"It can't just be about the things that affect us as individuals. It has to be broader."

There’s been a lot of talk lately about looking for a Joe Rogan of the left.

The whole thing is ridiculous… for so many reasons.

Instead of banking on a single, superstar personality to magically unite our movement, what we really need is to amplify the many voices of folks aligned with our values who are already creating great content online for large audiences.

That’s why I was so excited to welcome Jess Zander of You Can Do It Gardening to the podcast.

Jess is a Boston-based garden coach and consultant who launched You Can Do It Gardening in 2022 to help everyday people feel confident tackling their gardens—no matter their experience level. My wife is the green thumb in our household, but Jess’s content is super relatable and fun, even if you’re not a gardening aficionado. Jess is known for her no-nonsense, encouraging style. Think Mary Poppins—but for your garden.

So is Jess the Joe Rogan of the left? Of course not!

But she is a content creator with a large and engaged audience. And while she’s definitely not leading with politics, she’s also not shying away from her progressive values.

Throughout our conversation, we discussed:

• How she got started (not that long ago!)
• The types of content that's working for her
• The difference in response she sees across platforms
• How she would start now, if she were starting from scratch
• Why she’s public about her values, despite working in a non-political space
• Why she’s comfortable losing followers to speak her truths
• And so much more

As Jess puts it:

“It’s a business decision, but it’s also just a values decision… I don’t feel that this is the time to be silent. Silence is complicit.”

Find links, a transcript and more at HelloMergeTag.com.

"Every newsroom, whether they acknowledge it or not, is values-driven. The choice to cover something or not cover something, the choice to use a word in a headline or not, is a statement on your values and your mission. We are just more transparent about it."

RC Di Mezzo is a Democratic digital strategist with a decade of experience building online brands that connect directly with voters.

As Vice President of Brand & Social at Courier, he led the 2023 launch of @Couriernewsroom—a social-first, values-driven progressive newsroom that became the fastest-growing news brand in the US, reaching over 100 million weekly views and generating more than 3 billion social views throughout the 2024 cycle.

Courier’s rapid growth—from 1.8 to over 5 million subscribers in a year—has positioned it as a benchmark for both legacy and emerging digital news outlets.

This episode is especially timely: a recent Reuters/Oxford report reveals that 54% of Americans now get their news from social media, surpassing TV’s 50% for the first time.

While the right has spent years building creator-driven narrative ecosystems, the left has lagged—Courier Newsroom has emerged as our leading response, creating shareable, social-first content built for group chats and feeds.

🎧 What we covered:

• How Courier built a digital-first content machine for today’s social audience
• Why editorial and digital teams must work in lockstep—no silos
• Why context outperforms clickbait
• Creating content in the app without fancy 3rd-party editing tools
• Balancing national messaging with state-level storytelling
• Lessons from successful campaigns—from Gavin Newsom to Kamala Harris
• Why campaigns should invest in digital early
• Which social platform is Courier’s fastest-growing (hint: it's not TikTok!)

Plus: RC’s tips for campaigns and creators building momentum from day one.

If you want to unlock the digital tactics that drove billions of views, this is your behind-the-scenes guide. 🎙️

Find links, full video of our conversation and more at HelloMergeTag.com.

"Sell the brownie, not the recipe... So instead of taking your public policy out in public and thinking that that is a message, which it is not, you talk about the outcome of your policy."

Anat Shenker-Osorio is a political strategist, messaging consultant, and communications researcher renowned for helping progressive campaigns win by using more effective language.

She is the founder of ASO Communications, a firm that specializes in crafting compelling narratives for progressive causes. Anat is also an author, podcast host, and one of the most respected messaging experts on the left.

Recently, she released a concise yet impactful glossary titled Fascism and the English Language—a guide on how we should (and shouldn’t) discuss the authoritarian threats facing our country.

I invited her on the podcast to delve into that piece and to help all of us become better, more strategic, and more disciplined communicators.

Throughout our conversation, we explored the what, how, and why of Free America.

We discussed values, villains, and vision. We examined the importance of focusing on shared values and avoiding "zombie writing."

Anat renamed the so-called "Big, Beautiful Bill" the "MAGA Murder Budget."

We emphasized the strategy of highlighting outcomes (the brownie!) rather than processes (the recipe).

Additionally, we reviewed messaging from elected officials, identifying posts that missed the mark and discussing how they could be rewritten to be more effective.

You can listen to the episode where you stream podcasts, or watch it in full on YouTube.

Find links, full transcript and more at HelloMergeTag.com.

"Democrats can absolutely win, even in the face of this flood of money from the right and every horrific tactic that the right wants to use."

Y’all know Ben Wikler. He’s currently the head of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin — a role he’s held since 2019.

Here’s a quick relevant fact for you: I live in Wisconsin and do a lot of work in Wisconsin politics. Back in 2018, I was hired by WisDems to help train their comms team on digital — because at the time, they literally didn’t have a single digital staffer. Ben came in shortly after and… let’s just say things changed real quick.

Before leading WisDems, Ben served as the Washington, DC Director and Senior Advisor for MoveOn. One of my favorite parts of his very long and impressive bio: as a student, he was recruited by Al Franken to help write Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them — a book that absolutely needs a second edition.

Ben’s done a lot of cool things to push the Democratic Party forward in innovative and important ways. But now, his tenure as chair is coming to an end — and I invited him on the pod to reflect on what he’s learned and what others can take away from the powerhouse digital program he helped build here in Wisconsin.

Throughout our conversation, we spoke about:

• How Ben’s feeling as he steps away — a mix of gratitude, fury, and hope
• How WisDems went from a minimal digital program to a national model
• What lessons he brought from MoveOn and Avaaz to shape that transformation
• The importance of building trust through your digital program
• The power of visual communication — if you can't reach voters who watching TV in a bar with the sound off, you have a problem
• What he’d do differently if he were starting from scratch today
• Who his biggest adversary was throughout his tenure leading the Democratic Party of Wisconsin
• Who he’s looking to for inspiration now
• Where he’s spending time online
• The diminishing, but still relevant, role Twitter plays for progressive orgs
• What he’d do now if he were running the DNC
• Where he’s excited to see WisDems go from here

You can find this full episode on YouTube, at HelloMergeTag.com or wherever you stream podcasts.

“Dark woke is Democrats breaking out of the respectability prison that Republicans have put us in for decades and finally saying shit and doing things that stop voters in their tracks and actually get their attention.”

Bhavik Lathia is a political strategist and technologist. He’s led campaigns in India, Australia, and the US, and supported activists around the world as they built and executed strategies superpowered by technology.

He recently served as Battleground Mobilization Director on the Harris-Walz campaign. Before that he was Senior Digital Director for WisDems. He helped lead the distributed organizing team on the Bernie 2020 campaign and served as Digital Director for Color Of Change.

This past month, he was one of several democratic strategists quoted in a New York Times piece on the idea of “Dark Woke.”

Throughout our conversation, we spoke about:

• The origins of “Dark Woke”
• What voters actually care about
• Why Republicans’ shamelessness is their superpower — and why we need to combat it
• Where Democrats got it right in 2024 — and where we got it wrong
• Why we need to keep pushing back on the right wing’s bad-faith attacks — and how to turn them into liabilities
• Why Democrats need edgier ways to talk to voters
• Why Senator Booker’s filibuster was more effective than most folks realize
• The role of podcasting in Democratic messaging (and who’s doing it well)
• Why our party needs to invest in and empower content creators who know how to speak directly to their audiences
• The power — and importance — of WhatsApp
• How WisDems thinks about winning State Supreme Court races and what we can learn from them
• How WisDems used Elon’s money against him during the SCOWIS race
• How technology has evolved in the industry — and why progressives must keep evolving with it
• Why everyone working in digital should focus on becoming a better writer
• And a whole lot more!

"Dark Woke is about Democrats doing and saying things that optimize for getting attention. We all want to drive our messages with voters and build narratives to help us win campaigns. But we can’t do any of that unless we first get the attention of voters. And Republicans have basically spent my entire life — the past few decades — investing in and optimizing for talents and topics that grab voters attention. And Democrats basically started caring about attention as a strategy on November 6th, 2024."

Find all episodes at HelloMergeTag.com or wherever you stream podcasts.

“What I’ve been most frustrated with politics is how impersonal it is and so we’re trying to make it accessible and personal again.”

Kat Abughazaleh is running for Congress, challenging long-time incumbent Jan Schakowsky in Illinois’ 9th District.

Needless to say, Kat doesn’t look like, sound or act like your typical candidate. Her announcement video led with the simple question: What if we didn’t suck?

She’s called on Democrats to “drop the excuses and grow a fucking spine,” and has made it clear she’s not interested in playing it safe while Donald Trump and Republicans steamroll the country. In her words: “while current Democratic leadership might be fine cowering to Trump, I’m not.”

One of my favorite parts of her digital program so far: her website lists anti-endorsements, which include personal attacks leveled against her from Elon Musk, Libs of TikTok and Tucker Carlson. Epic.

She’s also doing something I’ve never seen before from any political campaign: she’s prioritizing Bluesky—yes, Bluesky—as her primary platform. She’s not just hedging her bets on Twitter. She said during her launch, “I’m prioritizing Bluesky this election not only because it’s more ethical—but because it just makes sense.” Which is fascinating to me.

Throughout our conversation, we spoke about:

• Why she’s prioritizing Bluesky over the cesspool that is Twitter
• Features on Bluesky she’s really excited about
• What she wishes Democrats were doing with their social programs
• Why we need to give progressive content creators more room to be themselves
• How Fox News built its power on the bedrock of fear
• Why we need to focus on the “puncture” to help break folks out of the Fox News/rightwing media bubble
• How America should be fighting back against Elon Musk
• And a whole lot more!

”Republicans control the narrative because democrats often let them. They’re always reacting, and you can’t always be reacting. Otherwise, you’re letting them set the terms — you’re letting Republicans say this is what reality is.”

Find links and more episodes at HelloMergeTag.com.

“I’m constantly just enamored with the power that women have and do not use. And I just want to harness that and spread it.”

Kate Duffy is the founder of Motherhood for Good, a grassroots movement and independent media group dedicated to educating and empowering women so they can tap into their power—and use it for good. Through strategic content creation, community-driven advocacy, and real-world action, they help moms and women cut through the noise, stay informed, and make a meaningful impact in their communities and beyond.

Fun fact: Kate and I both recently appeared in a CNN piece about using social media to mobilize voters in Wisconsin.

We recorded this conversation just hours before the polls closed on an extremely important race. So at the time of our conversation, we didn't yet know the outcome. For those who missed it though, WE WON! Wisconsin rejected Elon Musk's money and elected Susan Crawford to the Wisconsin State Supreme Court.

Individual elections aside, Kate and I both agree: if we want to move people, we need to meet them where they are—and that means online.

Throughout our conversation, we spoke about:

• The issues she sees bringing people (especially moms) into the fold
• The importance of campaigns investing in content creators
• The untapped potential of moms, the "OG organizers"
• The value of "sitting in the suck"
• The importance of understanding just how fast the internet really is
• Why Democrats and progressives need to do a better job showing, not just telling
• And a whole lot more!

“[The internet] moves so fast, you just gotta keep going. You can’t be sitting there overthinking everything and putting things through a 4-person approval process. Just get out there — trust yourself to talk about what you want to talk about and put your message out there.”

Find links and more at hellomergetag.com.

“Unless you genuinely believe that elections should be up for sale to the highest bidder… I want you to realize that Elon Musk will be the highest bidder in any election that he wants to participate in.”

Evan Sutton is the founder of Firekit Campaigns, where he works with unions, Democrats and nonprofits to build powerful stories in today's fractured media landscape.

Before founding Firekit Campaigns, he worked as senior leadership at the American Federation of Teachers and the New Organizing Institute.

Evan started his career in politics and advocacy in 2007 as a field organizer on Barack Obama's campaign.

He recently wrote a piece for Melissa Ryan’s Control Alt-Right Delete called Make Tesla Toxic.

That piece will be linked in the show notes, along with his follow up from a few days later called “Not All Tesla Owners.”

Throughout our conversation, we discuss:

• Why Tesla is such a strong target
• How targeting Tesla can be an effective tactic in the fight against the company
• How actions against Tesla not only send a message but can also limit Elon Musk’s ability to influence future elections
• Lessons from the anti-smoking campaign that can be applied in taking on Tesla
• Why simply putting up anti-Elon stickers isn’t enough—and why people should consider divesting completely from Tesla
• Elon’s role in the upcoming Wisconsin State Supreme Court race
• A visualization of just how wealthy Elon really is
• Where digital organizing is taking place these days
• The importance of centering stories that truly impact people’s lives
• Who is excelling at digital organizing right now
• The response to Al Green and what Democrats should have done during the State of the Union
• Why now is the time for "Blood and Teeth Mode”
• And much more!

“Don’t get stuck in the sunk cost fallacy. If you think you’re underwater in your Tesla today… think about what your Tesla’s gonna be worth [in 6 months] and how hard it’s gonna be to offload… And if you own Tesla stock, get out while it’s still worth something.”

Listen to the full episode at HelloMergeTag.com or wherever you stream podcasts.