Human Rights are Indivisible and Under Attack

Human rights are born out of the belief that every individual is equal and deserving of life, dignity, respect, and freedom. States must then deliver on those obligations. But through nominations, harmful policy, and mass confusion, the returning administration has a broad ability to dissolve human rights. Rori Kramer, Director of U.S. Advocacy at the American Jewish World Service, sits down to talk with us about the foundations of human rights and what we can expect from the coming administration.

Human rights were codified via the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with the U.S. as an early champion. When these rights were established, they were indivisible and applied to all humans equally. At present, in some countries, authoritarian governments seek to criminalize democracy and the exercise of human rights. Some of these states are feeling empowered by the U.S. and its direction-- especially as the U.S. plays in outsized role in international human rights standards. In the first Trump administration, the Geneva Consensus Declaration and Commission on Unalienable Rights were used to shift and mold the framework of what human rights really are; those may return.

Links from this episode

American Jewish World Service on X
American Jewish World Service on Facebook
The Prospect of Global Human Rights Under the Trump Administration
More information on the Commission on Unalienable Rights
Leading Jewish Human Rights Group Denounces Secretary of State Pompeo’s Misnamed “Religious Freedom” Conference
This election, the Jewish commitment to human rights is on the ballot
The Helms Amendment Hurts Millions Worldwide

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Transcript

Jennie: Welcome to rePROs Fight Back, a podcast on all things related to sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice. [music intro]

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Jennie: Welcome to rePROs Fight Back, a podcast on all things related to sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice. [music intro]

Jennie: Hi rePROs. How's everybody doing? I'm your host Jennie Wetter, and my pronouns are she/her. So y'all, can you believe this week marks seven years of this podcast? I cannot believe that I have been hosting this podcast for that long. Honestly, if you had asked me when we had our launch party seven years ago, if I would still be doing this, I would've not believed that seven years later we would still be going strong. I am feeling so lucky to have one, such a wonderful audience—thank you all. I feel lucky to have such amazing conversations with so many wonderful guests. Like, I've talked to so many amazing people over the seven years of the podcast, that it all feels kind of unreal. I am so grateful for the amazing team that we have at rePROs, Rachel and Elena. They do amazing work for the podcast, which is generally behind the scenes, so you don't see it, but Rachel is in charge of making sure that you get wonderful show notes and keeping the website up to date, and she does so much other stuff. Most importantly, this week Rachel released an amazing new brief that she wrote on the Helms Amendment and its harms. So definitely check that out. I'll make sure that Rachel includes a link to her brief in the show notes because y'all, you should read it. It is a wonderful product and I am just, congratulations, Rachel. You did a great job. And Elena, who does our social media, they just do an outstanding job with our social media presence. I'm so grateful for all of the work that both of them do. They really keep the rePROs initiative going strong, making sure that the podcast gets out there. Oh, Elena also does the transcripts to make sure that y'all can enjoy the podcast in whatever form you would like. So I, we would not be what we are now without Rachel and Elena. And also just super grateful to Meg who does our editing, so that I sound like I know what I'm talking about and sound my best. So thank you, Meg. I appreciate all of the work that you have done helping launch and doing editing for the podcast for seven years. I mean, and Rachel has been with me for the entire seven years too. So like, this is amazing. I'm just so grateful to the Population Institute for all of their support and Kathleen for her support as our executive director for the podcast. And, you know, especially to my old boss, Bob, who pushed me into doing the podcast, I could not imagine that it would be just the absolute favorite part of my job when he had asked me to do it and I very firmly was not interested [chuckles]. So, just really thankful that he pushed me to get me to do it, because I've had such a wonderful time having so many amazing conversations with such wonderful guests. And if you have been with me for seven years or if today is your first episode, thank you so much. I am so grateful to each and every one of you and if you enjoy the podcast, I hope you will share it with your friends. Write and review us on whatever platform you are listening to it on or enjoying it on. Thank you. If you want to support our podcast more, you can make a donation to rePROs Fight Back. We still have wonderful fun giveaways for donations. So, if you donate $25, you get these amazing stickers designed by Liberal Jane that talk about let's see, we have ones that say "support repro pod-cats" with my cats on them. We have "reproductive rights are human rights." We have "slash the patriarchy" ones. We have "fund abortion, fight evil." They're all very fun and you should definitely donate to get some. Also, if you wanna donate $50, we have amazing bags that you'll get in addition to the stickers that are really fun. They have, like, a comic book speech bubble on them and say, abortion is a human right, not a dirty word, and are bright hot pink and purple logo colors. So, very fun. So, if you wanna support us for $25, you get the stickers for $50, you get the stickers in the bag. So, I hope you can support us. Let's see. Oh, the next thing. I feel like there's so much housekeeping in this episode, sorry about that. But really important, we are gonna take the next two weeks off. rePROs comes out on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve this year, so we just decided that we would take it off and we will see you all next year. It's a really good chance for us to just step away and take some time off and just relax and get all prepared for everything we are going to be dealing with next year. So, we will be gone for the next two weeks, but we will see everybody next year. Okay, y'all, that was so much, and I think we'll just go to this week's episode. Sorry that the up top was basically all housekeeping, but I am very excited for this week's episode. We are talking to Rori Kramer at the American Jewish World Service about human rights. It seemed like, you know, we talk about human rights a lot on the podcast and how the issues we care about and work on our human rights, but maybe it was time to take a step back and just talk about what are human rights and to talk about the ways they're going to be under attack during the next administration. So with that, let's turn to my interview with Rori.

Jennie: Hi Rori. Thank you so much for being here today.

Rori: Thanks so much, Jennie. So excited to be here with you.

Jennie: I am very excited to talk to you today, one, because you're amazing, but two, we are gonna talk about human rights, which is something we like, talk about a lot on the podcast in that, like, reproductive rights are human rights, trans rights are human rights. But we don't necessarily get down to the, like, nitty gritty of, like, what do we mean when we talk about human rights? But the really important thing is, before I do that, maybe we should have you introduce yourself. Sometimes I get so excited to have the conversation, I start before I do the important part. Would you like to introduce yourself and include your pronouns?

Rori: Absolutely. I'm Rori Kramer. I use she/her pronouns and I'm the director of US advocacy at American Jewish World Service.

Jennie: Okay. Now that we got the, like, work part out of the way, let's have the conversation. I am really excited, like I said, to talk about human rights. Do you maybe wanna tell us a little bit of, like, big picture? Like, what are we talking about when we say human rights?

Rori: Absolutely. So, you know, human rights are born out of the belief that every individual is equal and deserving of life, dignity, respect, freedom and then human rights takes those beliefs and identifies what is needed for human flourishing, and places those obligations on states to deliver them, whatever those rights are—right to life, right to political participation, right to a fair trial. And you know, I think for those of us that work in these areas, whether they be sectoral or broader human rights, we all know, but worth repeating that, you know, these were all codified after World War II by the international community. And in fact, good timing, Jennie, that this is actually the 76th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights being ratified and adopted at the UN. And it's also kind of sad since this is a time when they are more under threat than ever, really. And another kind of sad part about it is that the US was an early champion of these values, right? A leader among all the nations and getting them adopted and in deploying the resources to communities around the world facing poverty and persecution. And I think it's something to keep in mind before we get even more into the nitty gritty, is that when these rights were established, they were enumerated applying to all human beings equally, regardless of origin, status, race, religion, nationality, gender. And they were also really focused on being indivisible. You know, the declaration pointedly declined to elevate certain rights above others because the authors were well too aware that this opened the path to selective interpretations of these principles. And, you know, some of the most fundamental texts that the international community relies on since then have elaborated on this theme. So, in the United Nations 1993 Vienna Declaration, it stated explicitly that all human rights were universal, indivisible, interdependent, and interrelated. And I think it's so important to keep the interrelated part in mind. Not only because obviously the forces that are looking to take away our basic human rights are always trying to segment us out, but really because of the way the work that HWS does is so interrelated and I think so much of the partners that we work with. So if I could take a moment now to take a step back and talk about the work we do to sort of set up the, you know, so I can really express how impressive the work our partners are and how it helps really educate us here in the United States. So, we're a grant making and advocacy organization that is dedicated to champion human rights around the world—a wonderful laudable goal that I'm sure a lot of other organizations hold. But we do this in a really sort of unique way. So we fund more than 500 social change and human rights organizations in Africa, Asia, Latin American, and the Caribbean, in the areas of sexual health and rights, civil and political rights, land, water, climate justice. And then on certain occasions, disaster humanitarian relief. And we do this by also accompanying those grantees with our local staff who share the knowledge in the social movements on the ground, and bringing those grantees together and embolden those movements. And then finally where I come into the picture is that we advocate in Washington and sometimes internationally to shift those laws and policies to promote human rights work and strengthen those grassroots efforts in their countries because of the outsized role the United States plays. And that really is predicating all of our US work, right? That no matter what the US is really holding an outsized role, whether for good or for bad, to make the enabling environment for our partners even easier. So, you know, we are now in a position where I think for the first time, the United States citizens can kind of see the work that our partners are doing. So, to get back to their work, you know, in the countries where we work, the criminalization of human rights is never an issue area—criminalization that we think of it in DC. Authoritarian governments seek to criminalize the exercise of democracy, the defense of rule of law or civic space. And they don't specify often on particular rights of the people they're fighting for. Sometimes there's obviously individual hideous laws, right? Like what's going on in Uganda now with the Anti Homosexuality Act. But ultimately it is a constriction of that civic space and of the exercise of people's basic dignity in human rights. And so, the challenging of the government abuse to violate those rights is really what those governments perceive as the threat, regardless of the rights that they're fighting for. So, we see so often across our issue areas and across our geographic coverage, that those movements are working together to defend those rights. So for example, in a country like Nicaragua, demanding sexual and reproductive health and rights of the communities they support and the communities are equally affected by their violations of the civil and political rights because the entire country is living under a dictatorial system that denies its citizens its rights. Similarly, in El Salvador, where abortion is entirely illegal, including therapeutic abortion, feminist groups are threatened and harassed by the state because that is how the authoritarians respond to the challenging of their power. So, not to pivot too much to the United States right off the bat, but you know, we are already starting to see that these authoritarians are feeling emboldened by the election of Trump. And then in turn, some of the Republican efforts in Congress already that are seeking to shrink civic space to mirror some of the efforts of some of these authoritarian governments already, I think I've been saying since the election, you know, hugging dictators anywhere is good for dictators everywhere. So it's this vicious circle and loop of the more we're emboldening any dictators, all dictators everywhere are like coming to the party and excited to be able to sort of share best practices.

Jennie: Well, that obviously leads me to think about like some of the things that happened in the first Trump administration where there was like, not just actions they took that impacted people's human rights, but, like, an actual attack on the human rights framework itself with things like the Unalienable Rights Commission and the Geneva Consensus Declaration, which trademark Rachel Moynihan, was "neither in Geneva, nor was it a consensus document."

Rori: [Laughs] Discuss amongst yourselves.

Jennie: Yeah, exactly. So, are we thinking we're gonna face some of these same like actual attacks on the way human rights are talked about? Like, versus like just, just versus, like, direct attacks on the exercise of rights. Does that make sense?

Rori: Why choose Jennie? Why choose?

Jennie: I mean both are gonna happen, maybe let's start with the, like, big picture then.

Rori: I think for your listeners that are familiar with both the Geneva Consensus and the Commission on Unalienable Rights, I'd say first off, sorry.

Jennie: Yeah.

Rori: And second off. Yeah, I think those are just the starting points, right? They're going to pick these things up and start from there. I actually was a bit more familiar with the Commission on Unalienable Rights. Sadly for me, I attended every public meeting.

Jennie: Oof, sorry.

Rori: It was unpleasant personally, but also, you know, from a human rights perspective, it was a mockery of human rights having, I believe at the time no members that had actually been parcel to the practice of human rights. And, you know, certainly a mockery of government commissions that purport to actually care about advancing policy and what it also did pretty, pretty clearly and, and was really reactionary specifically on an abuse of religious freedom, right? Trump's folks did and certainly will continue in this administration to sort of confuse the freedom to worship, which is a human right, and grossly confuse it with the state license to advance their own particular brand of religious expression. And we saw this really, really clearly with the commission where they came out with that the most important at the top of the pinnacle are property rights, which when you talk about property rights and America's founding documents, there's also a lot of, like, creepy racism tied in there, but also religious freedom. But they didn't mean religious freedom for you and me, Jennie, and they certainly didn't mean religious freedom for anyone besides their very specific sort of white Christian nationalism form, which is, you know, frankly un-American, even though that was certainly what the founders had at the time. But when you look at the advancement of the United States and of our founding documents, they have progressed to be in the 21st century. And that is absolutely not, and to be honest, we're gonna evoke Founding Fathers. And I know that he is not immune from critique, but Thomas Jefferson actually went out of his way at the time to make sure there was no state established religion. That's actually one of the things he was most proud of. So, it was really laughable when Mike Pompeo and his goons were like, oh, no, no, no, we're gonna ignore that part, but we're gonna, like, embrace the [inaudible] part. [Laughs] Sorry, that was a little bit of editorial there.

Jennie: I mean, again, it goes back to what you were talking about at the beginning, which is like these rights are indivisible, like...

Rori: Mm-hmm.

Jennie: You can't- there's not a hierarchy, like, that the US was trying to create then.

Rori: Absolutely. And you know, certainly it's very difficult to look at something that is about the unalienable commission on human rights and then also not talk about anything that's happened in the 20th, the 21st century around human rights was laughable. Not to steal any of Rachel Moynihan's thunder, but I also think that this was not a commission because I believe that they were in violation of several US regulations around commissions. It was not really grounded in human rights. And I do believe that the Declaration of Independence talked about an inalienable right. Not an unalienable right. So that always really annoyed me as well. But you know, that's neither...[laughs]

Jennie: Talk about me typing it all the time. And I always was trying to do it the wrong way.

Rori: Absolutely. So, you know, like that's just an, I think we should just rename it as another, you know, No Thanks, Mike Pompeo. You know, I just think that a lot of your listeners are also probably very familiar with what a lot of the actors that were behind both of these things have been doing the last four years, and it's not been doing other productive things. It's been trying to advance these two really faulty and offensive regimes abroad where they could in countries that also do not really have democracy or are authoritarian-curious and moving forward with it there. And really, our partners have actually seen some very US fingerprints, let's just put it that way, on a lot of the work they were doing in trying to protect their own human rights, whether they be SHR or otherwise in their own countries. And so it's, you know, it's very, very disheartening to know, not only has that work been continuing unabated abroad, but now the US bully pulpit, which obviously just is not perfect and comes with lots of strings attached, but there has been in the past a US bully pulpit where they have the US government speaking out on behalf of those marginalized communities, even if the actions have not been there. But at least speaking out and now the bully pulpit will be used fully to, to take away their rights. So, I think that we'll see attacks formulated and grounded in "religious freedom," which are obviously to take away other people's human rights. As you can imagine, many of our supporters, American Jews around the country and clergy are grossly offended by this and wanna mobilize on this. They wanted to mobilize on it four years ago, and I can't imagine that they're going to feel that this speaks on behalf of them. And I imagine millions of other Americans will feel like this does not speak on behalf of them.

Jennie: Yeah. Thinking of, like, the work that has been done in the last four years, and, like, I'm sure polishing their work, bringing other countries on board or working to get them to come on board when the documents open up again or coming into practice again, like...worried to see those people coming back.

Rori: Mm-hmm. And they all have great jobs ahead of them, real fancy jobs. And I think that as you brought up, like, individual efforts legislatively or big picture or internationally or regulatory in the executive branch, I think we see all of those, and not only because they have the ability to, but because that's part of the plan is to overwhelm, to everything be whack-a-mole. And it is, it is tiring. You know, I think we've already seen with some bills that were on the floor almost as test cases in the last few months, but we will absolutely see in Congress moving forward are these bills around the closing of civic space. So that is, you know, "anti-terrorism," "pro transparency," all the things that are good and wonderful and we all support, but the proof is in the pudding or the devil's in the details or whatever, whatever euphemism you wanna use are absolutely gonna be true here because there is no benefit for anybody, whether it's abroad or at home with having a closed civic space with the control of an authoritarian government. The fewer civil society organizations there are anywhere is bad. And using a government arm around taxes or around funding as the, I guess the stick with very little carrot is not diplomacy. It is just authoritarian-curious. And I think a lot of Trump's allies have seen this work abroad. Our partners certainly have seen this work against them abroad. And so, we're very concerned about those pieces of legislation. And in particular around transparency pieces. The government already has names and addresses of people that are subcontractees, but to make those things public for "public transparency," I'm using air quotes here, it could actually be a kill list for partners that we have partners around the world where their names and their addresses would be incredibly personally dangerous to them because they are criminalized and the activities they do in their countries. You know, I think for this, you see certainly that SRHR groups at home and abroad, but certainly now more at home than we've ever seen before, are going to be the canary in the coal mine. But as I mentioned earlier, they are in partnership and should be in partnership with democracy activists everywhere. So, as soon as you see one of these groups start to be attacked, we should all take heart that everybody's human rights are about to be abused. And I think that sticking, I guess still to the legislative and congressional piece of this—'cause that sometimes is a little bit more public than the regulatory things that they're gonna do in the executive branch—is that, bipartisan, I hate saying this, but bipartisanship for the most part could be a mirage. You know, we don't want the result of this election to be, okay, well we should do more work with Trump because that's what the American people wanted without a careful eye that just something being bipartisan is not a good in and of itself. This is absolutely not your father's Republican party. There are not a lot of efforts that I have seen, and I have worked in Washington for a quarter of century [laughs], which sounds like a lot saying it that way, in and out of government in the, on the Hill, in the executive branch, certainly in the nonprofit and an advocacy community. And this is not where we were 25 years ago. This is not where we were 15 years ago. And there are not a lot of good faith effort actors who want to do something that is bipartisan for its sake. So, I am imploring so many of our allies on the Hill to look at something with a very keen and watchful eye and not do something just because it is bipartisan. And I think these Trojan horse "transparency" and "anti-terrorism" bills are a great example. Like there are times that you're just not gonna be able to do a bipartisan thing on this because the thing itself that they're asking you to do is undemocratic. And I mean that in the lowercase-d democratic, it is not, does not comport with the rule of law. And it does not comport with an American tradition of democracy. And I think it's really important for all of us, both in and out of government, and that it also includes just regular citizens to remember that there are really no guardrails. Like guardrails are people. It is just people. And this is really, really important for you to remember that you need to bring a clear eye and vigilance to sort of all of your reasoning behind, whether it's legislation, policy determinations, personnel decisions that the administration's gonna be making, that we are the ones that are here to protect us. There is, there is nothing else.

Jennie: I think this is such an important conversation and I think maybe we wanna take like a quick little second that we're familiar with, but maybe the audience isn't super familiar with. And talk just a little bit about the anti-terrorism bill piece 'cause while it's something that we have been talking about and concerned about, I think it hasn't necessarily broken out in the same way and just do like a really quick, like 3000 foot level of like: what was in this bill that we were so worried about?

Rori: Absolutely. Can I take an extra step back just to make it big picture around-

Jennie: Of course.

Rori: This was a tax bill, which as somebody who spent my career in US foreign policy and also, you know, human rights, I was like: tax, what? You know, I think that it's important to remember that they, it's the same issues and they're just gonna find a lot of different buckets to put them in. And so that's why I feel like a lot of-

Jennie: Needing to have eyes everywhere.

Rori: Needing to have eyes everywhere. I am lucky, one of my good friends is a tax policy expert in Washington, but like, gosh, if this moves to like labor standard, I don't know any labor people. So, like, we're all so segmented in Washington, it could be dangerous. But, so, you know, I think a lot of us, and probably a lot of your former guests have been calling these bills "Trojan horse bills," which I actually think is not even fair because my kids love the Iliad and the Odyssey and like, you know, well obviously the Trojans are the good guys anyway...but whatever, it only even makes me sad for that and this because these are things that on their face seem fine. And so, this bill in particular that I was referring to is a bill that would revoke the tax exempt status of any organization in the US that uses its money to "support terrorism." Who is against that? No one is against that. Everyone supports that. But first of all, and probably most important, that's already illegal. So, like, what kind of problem are we solving for? Are we solving for an actual problem? Jennie, no, we are not solving for an actual problem. We are solving for an authoritarian-curious problem, which is to close civic space. Because in the current status to become a terrorist group and a terrorist-supporting group, there has to be actual evidence in the rule of law and a very deliberate and slow bureaucratic process, right? So, the process that everyone bemoans, oh, bureaucracy is actually here a protection and part of the rule of law. So not only does it exist, but there's already a process that people can go back and look at and it's public. This bill would purport to do it all with, like, secret evidence and like evidence that the Secretary of Treasury that would control a lot of this wouldn't necessarily need to share. So, regardless of who the president is and who the Secretary of Treasury is, it's a dangerous precedent and one that our partners have seen in their countries. And I should restate that we only operate in countries and by we say AJWS only operates in countries that have a problem with democracy or already authoritarian governments. So, if we've seen this model already, it's not a good sign for America. So, this bill was put on the floor and it didn't pass. And so, they brought it back with a lower threshold of votes. And the good news was actually that the more people learned about this bill, the more they were like, oh wait, this is a problem. But it had actually gotten quite a lot of bipartisan support earlier in the Congress because people...I mean, listen, I'm a former health staffer, so I have a lot of sympathy and empathy for their lives. You don't often have time to read everything. You will look at, like, the congressional research service top line or a really quick summary page, and then you give your boss a recommendation of what to vote. So, when things are packaged as, "oh, this is important to fight terrorism and this would revoke status for people who are supporting terrorists," of course that sounds great. So, this is absolutely, as you say, Jennie, a clarion call that, you know, the civic society organizations and nonprofits need to be really active to make sure that everybody on the Hill before they have votes like this, understand what they're actually voting on and flag for people ahead of time. Because not only are we gonna have to educate foreign policy staffers on tax bills or anything like that, but it's also sometimes things get introduced and then they, like, lay fallow for a while and then they, like, are shoved in, to become amendments. And again, that's the way that stuff gets made. I actually have helped former bosses of mine pass really important good work in a conference procedure, you know, after it wasn't an amendment that was approved on the floor or, you know, really complicated procedural things that most members and their staff aren't tracking because there's so many things going on at once. So, it is really incumbent on us not only as people who work in the sector, but as citizens who follow these issues to be flagging these things when we see them. So it's gonna be, again, anti-terrorism tax bills. It's going to be transparency for people who receive USAID, which again is laudable and important, but not if it actually puts their personal lives at risk. So, this is definitely a reminder for everybody listening that like, even if you don't think this is something you work on now, this is something you work on now. And you know, we found that a lot of our supporters who first and foremost are supporting us because they know that we do important work and get funds to grassroot human rights organizations in, you know, X country. They responded really, really quickly when they heard about this bill and you know, this is using this bill as an example because they understood the impact that it would have for people like our partners, but also the impact it would have on us as Americans. You know, a lot of things are changing and I know that is really, really hard for Americans to understand because I, too, am an American who it is hard to understand that like we don't live anymore in the America of 20 years ago, even 10 years ago. We are living in a different kind of America that will require all citizens to be more engaged because again, there are no guardrails. They're just people. It's like the people are the only thing standing between us and whatever on the other side of it is.

Jennie: Are there any other ways that you are keeping an eye out on what we are expecting around human rights and ways that we're gonna see human rights attacked under this new administration or returning administration?

Rori: The once in future?

Jennie: Yeah.

Rori: So, you know, I think we're watching a lot of nominations processes, but you know, which is even scarier than the nominations process or the political appointments that don't require Senate confirmation, right? Those people get to just come in and, you know, even though you can say, oh, well Marco Rubio is a normie republican who has experience in foreign policy and actually, like, can find the map, the country's on a map like absolutely a hundred percent he can. And a hundred percent he's an, you know, normie Republican, but hundreds of people that will be brought in to work for him are not. And you know, that is absolutely something that we are watching. They are people who have been vetted through the Project 2025 project, through their loyalty and ideology. And they are MAGA loyalists. They're probably MAGA loyalists before they're American loyalists, and that's a concern. When I went to work at the State Department, I had to pledge a loyalty oath to the Constitution. And so, if these folks come in and they also have to pledge of loyalty oath to the president, that is a) really bad, and b) I think tells you a lot of where their priorities are going to be. So that is something we're gonna be watching. I know that for the average American, it's hard to follow policies that are gonna be promulgated out of agencies by a lot of these political appointees that don't have Senate confirmation. So in that respect, I'd say also it's really important that the civic society organizations you support are robustly supported to do that, where we can work together with each other, which is another thing that I think is going to be a really wonderful silver lining. I'm throwing my hands up and trying to find the word, right, that like...things are gonna be bad, but we are really all gonna work together in a way I think that even we didn't eight years ago, because this isn't like hashtag resistance time. It's like, I'm not even gonna say hashtags, I don't say that usually, but it is really gonna be confronting attempts at authoritarian efforts at government, right? So this isn't like, oh, Trump's a fascist because that doesn't mean anything to most Americans and you know, it doesn't mean anything probably anyway because people define these things differently. But you cannot dispute that the actions he has already taken and already says he wants to take and Project 2025 says he's going to take, and the people who work for him are gonna take, are authoritarian in nature, which means collecting power together and getting rid of dissenting voices and concentrating a power in one part of government. And America has always really prided itself on having a separation of powers. And so, we're already seeing that minimize itself. And so, I do think that like civil society—and that does include me certainly—but hundreds of organizations and thousands of people who are gonna come together to confront whether they're regulations with, like, regular old fashioned advocacy in Washington, whether it means lawsuits that they can join to go against things. Whether it means really getting regular citizens excited and engaged to advocate to their Congresspeople on things. It's going to be across the whole board and it is a marathon, not a sprint. And so, I think that we really have to keep our eye on the different pieces of it and probably divide and conquer. Like, there's no way that we're all gonna be able to do all the things.

Jennie: Yeah. This is something I have been really trying to one) internalize, and two) make sure to keep in mind as I'm just thinking about what we're gonna do next year and making sure to talk about on the podcast is that: you can't do all the things. You just can't. You have to take care of yourself. A lot of this like authoritarian rule is to try and overwhelm you so you feel like you can't do anything and make you give up. So with all of that in mind, like, what can the audience do? Like, how can they get involved in these efforts?

Rori: Yeah. I'm gonna start again talking about our partners because they are so impressive and to be honest, I'm starting to feel more and more in a similar position to them, right? In a place that Americans never thought that they would be. So, what they do whenever they're campaigning and doing something and they fail, they sort of gather, reassess, and begin again. And I think not giving up and not becoming complacent is something that is really hard to do. So, I think first and foremost we need to keep that in mind. I know that a lot of people are talking about this in different contexts, but I think another thing that is very important is not to ever accept it as normal and not to comply in advance. And I'm saying this as someone who, you know, just like even in the news the last few days, you're just seeing so many people comply in advance in a way that is deeply unnecessary and deeply unhelpful. So, I think those are two really important signposts or milestones or to keep in mind. And then another thing that is frustrating and we have to develop is that forum policy in general doesn't really have a built-in constituency in the United States. And you know, governments love that, I think, 'cause they don't have to worry about that piece as much. And so, when you actually reach out to government people, even at the local level, right? Your local, obviously local level folks don't have control over it, but like you're a local Congressperson's office, it is incredibly powerful then for them to hear from you because they're not used to hearing from constituents about global human rights, about any foreign policy, but certainly global human rights. And we have found that, like, it is incredibly powerful even in smaller numbers to reach out on that. But going back to the local part, I mean, I think also—and Jennie, I know you share this very strongly as well—is that like there's not as much divide anymore, right? The global assault on trans folks we're seeing here at home, the global assault on abortion rights is already being seen at home. The global assault on basic civil and political rights is now being seen at home. So, I think if we start to think of ourselves as part of, like, the global to local, which I know used to be like a positive thing and now is obviously like a kind of a negative thing is we should be expressing that at home too. And so, fighting for these rights in your local community is not unrelated to fighting for those rights that our partners do in Senegal, right? So, I think that just not staying quiet and being ready to act when you can at any level of government that you feel like you can is going to be important. Now, I mean, AWS has some specific plans that we wanna be doing and we wanna be in spaces, but I also think that we're understanding that a lot of the traditional forms of government advocacy that we have used forever and that like I have used and no matter what job I've had are not, it's gonna be a much narrower path to that. So I think that also folks that work in US advocacy are going to need to do some more outside-of-government advocacy, whether it's with other actors or also just like narrative change and really holding the media to account as well.

Jennie: Yeah. And this really makes me think, you know, so often, maybe it's just 'cause I work in this field, like abortion comes up often in conversations with people. When your friends are talking about whatever the new attack on abortion or accessing abortion, like, you can have just like a simple conversation and talk about how it's not only here, the US is also exporting these policies. And talk about why they need to care about the US exporting human rights violations, right? Like preventing people from accessing care and why they should also care about the global stakes in this conversation.

Rori: A hundred percent.

Jennie: Okay. Rori, thank you so much for being here. It was wonderful to talk to you all about human rights today. Thanks for taking the time.

Rori: Thanks so much for having me and I'm glad. It's a good reminder to everyone that we should all be talking about human rights all the time.

Jennie: Exactly.

Rori: Thanks so much, Jennie.

Jennie: Okay y'all, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Rori. It was so great to get to talk to her all about human rights. And just a reminder, we're not gonna be around for the next two weeks, so I will see y'all in the new year. [music outro] If you have any questions, comments, or topics you would like us to cover, always feel free to shoot me an email. You can reach me at jennie@reprosfightback.com or you can find us on social media. We're at @RePROsFightBack on Facebook and Twitter or @reprosfb on Instagram. If you love our podcast and wanna make sure more people find it, take the time to rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Or if you wanna make sure to support the podcast, you can also donate on our website at reprosfightback.com. Thanks all!