what's happening. And the really easy thing is just to listen to the people that are experiencing it.

We work with students all the time that have been telling people exactly what's happening. And unfortunately, because they're young folks, a lot of times it gets written off as dramatization, or they're being hyperbolic ,or oh my gosh, they just want attention online.

But in reality, there are horrible, horrible, horrible things happening in Florida's public schools.

And the second lane is if you can't relate to it and if you can't experience it, you don't actually need to understand how bad it is, you just need to understand the opportunity that's being lost.

Florida is the third largest state in the country, and it has the most diverse youth population out of any 50 states in the country. If half of the registered uneligible voters in Florida voted, if just half of the youth population in Florida voted, the entire state would look entirely different.

What's happening here is a systemic attack on the individual communities in Florida to make Florida look like a monolithic stake, to make everyone give up in Florida, to make everyone describe Florida as the swamp of racism.

And in reality, that's just not what it is. And so, if we start investing, if we start focusing, and if we start addressing the communities of Florida, the entire country is going to benefit.

And so, it doesn't even need to be a feel bad for us because of how bad things are going. It's a think about this strategically. We can focus on 10 to 15 other states if we want and try to build power across the country or we can focus on Florida.

And if we do that, the entire nation secures its rights in the long term.

Ken Harbaugh:

I'm glad you made that connection because we're focusing on Florida, but the collateral damage of a collapse of the Florida education system would be nationwide.

There are just a handful of school systems, Florida, Texas, California, maybe one or two others that really dominate the educational narrative when it comes to textbook selection and things like that. And two of those three aren't exactly moving in the right direction.

Can you talk about the outsize impact of education decisions in Florida on the rest of the nation?

Zander Moricz:

When we think about what's happening to young folks in Florida, well, one, a lot of times when we're looking at public schools, we're talking about school choice and we're talking about school privatization.

There is horrific legislation working to actually put money in the pockets of families that are sending their children to private schools instead of public schools and increase the actual economic divide between public and private school families in Florida.

And when we look at the actual curriculum, they're trying to — I don't even know the proper word, neuter it, censor it.

They're trying to eliminate all of the actual important details and parts of American education and in attempt to gain money and power from these culture war moments that are happening.

It's also not long-term. I think that's what people need to understand is that there isn't a long-term strategy here. I think people when they see like, “Oh my gosh, there's no way you could actually ban books, there's no way you could actually take away black history.”

They're not intending for it to last forever. They don't actually care what happens to the public school system. They don't care what happens to the young folks. They don't care what the consequences are.

These are actual ways to gain lots of money, to win power, to win elections, and to do it all in the short term. And so, that's the only thought process that's happening.

And so, we as the communities both inside and outside of Florida, have to be the ones to think of those long-term repercussions.

If we actually start radically changing the public school system that has worked to educate generations after generations, if we don't evolve it, if we devolve it, what's going to happen?

And those are the questions we have to be asking ourselves. Because also, when you look at such a huge state such as Florida, that is so diverse and that also has such a stake in the way other states choose to learn.

When we are running off in such a dangerous direction, when we are trying to bring unqualified consulting firms into our government to help us do that work, we have to recognize that the intentions aren't to improve public education. Like that doesn't need to be said, but it's obviously not.

And so, public schools need to become, again, an apolitical zone that is just about student achievement. And almost everyone can agree on that. It is simply that people don't understand how badly people have hijacked the system.

Ken Harbaugh:

Why do you think the public education system was chosen as the battleground by the right for their culture war? And I hate that term, but it describes the moment. Why public schools and why have they poured so much energy into creating that conflict?

Zander Moricz:

There's so many different reasons, but the most important is the most obvious. Public schools in the United States of America are the only guaranteed space for all young people in America.

So, the only place that almost all Americans are going to go through together is the public school system. That's our first community, that's our first learning space, that's our first socialization. And that's the case for the majority of Americans.

The groups of Americans that don't participate in this are typically the more privileged Americans.

And so, when you're looking at the concentration of lower income Americans, less achieving Americans. When you're looking at the concentration of the majority of our country, that's the best place to start trying to control the way they think.

That is the best place to start trying to chip away members of that community. That is the very best place to socialize them against other people.

So, public schools for me, were an incredibly affirming environment. And that's where I came out first. I first came out to a teacher, I first started talking about who I was and what I wanted to do with people at public school. And that's been noticed and observed.

The actual person who wrote the Don't Say Gay law in discussion of that legislation literally said there are too many young folks coming out in public schools. They said that as part of the reason that that law needed to be created.

They're literally identifying the fact that these safe and affirming environments are allowing young people to figure out who they are. They're allowing young people to talk about who they are. They're allowing young people to do that independently.

And then it's allowing them to get confident. It's creating organizers, it's creating organizations. It's creating a generation that thinks critically.

And so, if your entire political platform is based off of changing the way people think and allowing them to not think critically or encouraging them to not think critically, public school is a great place to start.

Unfortunately, the Republican party doesn't exist if all Americans know American history.

Ken Harbaugh:

Right. Well, the future of the Republican Party depends on stopping young people from thinking critically. You alluded to horrible things that are happening in Florida public schools and you kind of sanitize that.

But if you're comfortable, would love you to talk about specifically some of the things that young people are having to put up with. Some of the outrage is being perpetrated by political leaders, many of whom send their kids to private schools.

I mean, you can talk about Bridget Ziegler if you want, but it starts at the top. It starts with Governor DeSantis who said from a podium that slavery was instructive and helpful in some cases to black people.

Talk about the experiences you alluded to in public schools today.

Zander Moricz:

In my home county of Sarasota, the public school environments have changed 180. I speak to students there every week that do organizing at SEE Space Sarasota, which is the new action-based collaborative in Sarasota that's youth led.

It's 360 organizing all about trying to undo the fascism that's gone on in Sarasota. It's about trying to represent the diversity of Sarasota and make sure that all of the different genuine causes that people care for have support, and have movement, and have organizing behind them.

I think there is a revolution happening in Sarasota, and I think there's one happening throughout a lot of Florida.

Wherever it's worse, you're finding people are starting to respond and come together and starting to get involved in ways they weren't before.

And so, there is that silver lining and that, unlike the political hatred that we're seeing from the far right, will be sustainable. And so, that's the good news that we get to share and enjoy.

But the bad news in the meantime is what's causing this fight back. In the public schools that I came from, libraries have been tarped, shut down, books have been banned.

Ken Harbaugh:

What do you mean by tarped? That's literal, right?

Zander Moricz:

I mean quite literally. So, it's meant to be a pause so they can get a book administrator or reviewer to go in.

So, first of all, tax dollars in Florida are now, being spent to have people with master's degrees start filtering through library books and deciding what can and cannot stay in the schools.

But to do that, you can't have students looking at the books they've been looking at their whole lives. So, you have to tarp down the libraries, tarp down teacher classrooms.

And because it's a large greener black tarp covering your books, the visual is 100% clear about what's happening.

And it's also the most ridiculous and horrifying visual for a sixth grader who's reading Junie B. Jones to start having a bunch of district staff come in, tarp the library, kick everyone out and say it's going to be shut down for a couple of weeks because there's dangerous things in the books.

What? It's actually evil.

We also have specific legislation going against our trans young folks. You need permission slips to be called by a nickname.

You are working to make sure that young folks who do not have conversations with their parents because of safety issues are being forced to have conversation with their parents. This happens through counseling.

Our school board has actually advocated for the fact that counselors have to have a hundred percent transparency with all parents in all situations.

Other districts in Florida don't do this because there's a very high relationship between that practice and suicide. And so, there's a really strong reason not to do it.

But now, in Sarasota under this legislation, if I'm telling you that I feel unsafe in my house because my parents are homophobic and I'm worried about what's going to happen because I'm gay, you have to say, “Okay, let's get your parent on the phone.”

And there are so many obvious failures that have been passed in legislation for those young folks that people are starting to recognize it. I think it takes a second. It took me a second. We've never needed to pay attention to our school boards before. We should be able to take that for granted.

What we've had is a governor specifically politicize our school boards in an attempt to aggravate and mobilize voters around issues that they themselves have noted did not matter.

One of my favorite fun facts is that in the Moms for Liberty trainings that they go to in each of these cities, they themselves acknowledge that these issues don't matter.

And they say, “Hey, whether it's making immigrants' lives more difficult, whether it's focusing on trans athletes, pick whatever you think is most likely to matter to your community. It doesn't matter which.”

They literally go on their show and they're like, “It doesn't actually matter which issue matters. Which one have you heard about? Just pick whichever you think will spark something.”

And I think it's taken some time for people to realize that and for people to accept that because it is evil, it's really evil.

The majority of Moms for Liberty aren't even bad people. They listened to a school board member and a mother who told them that their students were in danger and they listened. That doesn't make them bad people. They also work full-time. They should be able to trust educational experts.

It's ridiculous but it literally took showing everyone that the person who helped founded this ideology, the person who founded Moms for Liberty, the person who took credit for the Don't Say Gay bill is gay. Hello?

Like I think that's what it took. I think people needed to understand that no one involved in any of this genuinely believes in the values, in the ideology, in the moral warfare. They exclusively believe in the pursuit of that money and that power.

And I also don't need to prove that. You can follow that throughout everything. There's just evidence of that everywhere.

And because of that, that's why you're starting to see people in Florida wake up. You're starting to see Republicans, we talked to Republicans every week who have said, “I voted down the ballot my whole life, and that's worked for me and I've gotten what I've wanted.”

“I did that last year and I feel like I elected a bunch of fascists into office. I don't know where my party went. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I'm a Republican, I'm a conservative, and somehow that has me with more taxes, more government involvement, more government inference.”

Like that's not conservatism, that's not republicanism, that's fascism. And I think that it literally has just taken some time for Florida to catch that and for us all to get on the same page about that.

And now, the reverse is going to be severe because just four years ago, there were more progressives registered to vote in Florida than conservatives.

And so, the concept that Florida is a lost cause or is entirely off the map just isn't accurate. We've just had all of our national funding and all of our national support pulled out of our state abruptly after the victory of DeSantis.

And then we had DeSantis start trashing all over our state. And of course it looked bad. And of course it felt bad and of course it was bad, but it's not going to be for the future. And it's going to be a much easier and a much more productive fix than people think. Yeah.

Ken Harbaugh:

What's your message to young people in Florida and in my home state of Ohio who look at the politics of their state, look at the oppression and they map that onto their futures in that state and they decide to leave?

I've got three kids, they are seriously considering when they graduate, leaving the state and not coming back because they look (I have two daughters) at how women are treated here. They look at how gay and trans people are treated here, and they don't want any part of it.

But you have a more optimistic view of how change can happen even in states that have really revanchist political leadership.

Zander Moricz:

Yeah. I think one, everyone deserves to be selfish to some degree. If you don't feel safe, if you're not happy, change it if you can. Please change that if you can.

But we all have to recognize that the people that are suffering most under Florida's fascist laws can't move at all.

And it breaks my heart so severely because the number one problem in Florida is the cost of housing. We are literally making it so hard for Floridians to stay in their homes. And now, we are working to make it specifically and violently illegal to be homeless in the state of Florida.

And so, when we actually look at what the state is doing, the people that are most impacted, the people that are most disenfranchised, the people that are most disadvantaged, don't have any means to solve that.

And so, that's the number one conversation is, well, I don't have to convince most people not to leave. It's not an option. It's not an option to buy a new house, to find a new job, to move your entire family. Like it's just not.

And so, the optimism is coming a lot of places out of necessity. I think a lot of people were waiting for something to give, and when they realized that it wasn't, and when they realize that the people in power were never going to be satisfied, were never going to be like, “Oh, maybe that's too far.”

Now, people are accepting that they do have to tap in, that they do have to lock in, that we all have to do something. And that's why it's going to be a much more successful shift than I think people are looking at.

And I also won't convince them because I know how bad Florida looks right now, but we've done focus groups across the state. We work with young folks across the state, we work with our partners across the state, and there's just a new wave of energy that is building.

It has been building since DeSantis won is last reelection. And I think it means good things.

I think the number one thing we have to work on doing is making it easier for young people to vote in Florida and working to make sure that that vote feels like it matters.

There's so many young folks in Florida who are not willing to register to vote or actually vote and we're working to change that. And that's also going to be much easier to change. It just involves conversations and it involves actually listening to and investing in young folks.

And so, to people in your position, I would say tap into Florida to some degree, whether it's texting everyone you know there, whether it's sending articles about Florida in your family group chats, whether it's just starting to use a more positive rhetoric.

Florida is going to be a deciding factor in national abortion, in national marriage equality, in the way public schools are run nationally. Florida is going to be everyone's problem, or it can be everyone's solution. And I would really much rather it be the latter. So, please tap in.

And just have conversations. Some people just don't understand what's happening.

There's actually a huge, huge critical misunderstanding for a lot of young folks in Florida and also, just not a lot of young folks, a lot of regular folks, a lot of adults who genuinely believe that because there's a chain of command that goes from federal to state to local in our government, that things like the abortion ban are actually coming from the federal government.

And things like the Don't Say Gay law are actually coming from the federal government, and Ron DeSantis is just applying to our state.

And so, things like that sound oh-oh. But it also just means a lot of these things are going to be conversations. Like right after those conversations, people were like, “Oh, wait, Governor Ron DeSantis does have all the power here.”

And so, a lot of this is going to be easier than we think, and a lot of it can be more impactful than we think. I think we just have to start together.

Ken Harbaugh:

I definitely want your take on Governor DeSantis, but I just want to say how grateful I am for your observation that the most vulnerable populations don't have the option of finding a safer place.

There's this conceit among some progressive elites, and it's usually offered kind of jokingly, tongue in cheek, that we should just let Texas secede. We should just write off Alabama.

And it angers me every time because I think about those pockets of people who would suffer even more in that scenario. People who are fighting for their communities, fighting for their states, fighting for a better future. And writing them off is absolutely the worst thing we could do.

Zander Moricz:

We also, it's human nature, but when we look at states like Florida and Texas, we're like, “Oh, well, if there were lots of people that were progressives, well, if there were lots of people that cared about human rights, then the elections would look different or the state would look different.”

And I think people don't understand, there actually are more progressives in Florida than conservatives. There are more people that care about human rights and want abortion and want book equity in Florida than conservatives.

What we're seeing here is over the last four years, the amount of far right funding dollars, the amount of Republican dollars that have been poured into the state of Florida have gone up by more than three times, four times.

And the amount that's coming for progressive dollars has been cut by more than three times, by more than four times. We're looking at being outspent by like more than 17 times in places in Miami, and then you're asking us why we're losing. You know what I mean?

So, it's not actually these massive majorities that we're seeing. And also, it's more than just small pockets of communities in Florida, we have the most diverse youth population out of any state in the country.

I messed saying this up earlier, but if just half of the unregistered eligible young folks in Florida turned out in elections, every single district would look different in Florida. It's not just a pocket.

Every single place in Florida would look significantly and drastically different if the populations that live there were actually represented in the politics. Why aren't they?

Governor Ron DeSantis does things like actually pass legislation that makes it super, super hard for immigrants to vote. It makes it super, super hard for community organizations to register voters, which means that it is now, just the state government registering people who were born here.

And it's really difficult because so much of Florida's population is represented by the communities that are being specifically disenfranchised.

We have so much power in our immigrant communities, we have so much power in our low income communities, and that makes up such a part of the vibrancy of Florida and so much of what actually is going on in Florida.

And we have a government that is working super, super, super hard to make it so that those people cannot vote. And it's more than heartbreaking. It's actually evil.

Ken Harbaugh:

What lessons are people in Florida drawing from DeSantis’s utter collapse as a presidential candidate?

And I hope you're going to tell me that it's a cautionary tale about trying to out trump Trump, but I'm sure there are some people who are taking the exact opposite lesson from that.

What's the mood in Florida about this embarrassment of a governor who's now, back in the state?

Zander Moricz:

Well, the mood is very, very bad. For Democrats, he has always been someone that is disgusting. And I think that we've always been a little bit annoyed here in Florida with the narrative that, “Oh, Ron DeSantis is smart and evil. Oh, you better watch out. He's smarter than Donald Trump.”

Because the whole time we've been trying to share with people that he's actually very dumb as someone who's been to Harvard.

Unfortunately, they let lots of people into the school that might not be as brilliant as you would expect. And Ron DeSantis is one of those people. Like I think we put higher education on a pedestal, we put people on a pedestal.

But he genuinely, and this isn't just me being a hater from his policy actions, from his communications, from his interpersonal movement, is not an intelligent person and he never has been.

And so, I think our country was given the opportunity to see that, and they quickly said, “No, thank you.”

And so, now, the attitude here in Florida is genuinely just embarrassment because what you have is an entire Republican community that has to accept that 49 other Republican communities said, “Hmm, that's actually not good enough for me, but it looks good enough for Florida.” And now, Florida has asked, “Why is that?”

And the problem is that you have a governor who is claiming fiscal responsibility while blowing more money than any Floridian governor on actual nonsense.

And so, it's just like even the majority of his supporters want less taxes, more privacy. He is spending more money, there are more taxes, we have less privacy. Like no one is happy anymore. And so, it's just a mess.

I think Ron DeSantis also, (this gets lost in the sauce) literally changed Florida's constitution to be able to run for president while being our governor. It was over from there.

Like from there the attitude changed very subconsciously and very silently because even people that have supported him his whole life know he doesn't actually want to be our governor. He doesn't actually care about us. And so, that is good news.

The better news, the real victory is in the way that people have applied DeSantis to people like Bridget Ziegler is the undo effect. People have looked at this model of politics as a way that, “Okay, alright, you know what, maybe I can have a community that I feel comfortable in.”

Because also, a lot of the supporters of Ron DeSantis and of this far right fascist agenda, the operating element is fear. They're not hateful people. They're genuinely scared of all of these new things they don't understand and all of these new systems they don't understand.

And they're being told that their children are under attack, and they're being told that their country is under attack, and they're being told that their liberty is under attack, and they're being told that their home is under attack by someone that looks like them, by someone who's supposed to be smart. And it's like, “Yeah, let's not let that happen.”

But all of these people are starting to understand that these people never had any genuine care or interest for Florida's families.

And I think that recognition is causing a lot of people to ask, “What was the intention? What was Ron DeSantis motivation if not for Florida's families, what was Bridget Ziegler's intention if not for Sarasota's families?”

And because people are having to ask those questions now, because it's been made so obvious things are falling apart for the Republican Party. Because when you actually look, the answer is money. The answer is just money. The answer is dollars.

Bridget Ziegler has made dollars from touring the country and convincing mothers that their children were in danger and to endanger other students to save them. That's what's happening.

And I think that it's been a very painful lesson to learn. People have lost their lives because of Ron DeSantis and this leadership. People have lost their homes. So, it's not a, “Yay, we did it.” But it is, “It's happening. People are not not seeing how bad this is.”

Ken Harbaugh:

Do you think we are at an inflection point then? Have we bottomed out in terms of-

Zander Moricz:

No, nope. Buckle up. Everyone, buckle up. We have not bottomed out. We have not. Basically, there's going to be a last hurrah period. We have shaken things up pretty badly. These fascist Republicans are starting to see the end of the movement.

Last November, 70% of candidates that Moms for Liberty endorsed lost their elections. There's not many more years of funding left to go for that. And so, you either close shop, which these people aren't going to do, they're not just going to give up. Or you go out with a big bang.

And so, if you thought you’ve seen the big bang, we haven't even seen it yet. They're going to do some random nonsense.

But as long as we hold this attention, this momentum, and this care about what's happening, as long as we hold this national awareness about how bad these issues are, we're going to recognize it when it happens again.

It feels very ridiculous but like a lot of people genuinely aren't seeing that like burning books here, and posing with Proud Boy members here is very similar to like burning books and posing with white nationalists in Nazi Germany.

Like to me, that feels like a very evident parallel. To a lot of people, that parallel is still arriving. And so, I think now, that we're able to show these very simple connections of like Bridget Ziegler told you that she hated gay people, but she's gay. Why did she do that?

Ron DeSantis told you he wants more privacy, but he's taking all your privacy away. Why did he do that?

When those things are happening and then we see the incoming nonsense, it's going to be way easier. We just needed this shakeup for people to question intention. And I think the movement will die within five years.

And I think within the decade, Florida's going to look significantly different. Significantly different. And I truly, truly mean that.

Ken Harbaugh:

I hope you're right. And I want to hear about SEE Alliance.

Zander Moricz:

SEE Alliance is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that I founded in 2019. Bridget Ziegler is one of my school board members and her fascist takeover of Sarasota at an attempt to fascist takeover school board rooms across the country has been a very difficult part of my life.

She's just not a good person. Her politics is bad, her intentions are bad. And obviously since she's had a queer threesome, the entire country has become exposed to that truth.

But the SEE Alliance has been doing this organizing for the last several years, and it's all youth led, but it's all intergenerational. And I think that's where the magic of what we do happens.

We are taking instruction and leadership from the students of Florida, and we've worked and we've connected with so many different young folks across the state to make sure that all of our ideas and all of our perspectives are accounted for.

But we're not just a group of young people trying our best. We work with advisors like David Hogg and with Keith Boykin who actually help give us information and help apply our thoughts and ideas into a practice that is impactful.

And so, we're able to do things like organized Florida's largest ever student led protest with Walkout 2 Learn. Last year we had over 300 colleges and high schools walkout.

We've reached over 1 billion people across the country about the bans that happened in Florida. And we were able to get a whole class registered for online virtual African American history.

We've since opened up our first ABC in Sarasota. So, Sarasota has become an experimental ground for the conservative rhetoric that's been going on in Florida. It is where the previous chair of Florida's Republican party has been serving. And it is where Bridget Ziegler, the founder of Moms for Liberty is. It's also my hometown.

So, it was a very important place for us to start a part of this movement and make sure that a piece of the progressive movement that's happening across Florida is represented there.

The SEE Alliance Sarasota is really coming alive. We work with so many different local partners to run so many different programs and so many different organizing efforts.

But we're doing things like teaching young folks how to speak at the school board meetings. We are registering voters. We are painting protest signs, we are running conference meetings, we are doing band book drives, we're doing band book clubs. And we're having so much fun doing it. And it's been really incredible.

Really the model is, is you can come in and you can do your work or you can join our work. So, we have so many young folks who are just there for the free coffee and free food, and just want to do their homework, and study for their exams, or get some volunteer hours.

And then we have so many young folks who are pissed about what's happening in Florida and they have their own ideas or they want to join in on the work we're doing.

And so, we have young folks that are there to organize against the climate, for reproductive justice, against book bans, against Bridget Ziegler. And it's been a really exciting movement to see.

And also, it's not just us, it's across the state. The SEE Alliance partners with so many different organizations like the Dream Defenders, Engage Miami, Hook Community Center, and they're just so many local orgs across the state that are doing incredible work.

And one of our roles as we see it is because that we have such a base in Florida that has become so widespread throughout the different high schools and colleges, and because we have young folks that are tethered almost everywhere from Miami to Tallahassee, we work to actually help funnel other people into other organizations and help to support the other local work that's happening.

Because if we all get on the same page and if we all collaborate, the local work will become statewide work, will become national work. But it's really exciting to see.

And we've worked with really brilliant people like John Della Volpe to cultivate a strategy about what's happening here in Florida.

And he's run focus groups that have never been done before in Florida with all different types of young people to get their voices and opinions represented in data so that all of the work we're doing is actually based in data.

And that's part of the reason I'm here. I decided to take off from Harvard and the administration has been incredibly supportive. I have like an unlimited ish time off, so I will go back when I see fit. It's looking like fall 2025.

And I did this also with my head of staff who's taking off from Cornell. And we didn't do that flippantly. To be honest, I would much rather be in college having fun than being at school board meetings.

The only reason that I decided to make this choice, and the only reason that I decided to make this choice, and the only reason we have a staff and a building and we're investing in new voter registration tools, and the reason we're able to grow and we've continued to be able to grow is because this is a winning fight and the data says so.

I'm only here, I'm only giving my life to this because Florida is a winning fight, and it is winnable in the short term.

If that was not the case, I would go back to school. Like I'm being very honest, I don't feel like I'm the chosen one. I'm not doing this for a particular reason. We are all people and everyone can make a difference. And this is a winnable fight, so let's do it.

Ken Harbaugh:

What really stands out about your work with SEE Alliance is how real it is, how FRL it is. And it draws me to a quote, I think it was in a Harvard publication in which you said, “From now on, if we're putting stuff online, it's to bring people offline.”

Can you talk about that challenge? Young people are so very good at the virtual engagement. How do you get them to those school board meetings?

Zander Moricz:

Yeah. Young people are only doing social media activism because that's the only option they've really been given. Young folks are not given support, they're not given money, they're not given positions of leadership when it comes to boots on the ground activism in most places.

And so, we found that with the SEE Alliance, if we give young folks leadership positions, if we support them financially, if we support them through connections and helping to build bases, if we actually give them a real organization to do organizing in on the ground, they themselves will choose to do that over social media.

The majority of young folks are engaging in social media, and I myself did a bunch of reposting on social media, and I still do because that's one way that we can make a difference and connect with the folks around us and communicate.

But for a lot of young folks, that's like it. They're not given an opportunity beyond that.

It's also, young folks don't want to just post, but there's no one saying, “Hey, do you want to run a protest? Do you want to speak at this meeting? Do you want to do this?”

What there are is large national organizations run by adults that are like, “Hey, do you want to be our youth ambassador? You can sit on a Zoom call and be quiet the whole time.” And the young person's like, “No, I don't want to do that. I'm going to keep posting on my story.”

And that's all that's happening is like young people just need to be validated and given actual opportunity.

And so, with the SEE Alliance, we connect with right now, over 2,000 young folks across the state of Florida. And we work to do this work in a way that is online to offline.

So, we don't need to deny the digital landscape as a tool. It exists, it's awesome, but we don't need our impact to terminate there either. Why have the final impact be liking a post when it could be registering to vote, or sending a letter, or showing up to a public comment, or walking out with Walkout 2 Learn?

I think what we, as a culture and as a movement, need to do is genuinely listen to young people because they're giving us the answers.

Walkout 2 Learn was incredibly successful only because we listened to our student organizers on each campus.

They told us verbatim, “We do not want to do another walkout. We do not want to do another protest. We walked out last year and the legislation passed. We protested last year, and the legislation passed. What is the point of us sitting outside and holding pieces of paper? It's not doing anything.” And we said, “Yeah, that's actually tea. Let's think about this.”

And so, Walkout 2 Learn became an entirely about the immediate tangible benefits that were distributed during that event. So, at Walkout 2 Learn, the walkout was only just to get bodies in the same place.

The second that that started, all students were taught a band history lesson with the African American Policy Forum. All students were given a chance to register to vote, and all students were given the chance to register for an online virtual African American history course.

And so, immediately just by giving three tangible things that someone could do that could actually change their lives and change their stance in the movement, made it the largest student led protest in the State's entire history.

And it was just because we listened to young folks and said, “Okay, what do you actually want to do?”

And it even spiraled out from there. We had people do more. We had press conferences, we had young folks do full lessons at their events. We had young folks connect with other organizations and actually do drives. And it is just about getting creative and listening to the young folks.

But also, like when it comes to this movement work, the reason that we stay intergenerational is there's so much lived experience, there's so much professional experience, there's so much knowledge that young folks just do not have that we need to be successful.

And previously in movements, a lot of that knowledge and experience has been held over young folks' head as a way to get young folks to cooperate.

And I think that's been the incredible opportunity here at SEE, is that the people that we work with want the young folks to lead. And so, it truly just feels like we're a team running towards a goal the whole time. And it's been really great.

I think in the movement work also, we are very aware of the fact that a lot of people are brought into this because of trauma. Like a lot of people are only giving their lives to do this work because something horrible has happened to them or someone they love.

Even if it's not horrible, someone might only be advocating for black history because they were told that black history didn't matter. And that's horrible. And so, a lot of people are only in this work for horrible reasons.

And I think when you have that mindset as well and you kind of just — it's not even like the loss of ego, but it's like the ability to just, someone might not agree with the way you want to organize.

Someone might not like the way you talk about something. Someone might not even like you, but if you're all pushing towards the same goal, there is a way for you to be in the same movement.

I think learning and figuring that out together has been the best thing ever because I organize with people and I talk with people, and I'm on meetings with people who just don't like me or my face, and that's totally fine. And a lot of that's going to happen.

Like I am like the 20-year-old white guy who's on TikTok, and then once in a while is on the Zoom, then I'm like, “Hey.” And I think also finding out where I fit into that movement without ego and with recognition of everyone else has been important.

And I think it being youth led has been a really special way for that to happen because I think there's just such a readiness for the action to come first and for the results to come first, that there's really just … I don't even know how to describe it, but people have just been really incredible.

Ken Harbaugh:

And you're not just paying lip service to the idea of being youth led. If I'm not mistaken, you have a age cap on your board. It is led by people 27 years old or younger.

I mean, you definitely have advisors with that lived experience helping you helping, but the real leadership is from young people themselves.

Zander Moricz:

Yeah, it is. And I think a lot of times when we say it's a hundred percent youth led, and then we have huge successes, people are like, “No way that was youth led.” And I'm like, “Well, we didn't fill out our insurance forms. We didn’t do any of that. That was all adults.”

And that's why it works out so well. Like it is intergenerational, but when you have the young folks saying, “Oh, this will go viral.” And then you have the adults saying, “Oh, well, we have to make sure that we're doing blank, blank, and blank to follow the law,” then it's like the magic combination.

It's been special. It's been really special because also on the mass level, we're able to see the impact in our movements and in the organizing results.

But in the interpersonal level, like we'll just have people at SEE Space Sarasota. And like a week ago I had a student come up to me and be like, “Hey, I just met my very first trans adult today. And that was really crazy. I've never seen a trans person make it to adulthood.”

And like I almost just started crying, like just from that interaction of, I think they were gardening at SEE Space Sarasota, someone was reminded that they had a future.

And it is that simple. Like it is just conversations and positive interaction in a movement to sustain, support, and impact that out.

Ken Harbaugh:

I'm going to make an observation. Maybe it's a bit of a stretch, but it just occurred to me that the people from my generation who dropped out of Harvard or other Ivy League institutions did it to go make money, the Bill Gates' and the Mark Zuckerberg, he's a little younger than me.

But it is so inspiring to see the example that your generation is setting of people not dropping out but taking a leave of absence to go change their states and fight for progress in their own communities. Maybe that's a stretch, but I love seeing it.

Zander Moricz:

I'll take it. I like it. I'll take the Zuck comparison. I think, I don't know. It was super scary to do and it was super stressful to do.

And also, my parents were freaking out the whole time. My poor parents, they're like, “You're leaving Harvard. Please don't. Do anything but that. You're leaving Harvard to get yelled at in the streets, please don't do that.”

But it was just, I don't know. I don't know. What's happening here is super bad but it could be super good. And that's such an exciting opportunity.

I think people have just been hit in the face with the headlines and the constant reporting about how bad things are that there's not the awareness of how good things can be.

But the only reason that the far right has also gone so hard on Florida is because of the incredible potential here. We deserve it more. We can have it.

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, I am glad you are doing what you're doing. One last kind of flipping question. We had David Hogg on the show. I assume you guys have connected and collaborated at Harvard. There's got to be a core of you guys up there doing this work, right?

Zander Moricz:

He's on our advisory board and I'm on the advisory board of Leaders We Deserve. So, actually, he's someone who also, like everything they say they care about and do is genuine. He's someone who since 2022, just like from the concept of walkouts has helped us all.

He and I actually had a conversation before I gave my curly hair graduation speech. He's been baked into all of it.

And I think that that's another product. The horrible things that are happening in Florida are birthing incredible people, incredible movements, incredible situations, incredible community.

And the things that are good are sustainable. The things that are bad that created the things that are good are not. And with that, we have the hope.

Ken Harbaugh:

That is another great and uplifting observation. We should probably end on that note. Please count me as an ally and one of the old advisors you can lean on if you ever need it.

Zander Moricz:

I will, I will. If anyone wants to tap in in any way, visit us at www.seeourpower.org. No matter what state you live in, no matter what age you are, there is something you can do, whether it's send an email, pot a plant, register a voter. We need help.

So, I really appreciate you having this conversation.

Ken Harbaugh:

Absolutely. We'll put that link in the show notes. Thank you so much, Zander. It's been great having you.

Zander Moricz:

Thank you, Ken. Been great to be here.

Ken Harbaugh:

Thanks again to Zander for joining me. To learn more about the SEE Alliance, check the link in the show description.

Thanks for listening to Burn the Boats. If you have any feedback, please email the team at [email protected]. We're always looking to improve the show.

For updates and more, follow us on Twitter @Team_Harbaugh. And if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to rate and review.

Burn the Boats is a production of Evergreen Podcasts. Our producer is Declan Rohrs, and Sean Rule-Hoffman is our audio engineer. Special thanks to Evergreen executive producers, Joan Andrews, Michael DeAloia, and David Moss.

I'm Ken Harbaugh, and this is Burn the Boats, a podcast about big decisions.