 So, I've got to talk about what is probably my favorite story of 2021, so the Nevada State Democratic Party was taken over by socialists. And as a result, the centrist establishment Democrats decided to revolt and leave. What this really tells me is that the grip that Harry Reid had on any and all Nevada State politics has definitely loosened. In fact, he no longer is in control. Socialists are in control right now. And we learned about the control that he has, like the institutional power that he has in Nevada back in 2018 when Amy Volela was running for Congress. And the Nevada State Democratic Party worked against her, relentlessly so. But now, uh, socialists put in the work and, uh, ultimately they have prevailed. So as Akilah Lacy and Ryan Grimm report, not long after Judith Whitmer won her election on Saturday to become chair of the Nevada Democratic Party, she got an email from the party's executive director, Elena Mounce. The message from Mounce began with a note of congratulations before getting to her main point. She was quitting. So was every other employee. And so were all the consultants. And the staff would be taking severance checks with them, thank you very much. On March 6th, a coalition of progressive candidates backed by the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America took over the leadership of the Nevada Democratic Party, sweeping all five party leadership positions in a contested election that evening. Whitmer, who had been chair of the Clark County Democratic Party, was elected chair. The establishment had prepared for the loss, having recently moved $450,000 out of the party's coffers and into the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's account. The DSCC will put the money toward the 2022 reelection bid of Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a vulnerable first term Democrat. While Whitmer's opponents say she was planning to fire them anyway, Whitmer denies that claim. I've been putting in the work, Whitmer told the Intercept for the latest episode of Deconstructed. What they just didn't expect is that we got better and better at organizing and out organizing them at every turn. Now this is really, really important because what they've done here, what progressives have done, this is a blueprint for the left across the country going forward. Because if any state was difficult to penetrate, to actually get your foot in the door, I would have said Nevada would have been one of the most difficult because of the influence of Harry Reid. But they managed to out organize Harry Reid and the Democratic establishment. And really what happened was, and the article is going to explain this, they put in work after 2016. So when Harry Reid's machine crushed Bernie Sanders in 2016 in favor of Hillary Clinton, the socialists and progressives in the state of Nevada, they decided to organize. They got busy. And by 2020, they had accumulated so much power that Bernie Sanders won in a landslide. This was because activists on the ground put in work. So the article continues, the battle between the insurgent progressive wing of the party and what's known in Nevada as the Reid machine, a tightly run operation still guided by former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, began five years ago. When Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders organized support for his 2016 presidential primary run while Reid was working behind the scenes to help his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Over the next four years, outside organizations like DSA exploded in size and strength. The Sanders campaign focused on organizing tens of thousands of young Latino voters in the state, with the goal of activating people whom the party hadn't bothered with before. And it worked. In the 2020 cycle, after investing heavily in Nevada, Sanders won a commanding victory in the Nevada caucuses. When the Sanders campaign ended, the organizers behind it were ready to take their project to the next level. Progressive groups like the Clark County Left Caucus, of which Whitmer was chair, and local DSA chapters had been organizing for Sanders across Nevada since 2016. They used their momentum and the state-level delegates they picked up during the caucuses to continue activating progressive pockets in the state with a focus on local office. Progressives led by the Left Caucus won a majority of the state Democratic Board this summer, a sign that their momentum was growing even without a candidate at the top of the Democratic ticket to get behind. So I think that this really demonstrates the power in organizing. It really shows us that as individuals, we have to do more. We have to get involved, and this is why organizations like the DSA are absolutely crucial, because politics, it really is local. So what we have to do is invest our own time into putting in the work to take over our own state Democratic parties. Because part of the issue, and this goes beyond the Democratic Party primaries for the presidential candidates, you can see how each state Democratic Party definitely wasn't working in favor of what the grassroots wanted. They were trying to work against the grassroots. So if that happens in your state, what you have to do is take over your state's Democratic Party. Taking over the Democratic Party nationally in Congress is much more difficult. But taking over the Democratic Party at the state level, that's much more achievable in the short term, not just the long term. But it's just a matter of how many people, how many leftists and socialists and communists are actually willing to put in the work. And in the state of Oregon, for example, socialists are currently organizing to progress the issue of single-payer health care in our state. Now, what we need to see is leftists actually do what the Nevada State Democratic Party did, but on a mass scale. Like imagine if in every single state leftists were able to take over the Democratic Party. Like if we did this in every single state or most states, like the aggregate outcome that that would produce on national politics would be absolutely monumental. So I love this story, not only because it's encouraging, but just like seeing the butthurt, seeing all of the Democratic Party establishment figures resign. I mean, what happened to unity? Weren't Real supposed to hold hands in Sincubaya? That's what you all were saying when Joe Biden won the primary in 2020. Hey, unity, we have to be united. But the minute leftists actually take over, all of a sudden all of that unity goes out the door. I find this hilarious and I love it. This is what we need to focus on. If you are not involved in your local DSA chapter and you haven't been getting active in local politics, definitely change that. DSA makes it easy to connect with other left-wing and socialist activists, but you don't even have to join a larger organization to do that. You can make a difference as an individual by reaching out and meeting with people, forming your own meetings. But I mean, it is really nice to have the DSA help organize these events. It's nice to have their backing, but you certainly don't need it. But this is something that we all need to get better at is focusing on our local issues and state-level issues. Because state-level party politics, that is where the left can actually make a lot of gains.