vox--2020-04-28--The editor of Taco Bell Quarterly explains how to make art out of a fast food brand

Move over , Paris Review .
The hot new literary mag on the scene is Taco Bell Quarterly , a magazine in which every single piece of writing is inspired by Taco Bell .
Unaffiliated with Taco Bell itself , Taco Bell Quarterly is perhaps the only place where writers can publish poetry about Taco Bell ’ s discontinued dessert menu , essays on the Crunchwrap Supreme and queer politics , and short stories about a skeleton cop who wants a spicy bean burrito .
It is , per its statement of purpose , “ a reaction against everything .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ hipsters .
Health food .
Artists Who Wear Cute Scarves .
Bitch-ass Wendy ’ s. ” Last week , I spoke over the phone with Taco Bell Quarterly ’ s Editor Grande Supreme , MM Carrigan .
We talked about why fast food is a powerful venue for art , how to deconstruct the parasocial relationships brands try to develop with us on Twitter , and what makes the Crunchwrap Supreme so delicious .
Highlights from our conversation follow , loosely edited for length and clarity .
So you ’ re the editor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me what that means .
We are the literary magazine for Taco Bell literature .
I also say celebrating the Taco Bell arts and letters .
We ’ re not a gimmick , we ’ re not a viral sensation .
We are real fiction , real essays , real poetry , real art , inspired by Taco Bell .
Generation X and millennials are very connected to brands .
We grew up in the ’ 80s .
It was the Reagan era .
There was the threat of nuclear war , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ divorced .
So we watched a lot of television .
We were fed by Taco Bell .
Nintendo was our best friend .
Our Teddy Ruxpin tucked us in at night .
We grew up as generations very connected to brands and commercials .
I think that ’ s the starting point for me : Taco Bell came to me .
It felt like a friend .
And what do you think the brand stands for that is interesting to you ?
You know , a couple years ago , Taco Bell had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whether there was horse meat in their food .
There was a lot of drama about what this mystery meat was .
And Taco Bell played into it .
They were like , “ Thank you for suing us.
” They ’ ve just always had this cool attitude .
They slather another layer of nacho cheese on their product and call it a new product .
There ’ s something about that that ’ s similar to writing , metaphorically .
When you ’ re trying something out , you can throw @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at a new angle , try some Reaper Ranch , and see what you get .
I felt like there was a lot to play around with , from the enduring metaphor of mystery meat to nacho cheese .
Do you see it as being related to the whole snackwave movement at all ?
I ’ m sorry , what was the question ?
Do you see Taco Bell Quarterly as being related to the snackwave aesthetic ?
Oh man !
So there was this article , I think in the Hairpin , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ] — I ’ ll have to read it !
That ’ s a new term for me .
It ’ s very , like , why everyone ’ s obsessed with putting slices of pizza on their fashion , etc .
Oh , I ’ ve never connected that , but that ’ s an interesting thought .
For me , I think about how we have these brands on Twitter that we talk to .
There was the whole Steak-umm being the voice of public health thing recently .
You can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nuts on Twitter , and they talk to you .
There ’ s an interconnection with wanting to be friends with brands on Twitter or writing literature about brands , or whatever the snackwave aesthetic is , I think that could all fit into this new subgenre of art .
And of course the critique you get with brands on Twitter is like , why are they trying to form a connection with us , isn ’ t that a little parasitic ?
We should remember that brands are not really our friends @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
How do you see that critique working with the art that you ’ re making ?
I see it as a reclaiming .
We ’ re of a generation that was saturated with commercialism .
We were sold action figures , bedsheets , fruit snacks .
We have a really close interconnection with these things .
Our memories and psyches are tied in with them .
So to claim them as our own , then : Capitalism built these brands and these towns and we ’ re populating them .
Give me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bell can look like at its best .
I ’ m here for the entire range of it .
A lot of people want to write a joking sonnet about the chalupa , or there ’ s other people who just want to write an extended poop joke .
I always get a chuckle out of those .
And then there ’ s other people for whom Taco Bell becomes white noise .
It takes place there , but there ’ s so much more going on in the piece , there ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , that it ’ s not really about Taco Bell .
It just happens to be Taco Bell adjacent .
Do you ever get submissions that aren ’ t about Taco Bell ?
I do .
And I enjoy them , and we may publish them eventually .
We ’ re on our third issue , and I ’ m just finding the response overwhelming .
So many people have their Taco Bell story to tell .
So I want to make sure that I tell all of those stories first before getting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And how has Taco Bell responded to all this ?
A lot of people were telling me , “ You ’ re gon na get a cease and desist , ” and I kind of worried about it .
But like I ’ ve said several times , I felt like , “ Taco Bell ’ s a friend of mine .
They would not betray me in that way.
” So I went ahead with it .
I just really didn ’ t think anything would happen .
And in fact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been really cool .
We ’ re going to work on some sort of collaboration .
I ’ m trying to get them to agree to the Taco Bell Endowment for the Arts .
I ’ m putting it out there into the world .
They haven ’ t agreed to it , they ’ re being a bit coy , I don ’ t think they necessarily want to fund literature , but that ’ s my grand wish .
I mean , Chipotle had those short story bags for a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Taco Bell could get behind that kind of endeavor .
I ’ ve been trying to start a beef with Chipotle on Twitter .
Because when they did that a couple years ago , they only published on their bag like 10 writers that were already megafamous .
I believe it was Toni Morrison and a few others ?
So writers that were published in the Paris Review could also be published on a trash bag .
But if you ’ re a nobody writer you couldn ’ t even make it to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of want to challenge that a little bit with Taco Bell Quarterly .
I kind of want the nobodies , the rejects , the slackers , the freaks .
That ’ s who we want to publish .
Very punk rock .
Does the Quarterly pay its writers ?
No , I ’ m super broke .
That ’ s why I ’ m trying to get the Taco Bell endowment .
Taco Bell is sending me free tacos , and I do think that we will be paying in honorarium tacos for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to do that with social distancing ?
Is it like a gift card ?
Yeah , they ’ re sending me gift cards and I ’ ll just mail them .
What ’ s your favorite thing on the Taco Bell menu ?
I ’ ve become a Crunchwrap Supreme convert .
I never had it before , but I got so many poetry pieces about it that I was like , “ Damn , I got ta try this thing.
” And now it ’ s the only thing I order .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ with it .
I ’ m like , “ You got ta try this Crunchwrap.
” It ’ s like a religious movement .
It was the place where we went on Friday nights to celebrate .
My mom would be like , “ I don ’ t feel like cooking tonight .
Let ’ s go to Taco Bell.
” It ’ s very much tied in with my nostalgia and psyche .
To not my surprise , it ’ s tied in with everyone else ’ s as well , because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ response .
So many writers .
Thousands .
And is there anything on the menu where you ’ re like , “ No , this is bad ” ?
I ’ m a vegetarian , so I do stay away from the mystery meat .
But nothing on the Taco Bell menu is bad .
That ’ s my official answer .
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Move over, Paris Review. The hot new literary mag on the scene is Taco Bell Quarterly, a magazine in which every single piece of writing is inspired by Taco Bell.
Unaffiliated with Taco Bell itself, Taco Bell Quarterly is perhaps the only place where writers can publish poetry about Taco Bell’s discontinued dessert menu, essays on the Crunchwrap Supreme and queer politics, and short stories about a skeleton cop who wants a spicy bean burrito. It is, per its statement of purpose, “a reaction against everything. The gatekeepers. The taste-makers. The hipsters. Health food. Artists Who Wear Cute Scarves. Bitch-ass Wendy’s.”
Last week, I spoke over the phone with Taco Bell Quarterly’s Editor Grande Supreme, MM Carrigan. We talked about why fast food is a powerful venue for art, how to deconstruct the parasocial relationships brands try to develop with us on Twitter, and what makes the Crunchwrap Supreme so delicious. Highlights from our conversation follow, loosely edited for length and clarity.
Constance Grady
So you’re the editor of Taco Bell Quarterly. Explain to me what that means.
MM Carrigan
We are the literary magazine for Taco Bell literature. I also say celebrating the Taco Bell arts and letters. We’re not a gimmick, we’re not a viral sensation. We are real fiction, real essays, real poetry, real art, inspired by Taco Bell.
Constance Grady
Why Taco Bell?
MM Carrigan
Generation X and millennials are very connected to brands. We grew up in the ’80s. It was the Reagan era. There was the threat of nuclear war, the AIDs crisis, all of our parents divorced. So we watched a lot of television. We were fed by Taco Bell. Nintendo was our best friend. Our Teddy Ruxpin tucked us in at night. We grew up as generations very connected to brands and commercials. I think that’s the starting point for me: Taco Bell came to me. It felt like a friend.
Constance Grady
And what do you think the brand stands for that is interesting to you?
MM Carrigan
You know, a couple years ago, Taco Bell had to deal with the big question of whether there was horse meat in their food. There was a lot of drama about what this mystery meat was. And Taco Bell played into it. They were like, “Thank you for suing us.”
They’ve just always had this cool attitude. They slather another layer of nacho cheese on their product and call it a new product. There’s something about that that’s similar to writing, metaphorically. When you’re trying something out, you can throw a new word in there, look at a new angle, try some Reaper Ranch, and see what you get. I felt like there was a lot to play around with, from the enduring metaphor of mystery meat to nacho cheese.
Constance Grady
Do you see it as being related to the whole snackwave movement at all?
MM Carrigan
I’m sorry, what was the question?
Constance Grady
Do you see Taco Bell Quarterly as being related to the snackwave aesthetic?
MM Carrigan
The snackwave aesthetic.
Constance Grady
Oh man! So there was this article, I think in the Hairpin, in like 2015 [it was 2014] —
MM Carrigan
I’ll have to read it! That’s a new term for me.
Constance Grady
It’s very, like, why everyone’s obsessed with putting slices of pizza on their fashion, etc.
MM Carrigan
Oh, I’ve never connected that, but that’s an interesting thought. For me, I think about how we have these brands on Twitter that we talk to. There was the whole Steak-umm being the voice of public health thing recently. You can be friends with Moon Pie or Corn Nuts on Twitter, and they talk to you. There’s an interconnection with wanting to be friends with brands on Twitter or writing literature about brands, or whatever the snackwave aesthetic is, I think that could all fit into this new subgenre of art.
Constance Grady
And of course the critique you get with brands on Twitter is like, why are they trying to form a connection with us, isn’t that a little parasitic? We should remember that brands are not really our friends but just trying to take our money. How do you see that critique working with the art that you’re making?
MM Carrigan
I see it as a reclaiming. We’re of a generation that was saturated with commercialism. We were sold action figures, bedsheets, fruit snacks. We have a really close interconnection with these things. Our memories and psyches are tied in with them. So to claim them as our own, then: Capitalism built these brands and these towns and we’re populating them.
Constance Grady
Give me an example of what writing about Taco Bell can look like at its best.
MM Carrigan
I’m here for the entire range of it. A lot of people want to write a joking sonnet about the chalupa, or there’s other people who just want to write an extended poop joke. I always get a chuckle out of those. And then there’s other people for whom Taco Bell becomes white noise. It takes place there, but there’s so much more going on in the piece, there’s so many different levels of it, that it’s not really about Taco Bell. It just happens to be Taco Bell adjacent.
Constance Grady
Do you ever get submissions that aren’t about Taco Bell?
MM Carrigan
I do. And I enjoy them, and we may publish them eventually. We’re on our third issue, and I’m just finding the response overwhelming. So many people have their Taco Bell story to tell. So I want to make sure that I tell all of those stories first before getting to all of the non-Taco Bell pieces.
Constance Grady
And how has Taco Bell responded to all this?
MM Carrigan
A lot of people were telling me, “You’re gonna get a cease and desist,” and I kind of worried about it. But like I’ve said several times, I felt like, “Taco Bell’s a friend of mine. They would not betray me in that way.” So I went ahead with it. I just really didn’t think anything would happen. And in fact, they reached out to me and have been really cool.
We’re going to work on some sort of collaboration. I’m trying to get them to agree to the Taco Bell Endowment for the Arts. I’m putting it out there into the world. They haven’t agreed to it, they’re being a bit coy, I don’t think they necessarily want to fund literature, but that’s my grand wish.
Constance Grady
I mean, Chipotle had those short story bags for a while, right? It seems like Taco Bell could get behind that kind of endeavor.
MM Carrigan
I’ve been trying to start a beef with Chipotle on Twitter. Because when they did that a couple years ago, they only published on their bag like 10 writers that were already megafamous. I believe it was Toni Morrison and a few others? So writers that were published in the Paris Review could also be published on a trash bag. But if you’re a nobody writer you couldn’t even make it to a fast food bag.
I kind of want to challenge that a little bit with Taco Bell Quarterly. I kind of want the nobodies, the rejects, the slackers, the freaks. That’s who we want to publish.
Constance Grady
Very punk rock. Does the Quarterly pay its writers?
MM Carrigan
No, I’m super broke. That’s why I’m trying to get the Taco Bell endowment. Taco Bell is sending me free tacos, and I do think that we will be paying in honorarium tacos for volume three.
Constance Grady
How are you going to do that with social distancing? Is it like a gift card?
MM Carrigan
Yeah, they’re sending me gift cards and I’ll just mail them.
Constance Grady
What’s your favorite thing on the Taco Bell menu?
MM Carrigan
I’ve become a Crunchwrap Supreme convert. I never had it before, but I got so many poetry pieces about it that I was like, “Damn, I gotta try this thing.” And now it’s the only thing I order. I even got my wife on board with it. I’m like, “You gotta try this Crunchwrap.” It’s like a religious movement.
Constance Grady
Earliest Taco Bell memory?
MM Carrigan
It was the place where we went on Friday nights to celebrate. My mom would be like, “I don’t feel like cooking tonight. Let’s go to Taco Bell.” It’s very much tied in with my nostalgia and psyche. To not my surprise, it’s tied in with everyone else’s as well, because I’m getting such an overwhelming response. So many writers. Thousands.
Constance Grady
And is there anything on the menu where you’re like, “No, this is bad”?
MM Carrigan
I’m a vegetarian, so I do stay away from the mystery meat. But nothing on the Taco Bell menu is bad. That’s my official answer.


vox--2020-04-28--“I don’t want to be a depressing drumbeat”: TV comedy legend Greg Daniels on his daring new shows

A new Greg Daniels show is an event in TV comedy .
After years spent writing for Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons , he co-created King of the Hill in 1997 , developed the American version of The Office in 2005 , and then co-created Parks and Recreation in 2009 .
He ’ s won many Emmys and Golden Globes , and it ’ s no exaggeration to say that his brand of comedy — gentle , but not without teeth when it comes to social and cultural issues — has helped shaped American TV in the 21st century @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Recreation wrapped , Daniels has not one but two new comedies coming out , both in May .
On May 1 , his show Upload premieres on Amazon .
It ’ s a near-future sci-fi comedy with a bit of a dramatic edge , set in a world where people who have died can have their consciousnesses downloaded into a “ digital afterlife , ” where they live on as avatars and can communicate with people back on Earth .
Those afterlives are owned and developed by corporations like “ Horizen ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” and Disney — and the afterlife you can afford is the one you get .
Robbie Amell plays Nathan , a young man who dies in a mysterious car crash and is uploaded to the fanciest of all afterlives , where he “ meets ” his customer service agent , Nora ( Andy Allo ) .
On May 29 , Daniels ’ s other new series , Space Force — co-created with and starring The Office ’ s Steve Carell — premieres on Netflix .
Also starring John Malkovich , Ben Schwartz @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( and a bevy of boldface names as guest stars ) , the show is the tale of Mark Naird , an Air Force general who believes he ’ s gotten the promotion of his life when he ’ s appointed head of the newly created Space Force .
Soon , though , he realizes that he ’ s landed himself squarely in hell .
I talked to Daniels by phone about the two shows , afterlives in sitcoms , how he thinks about politics in comedy , and more .
Our conversation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ length and clarity , follows .
Quite a few recent TV shows deal with the afterlife or digitized versions of the self — I ’ m thinking of shows like The Good Place , Westworld , and Devs , for instance .
What feels different about Upload is how it envisions the afterlife .
It posits a world where capitalism has figured out how to colonize not just life , but life after death , and turn it from a meritocracy into a world that ’ s segregated according to income .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Upload for a while .
Was the income-based afterlife an element from the beginning ?
That was the nugget that I first had , actually .
I was trying to think of sketch ideas for SNL when I was a writer there .
This was how long ago it was .
[ Note : Daniels worked on the writing staff of Saturday Night Live from 1987 to 1990 . ]
I was walking around midtown Manhattan , past all those electronics stores next to Rockefeller Center .
They were all advertising CD @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I was trying think of a comedy sketch , so I was thinking , “ What else could you digitize ?
What other things in life would it be ridiculous to digitize ?
” And I was like , well , the ultimate would be your own mind — where everybody ’ s digitizing and living in a hosted computer environment , or something .
Then I was like , well , if we could do that , that would mean people would be able to create their own afterlife and program @ @ @ @ @ @ @ faith were .
We would have an afterlife , but human beings would have made it , so it would have all these greedy aspects that are more like the Catholic Church in the 1400s , where you can buy an indulgence .
To me , that was the hook of the idea .
It didn ’ t feel like a sketch , so I left it in my notebook .
I had aspirations to write something in prose , so periodically I ’ d go back to that idea and write various @ @ @ @ @ @ @ TV writers ’ strike of 2008 , I was trying to put it together , like a Harry Potter-ish book .
But then the strike ended .
I ’ m glad that I waited , because I think it would ’ ve been more of a straight sci-fi idea back when I [ first ] had it .
I think it would have also had a smaller , nerdier audience .
All of these other projects that have come since then have helped explain the premise of digitizing yourself [ to audiences ] @ @ @ @ @ @ @ giant tech companies that have Siri and Alexa and Google Assistant — it ’ s not an enormous jump to imagine that if they did have this [ afterlife ] technology , that six giant tech companies would be running it for profit .
Everybody has had the experience of having to agree to a Terms of Service update that ’ s 700 pages long and in tiny print .
You just go , “ Ugh , okay , I agree , ” and you don ’ t realize that you ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That ’ s a relatable experience now .
I think there ’ s a lot of optimism about technology , in the sense that virtual reality is probably how we ’ re gon na connect a lot in the future .
And thank goodness we ’ re able to videoconference and be connected by the technology .
But I also think that it exacerbates the difference between employees and owners , because it just makes it so easy to replace human beings with a little piece of software .
There ’ s a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it felt like now , more than ever , it would be a relevant idea .
It was pretty weird to watch Upload after being mostly stuck at home for the past six weeks , having been connecting with people only through screens .
There are whole sections of the show where “ bio ” people and “ uploads ” are only able to talk through screens , and everyone just accepts it as normal — like when Nathan attends his own funeral and can talk to everyone there as if he ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s an enormous screen between them .
It actually made me think a lot of Spike Jonze ’ s 2013 movie Her , where Joaquin Phoenix has a full-fledged relationship with an intelligent being that ’ s kind of “ inside ” a computer .
Totally .
That was one of my inspirations in terms of tone .
I love that movie .
It ’ s one of my favorites .
I also loved Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , in terms of another tonal influence .
The funny thing about Her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s set in a dystopian world , but nobody in that world seems to know that .
We always imagine that dystopias will be dark and weird and scary .
But you ’ ve got the same thing happening in the “ real world ” of Upload .
One of the main characters , Nora , who works as a customer service representative for an afterlife run by a major tech company , is growing vegetables outside her apartment window , and it ’ s not just a hobby — we realize @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because vegetables are getting too expensive .
There was a scene that I had in one of the episodes , but I had to cut it for time .
Nora goes down an alley to hand some money over to a sketchy-looking guy who gives her a brown paper bag .
It looks like a drug buy , but actually she ’ s buying a green pepper that was homegrown .
She eats the green pepper , and then a police drone stops her and asks her whether that was an approved Monsanto @ @ @ @ @ @ @ finds out it isn ’ t , it irradiates the seeds of the green pepper to kill them so she can ’ t grow her own .
I told the crew that I don ’ t consider this a dystopia , and I don ’ t consider it a utopia .
I consider it a middle-topia , in the sense that , to me , when you look at anything in life that has lots of promise , the law of unintended consequences and human error always comes into play .
To me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would play out .
Someone very optimistically invents this way for us to stay in contact with our family for hundreds of years after we die .
Everybody loves the promise of it .
Then it turns into an unfair way for billionaires to persist forever and big companies to charge you all the time .
But it ’ s comedy , right ?
I don ’ t want to be a depressing drumbeat .
But when you think about the show , there ’ s a lot to give you pause , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a chord for me was the way corporate sponsorship of everything has truly taken over in their world .
You have some ludicrous company mergers , like Panera and Facebook , that then have their own afterlife to sell .
I like the idea that somehow or another , Panera has this very ambitious executive crew , and they ’ re buying way bigger companies in the future and rolling them up .
In their world , everyone gets rated all the time too , in all kinds of contexts , from work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , though we mostly think about it in terms of rating the job your Uber driver does here in the US , people are being rated on a much broader set of criteria elsewhere , as in China ’ s social credit system .
Isn ’ t that crazy ?
China did this after I had it in my script .
I thought , well , everybody ’ s on Tinder , and it ’ s led to sort of a transactional , somewhat dehumanizing set of interactions .
How would you exaggerate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Well , maybe after every one-night stand , you have to get ranked like an Uber driver and rated .
That was the comedy premise , and then to find out that China ’ s doing it was crazy .
That happened with the vaping too .
I had a joke in the pilot that Nora ’ s dad had turned to vaping to be healthier than cigarette smoking , and then vaping turns out to be worse .
When I wrote it , vaping was considered a healthy alternative to cigarette smoking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a year after we shot [ the pilot ] that there was a mysterious disease caused by vaping .
That ’ s one of the possible drawbacks of setting something in the future : The present keeps changing .
The backstory on one character , Luke , was that he was a veteran from the war with Iran .
That was just supposed to be a joke , and then in the beginning of this year it looked like , wait , we might be actually getting in a war with Iran .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ve set both Upload and Space Force in the very near future .
That ’ s not the only way they ’ re similar , at least for me .
I have this theory that all sitcoms happen in an afterlife where the characters are stuck together , either in purgatory or hell , and they just don ’ t know it .
Obviously that ’ s true in Upload , but when I started watching Space Force ... What did you think about Carell ’ s character in Space Force ?
Which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think he starts out thinking he ’ s about to get out of purgatory , but then discovers he ’ s landed himself square in hell — the Jean-Paul Sartre version of hell , where he ’ s been trapped with other people specially selected to drive him nuts by a vengeful god we never see , because that god is the president .
This whole afterlife theory is obviously my own specific , weird idea .
But I always felt like The Office was just people trapped together in purgatory , trying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ used to say that The Office was like Hogan ’ s Heroes .
It was people in a prison camp who are just trying to be decent to each other .
That ’ s exactly the same analysis .
One thing that struck me about Space Force is how pointedly political it feels .
There are characters whose names and looks are barely veiled versions of our reality , with characters who seem drawn from everyone from Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Anthony Scaramucci .
Obviously Parks and Recreation has some political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strikes a more satirical tone .
You know , the show that I ’ ve done in the past that it reminds me the most of is actually King of the Hill .
The lead character is on the more conservative side .
I think the challenge is to portray his point of view in such a way that people who share his point of view feel that they ’ re being accurately given some airtime and respected .
[ With Space Force , ] it ’ s not our intention to go @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Steve and I both have relatives in the military .
We have a lot of respect for all the positives that our relatives have .
I think it ’ s about this military guy , who ’ s very much about service and sacrifice , [ who ] is being squeezed between politicians who are really anxious to get on the moon as fast as possible in a kind of neocolonialist scramble , and scientists who don ’ t necessarily agree with the aims of the program and are hard to understand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s character ] Mark Naird , he ’ s trying his best .
There ’ s so much that ’ s positive in America ’ s history with space .
If we had one beautiful , shining moment , it might be the Apollo program , where the entire world was watching us step on the moon .
The quote was that it was “ a giant leap for mankind.
” We were leading .
We had a sense that we were all in it together as human beings .
I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s just not our country , it ’ s all over the world — is more the rising nationalism taking place , and contrasting [ those ] early days of space exploration , where the whole world was watching .
Obviously , there was competition with the Soviet Union , but the rest of the world was watching and feeling proud of American astronauts .
Now it seems like the notion is to get actual soldiers on the moon and have a moon base , with guns .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ’ m not saying that it ’ s crazy to have to protect our satellites , or whatever .
The more research that we did into it , the more it didn ’ t feel like the problem was all in the heads of people in the United States , because there ’ s people in Russia and China and elsewhere scrambling to get up there .
I think the show ’ s feeling is more that it ’ s too bad we ’ re now in this new phase [ of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t about doing it for all mankind .
The show also sets up a conflict between the scientists , the military , and outside political interests .
That feels like a smart diagnosis of why things like protecting assets in space go so awry , or how politicians can co-opt legitimate national interests for their own ends .
We ’ re not good at explaining anything that could be for the common good outside the terms of politics anymore .
The country ’ s so divided .
I think King of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it was meant to be something that everybody could watch and think about the divisions and get past them , find places of common ground .
So I don ’ t know .
Space Force is supposed to be entertainment .
It ’ s supposed to be open for everybody .
I think there ’ s an expectation that because it ’ s about the “ space force , ” the show will just be relentless mockery .
That ’ s not what we ’ re up to .
Who knows ?
Maybe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t enough mockery .
I don ’ t know .
Could be .
The satire feels sharp in places .
But in the third episode , it also presented the first case for a “ space force ” that made me think , “ Oh , now I get what the point of this branch of the military would be for.
” I think that ’ s kind of the message , right ?
Naird is a good-hearted person .
He ’ s trying his best .
He ’ s got ideals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He ’ s being put into this situation where it ’ s very challenging to maintain his ideals .
It ’ s not for me to say what the show ’ s about — that ’ s for critics to say .
But our intention is to not be all one-sided on it .
One last question : In one Space Force episode , Naird and some of the others are mimicking what it would be like to live on a moon base .
They ’ re stuck in a small space , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exercise , and it felt awfully familiar to what we ’ re living through right now .
How do you feel about that episode now ?
That ’ s so funny .
I actually got a bag of seed potatoes to plant in my backyard in case everything goes to hell .
But that episode was partly inspired by the movie The Martian .
I haven ’ t done my own research , so if it ’ s inaccurate , if you actually can ’ t live for months on potatoes , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lot of trouble .
But I am starting to plant potatoes .
Upload premieres on Amazon Prime Video on May 1 .
Space Force premieres on Netflix on May 29 .
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A new Greg Daniels show is an event in TV comedy. After years spent writing for Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons, he co-created King of the Hill in 1997, developed the American version of The Office in 2005, and then co-created Parks and Recreation in 2009. He’s won many Emmys and Golden Globes, and it’s no exaggeration to say that his brand of comedy — gentle, but not without teeth when it comes to social and cultural issues — has helped shaped American TV in the 21st century.
Now, five years after Parks and Recreation wrapped, Daniels has not one but two new comedies coming out, both in May. On May 1, his show Upload premieres on Amazon. It’s a near-future sci-fi comedy with a bit of a dramatic edge, set in a world where people who have died can have their consciousnesses downloaded into a “digital afterlife,” where they live on as avatars and can communicate with people back on Earth. Those afterlives are owned and developed by corporations like “Horizen” and “AT&T&T” and Disney — and the afterlife you can afford is the one you get. Robbie Amell plays Nathan, a young man who dies in a mysterious car crash and is uploaded to the fanciest of all afterlives, where he “meets” his customer service agent, Nora (Andy Allo).
On May 29, Daniels’s other new series, Space Force — co-created with and starring The Office’s Steve Carell — premieres on Netflix. Also starring John Malkovich, Ben Schwartz, Diana Silvers, and Tawny Newsome (and a bevy of boldface names as guest stars), the show is the tale of Mark Naird, an Air Force general who believes he’s gotten the promotion of his life when he’s appointed head of the newly created Space Force. Soon, though, he realizes that he’s landed himself squarely in hell.
I talked to Daniels by phone about the two shows, afterlives in sitcoms, how he thinks about politics in comedy, and more. Our conversation, which has been lightly edited for length and clarity, follows.
Alissa Wilkinson
Quite a few recent TV shows deal with the afterlife or digitized versions of the self — I’m thinking of shows like The Good Place, Westworld, and Devs, for instance. What feels different about Upload is how it envisions the afterlife. It posits a world where capitalism has figured out how to colonize not just life, but life after death, and turn it from a meritocracy into a world that’s segregated according to income.
I know you were working on the idea for Upload for a while. Was the income-based afterlife an element from the beginning?
Greg Daniels
That was the nugget that I first had, actually. I was trying to think of sketch ideas for SNL when I was a writer there. This was how long ago it was. [Note: Daniels worked on the writing staff of Saturday Night Live from 1987 to 1990.]
I was walking around midtown Manhattan, past all those electronics stores next to Rockefeller Center. They were all advertising CD players, switching to digital from analog. I was trying think of a comedy sketch, so I was thinking, “What else could you digitize? What other things in life would it be ridiculous to digitize?” And I was like, well, the ultimate would be your own mind — where everybody’s digitizing and living in a hosted computer environment, or something.
Then I was like, well, if we could do that, that would mean people would be able to create their own afterlife and program it to whatever the tenets of their faith were. We would have an afterlife, but human beings would have made it, so it would have all these greedy aspects that are more like the Catholic Church in the 1400s, where you can buy an indulgence.
To me, that was the hook of the idea. It didn’t feel like a sketch, so I left it in my notebook. I had aspirations to write something in prose, so periodically I’d go back to that idea and write various prose scenes for it. In the TV writers’ strike of 2008, I was trying to put it together, like a Harry Potter-ish book. But then the strike ended.
I’m glad that I waited, because I think it would’ve been more of a straight sci-fi idea back when I [first] had it. I think it would have also had a smaller, nerdier audience. All of these other projects that have come since then have helped explain the premise of digitizing yourself [to audiences]. And now, we have these giant tech companies that have Siri and Alexa and Google Assistant — it’s not an enormous jump to imagine that if they did have this [afterlife] technology, that six giant tech companies would be running it for profit. Everybody has had the experience of having to agree to a Terms of Service update that’s 700 pages long and in tiny print. You just go, “Ugh, okay, I agree,” and you don’t realize that you’re signing away your privacy or whatever. That’s a relatable experience now.
I think there’s a lot of optimism about technology, in the sense that virtual reality is probably how we’re gonna connect a lot in the future. And thank goodness we’re able to videoconference and be connected by the technology. But I also think that it exacerbates the difference between employees and owners, because it just makes it so easy to replace human beings with a little piece of software. There’s a lot of economic dislocation happening.
So it felt like now, more than ever, it would be a relevant idea.
Alissa Wilkinson
It was pretty weird to watch Upload after being mostly stuck at home for the past six weeks, having been connecting with people only through screens. There are whole sections of the show where “bio” people and “uploads” are only able to talk through screens, and everyone just accepts it as normal — like when Nathan attends his own funeral and can talk to everyone there as if he’s in attendance, except there’s an enormous screen between them.
It actually made me think a lot of Spike Jonze’s 2013 movie Her, where Joaquin Phoenix has a full-fledged relationship with an intelligent being that’s kind of “inside” a computer.
Greg Daniels
Totally. That was one of my inspirations in terms of tone. I love that movie. It’s one of my favorites. I also loved Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in terms of another tonal influence.
Alissa Wilkinson
The funny thing about Her, to me, is that it’s set in a dystopian world, but nobody in that world seems to know that.
Greg Daniels
Yeah!
Alissa Wilkinson
We always imagine that dystopias will be dark and weird and scary. But you’ve got the same thing happening in the “real world” of Upload. One of the main characters, Nora, who works as a customer service representative for an afterlife run by a major tech company, is growing vegetables outside her apartment window, and it’s not just a hobby — we realize she needs them for sustenance, presumably because vegetables are getting too expensive.
Greg Daniels
There was a scene that I had in one of the episodes, but I had to cut it for time. Nora goes down an alley to hand some money over to a sketchy-looking guy who gives her a brown paper bag. It looks like a drug buy, but actually she’s buying a green pepper that was homegrown. She eats the green pepper, and then a police drone stops her and asks her whether that was an approved Monsanto green pepper. When the police drone finds out it isn’t, it irradiates the seeds of the green pepper to kill them so she can’t grow her own.
I told the crew that I don’t consider this a dystopia, and I don’t consider it a utopia. I consider it a middle-topia, in the sense that, to me, when you look at anything in life that has lots of promise, the law of unintended consequences and human error always comes into play. To me, that’s how this scenario would play out. Someone very optimistically invents this way for us to stay in contact with our family for hundreds of years after we die. Everybody loves the promise of it. Then it turns into an unfair way for billionaires to persist forever and big companies to charge you all the time.
But it’s comedy, right? I don’t want to be a depressing drumbeat. But when you think about the show, there’s a lot to give you pause, for sure.
Alissa Wilkinson
One thing that struck a chord for me was the way corporate sponsorship of everything has truly taken over in their world. You have some ludicrous company mergers, like Panera and Facebook, that then have their own afterlife to sell.
Greg Daniels
I like the idea that somehow or another, Panera has this very ambitious executive crew, and they’re buying way bigger companies in the future and rolling them up.
Alissa Wilkinson
In their world, everyone gets rated all the time too, in all kinds of contexts, from work to casual sexual encounters. And obviously, though we mostly think about it in terms of rating the job your Uber driver does here in the US, people are being rated on a much broader set of criteria elsewhere, as in China’s social credit system.
Greg Daniels
Isn’t that crazy? China did this after I had it in my script. I thought, well, everybody’s on Tinder, and it’s led to sort of a transactional, somewhat dehumanizing set of interactions. How would you exaggerate that [for the show]? Well, maybe after every one-night stand, you have to get ranked like an Uber driver and rated. That was the comedy premise, and then to find out that China’s doing it was crazy.
That happened with the vaping too. I had a joke in the pilot that Nora’s dad had turned to vaping to be healthier than cigarette smoking, and then vaping turns out to be worse. When I wrote it, vaping was considered a healthy alternative to cigarette smoking. Then all this information came out a year after we shot [the pilot] that there was a mysterious disease caused by vaping.
That’s one of the possible drawbacks of setting something in the future: The present keeps changing. The backstory on one character, Luke, was that he was a veteran from the war with Iran. That was just supposed to be a joke, and then in the beginning of this year it looked like, wait, we might be actually getting in a war with Iran.
Alissa Wilkinson
It’s interesting that you’ve set both Upload and Space Force in the very near future. That’s not the only way they’re similar, at least for me. I have this theory that all sitcoms happen in an afterlife where the characters are stuck together, either in purgatory or hell, and they just don’t know it. Obviously that’s true in Upload, but when I started watching Space Force ...
Greg Daniels
What did you think about Carell’s character in Space Force? Which one would he be in?
Alissa Wilkinson
I think he starts out thinking he’s about to get out of purgatory, but then discovers he’s landed himself square in hell — the Jean-Paul Sartre version of hell, where he’s been trapped with other people specially selected to drive him nuts by a vengeful god we never see, because that god is the president.
This whole afterlife theory is obviously my own specific, weird idea. But I always felt like The Office was just people trapped together in purgatory, trying to work out their salvation.
Greg Daniels
I used to say that The Office was like Hogan’s Heroes. It was people in a prison camp who are just trying to be decent to each other. That’s exactly the same analysis.
Alissa Wilkinson
One thing that struck me about Space Force is how pointedly political it feels. There are characters whose names and looks are barely veiled versions of our reality, with characters who seem drawn from everyone from Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Anthony Scaramucci. Obviously Parks and Recreation has some political elements as well, but this one strikes a more satirical tone.
Greg Daniels
You know, the show that I’ve done in the past that it reminds me the most of is actually King of the Hill. The lead character is on the more conservative side. I think the challenge is to portray his point of view in such a way that people who share his point of view feel that they’re being accurately given some airtime and respected.
[With Space Force,] it’s not our intention to go all-out and poke fun at the military. Steve and I both have relatives in the military. We have a lot of respect for all the positives that our relatives have. I think it’s about this military guy, who’s very much about service and sacrifice, [who] is being squeezed between politicians who are really anxious to get on the moon as fast as possible in a kind of neocolonialist scramble, and scientists who don’t necessarily agree with the aims of the program and are hard to understand. So a guy like [Carell’s character] Mark Naird, he’s trying his best.
There’s so much that’s positive in America’s history with space. If we had one beautiful, shining moment, it might be the Apollo program, where the entire world was watching us step on the moon. The quote was that it was “a giant leap for mankind.” We were leading. We had a sense that we were all in it together as human beings.
I think the object of our satire — and it’s just not our country, it’s all over the world — is more the rising nationalism taking place, and contrasting [those] early days of space exploration, where the whole world was watching. Obviously, there was competition with the Soviet Union, but the rest of the world was watching and feeling proud of American astronauts.
Now it seems like the notion is to get actual soldiers on the moon and have a moon base, with guns. It’s got a different feel to it.
I’m not saying that it’s crazy to have to protect our satellites, or whatever. The more research that we did into it, the more it didn’t feel like the problem was all in the heads of people in the United States, because there’s people in Russia and China and elsewhere scrambling to get up there. I think the show’s feeling is more that it’s too bad we’re now in this new phase [of space exploration], where it isn’t about doing it for all mankind.
Alissa Wilkinson
The show also sets up a conflict between the scientists, the military, and outside political interests. That feels like a smart diagnosis of why things like protecting assets in space go so awry, or how politicians can co-opt legitimate national interests for their own ends. We’re not good at explaining anything that could be for the common good outside the terms of politics anymore.
Greg Daniels
The country’s so divided. I think King of the Hill was about the divisions, but it was meant to be something that everybody could watch and think about the divisions and get past them, find places of common ground. So I don’t know. Space Force is supposed to be entertainment. It’s supposed to be open for everybody.
I think there’s an expectation that because it’s about the “space force,” the show will just be relentless mockery. That’s not what we’re up to. Who knows? Maybe people will be upset that there isn’t enough mockery. I don’t know. Could be.
Alissa Wilkinson
The satire feels sharp in places. But in the third episode, it also presented the first case for a “space force” that made me think, “Oh, now I get what the point of this branch of the military would be for.”
Greg Daniels
I think that’s kind of the message, right? Naird is a good-hearted person. He’s trying his best. He’s got ideals that are sort of classically American. He’s being put into this situation where it’s very challenging to maintain his ideals.
It’s not for me to say what the show’s about — that’s for critics to say. But our intention is to not be all one-sided on it.
Alissa Wilkinson
One last question: In one Space Force episode, Naird and some of the others are mimicking what it would be like to live on a moon base. They’re stuck in a small space, growing potatoes, running in circles for exercise, and it felt awfully familiar to what we’re living through right now. How do you feel about that episode now?
Greg Daniels
That’s so funny. I actually got a bag of seed potatoes to plant in my backyard in case everything goes to hell. But that episode was partly inspired by the movie The Martian.
Alissa Wilkinson
I figured.
Greg Daniels
I haven’t done my own research, so if it’s inaccurate, if you actually can’t live for months on potatoes, I’m going to be in a lot of trouble. But I am starting to plant potatoes.
Upload premieres on Amazon Prime Video on May 1. Space Force premieres on Netflix on May 29.


vox--2020-04-28--One of America’s key voting rights groups plunged into chaos when it was needed most

How one of America ’ s most important voting rights groups plunged into chaos just before it was needed most Share All sharing options for : How one of America ’ s most important voting rights groups plunged into chaos just before it was needed most A voting rights group called Vote.org seems like precisely the type of nonprofit that should thrive in 2020 , with fans from Barack Obama to Taylor Swift and a URL that can ’ t be beat .
Its efforts to expand vote-by-mail — during an election year when more Americans are likely to do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only make it more essential .
But the organization , which has established itself as one of the country ’ s most important civic engagement groups thanks to its research on how to turn out voters with absentee ballots and for its work to help defeat Alabama ’ s Roy Moore in 2017 , has been derailed in recent months by an ugly internal drama featuring several of Silicon Valley ’ s most powerful personalities .
Last summer , Vote.org ’ s board fired founder Debra Cleaver and replaced her with one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That presaged a bitter months-long war between Cleaver ’ s donors and her former board , and in its aftermath , at least three of Vote.org ’ s potential partnerships crumbled , millions in expected contributions fell through , and a series of embarrassing missteps tarnished the nonprofit ’ s brand .
Recode ’ s interviews with more than two dozen people , including Vote.org ’ s major donors , partners , and former board members and employees , along with two legal complaints submitted to the California attorney general , paint a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ arrested in development .
And it couldn ’ t have come at a worse time : Now that the coronavirus pandemic is likely to stress test the American election system — with voters waiting in five-hour lines in Wisconsin during the pandemic this month , for instance — the work of organizations like Vote.org , which says it “ plans to turn out more than 5 million low-propensity voters ” in 2020 , is more important than ever .
“ If Vote.org were a public company , the shareholders would have voted the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t have been close , ” said Adam Goldstein , a past Vote.org donor who canceled a $ 1 million pledge to the group that had been in his will .
“ If Vote.org were a public company , the shareholders would have voted the board out — and it wouldn ’ t have been close ” As you ’ d expect with an acrimonious split , both sides in the fight are pointing fingers .
Defenders of the board told Recode that the fallout is Cleaver ’ s fault and that she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ havoc by refusing to leave her post quietly , and trash-talked the group to its partners so they cut ties .
Vote.org declined to comment on any specific reporting that Recode presented .
Instead , it pointed Recode to data , such as that it had registered 550,000 new voters in 2020 and had helped about 500,000 voters request an absentee ballot .
It also noted that it had created a website with resources on how to vote during the pandemic .
But no matter who is to blame , the mess has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ execute its mission .
No one interviewed for this story , even those close to the board , thinks the nonprofit has fully recovered from the chaos .
And experts worry that the saga could stifle efforts to make voting easier for people during an unprecedented election and pandemic .
For all the rancor that has divided Cleaver and her former board , everyone on all sides could agree on this : A weaker Vote.org is bad for American elections .
“ Startups and board drama are nothing new , ” Sam Altman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who has been among the Silicon Valley celebrities trying to outfox the board over the last year , told Recode .
“ But it ’ s a real shame when it sets back democracy.
” After Vote.org ’ s board voted to fire Cleaver last summer , the organization suffered what one donor called an “ organizational shock ” that negatively impacted its partnerships , its bank account , and its brand .
Cleaver had used her cult of personality to found a clearinghouse for absentee ballot information in 2008 that would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ everyone from her former college classmates to fellow activists from her decade in the voting rights trenches .
But if you live by a cult of personality , you die by a cult of personality — and when Cleaver left , many partners and donors did , too .
“ Startups and board drama are nothing new .
But it ’ s a real shame when it sets back democracy.
” “ It ’ s a shame because what we ’ re seeing right now is total chaos .
And these two vectors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and our really high liability that we can ’ t run elections — those two things are colliding in a way that no one is ready for , ” Dan McSwain , a political operative and a former board member at Vote.org who left as Cleaver crafted an all-female board , told Recode .
“ It ’ s a shame that an organization with so much momentum behind it seems to have spent a year of its life wading through something that , as far as I can tell , seems self-inflicted.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ was one Cleaver had planned with MTV ’ s parent company ViacomCBS , which would ’ ve included billboards in Times Square advertising her group , along with hosting a new youth-focused voter registration push called +1 The Vote .
Cleaver had a personal relationship with the head of Viacom ’ s election programming ; immediately after her ouster , Viacom pulled out of the not-yet-finalized deal and instead struck a similar agreement with a Vote.org rival , TurboVote , according to people with knowledge of the matter .
And two other high-profile @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recent cycles to turn out low-propensity voters , the Voter Participation Center and the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund , are no longer currently planning to sign up to work with Vote.org on voter-turnout projects after Cleaver ’ s departure , according to people familiar with the matter .
Board defenders downplayed these losses to Recode , saying that while they lost Cleaver ’ s network , other partnerships are now more possible without Cleaver , such as recently announced ones with the NAACP Youth and College Division and the Transformative Justice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund were historically among Vote.org ’ s most important partners and were key parts of its celebrated research program .
Research accounted for about half of Vote.org ’ s total spending in 2017 , the most recent year of available tax records .
That year , the Voter Participation Center and Vote.org ran an experiment in Alabama to assess how text messages and mailers together could turn out black voters .
The next year , in 2018 , the League of Conservation Voters spent over $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ million texts to young voters and people of color .
While Vote.org still occupies a prized URL that registers already-likely voters who intentionally seek information about elections , critics say it no longer appears to be prioritizing the grunt work of researching and activating unlikely voters .
For instance , despite the nonprofit ’ s plans to use the 2020 primary season to test the effectiveness of various get-out-the-vote strategies , such as using texting to encourage voting-by-mail , Vote.org did not end up performing any research on ways to engage these low-propensity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ according to people familiar with the matter .
The group ’ s longtime research head , a college friend of Cleaver , stopped working with Vote.org after Cleaver ’ s firing .
The group just didn ’ t have the money to do that expensive research , people close to it said .
That ’ s another way Vote.org suffered after Cleaver left : financially .
Multiple political advisers to major Silicon Valley donors told Recode that Vote.org has suffered serious reputational damage and that they are recommending their clients give money elsewhere @ @ @ @ @ @ @ major supporters , including LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman , venture capitalist Ron Conway , and Altman , are no longer advising their networks to support the organization , sources say .
And in a letter in September that urged Vote.org ’ s board to reconsider Cleaver ’ s ouster , donors who claimed their donations and pledges accounted for 60 percent of the group ’ s funding warned that they would no longer back Vote.org if she wasn ’ t reinstated .
“ Vote.org was the Silicon Valley group , ” said one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sees errors on all sides .
“ When you ’ ve pissed off all the Silicon Valley donors with the way you handled the transition … you lose your Silicon Valley base of funders .
I think they can stay stable , but they can ’ t run the scale of the program that she had planned.
” The group had about $ 2 million remaining in the bank at the end of 2019 , according to a person briefed on the figures , which is $ 1 million less than what tax @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the end of 2017 .
Vote.org ’ s new CEO , Andrea Hailey , was telling people late last year that it was operating on a shoestring budget , although its board members are now said to be personally financing the nonprofit more .
Some people close to the board concede that the group has lost its base of Silicon Valley donors , but they say it is focusing on grassroots donors and that Cleaver ’ s ouster has improved relations with more traditional funders , like foundations : “ One door closed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ person said .
( No major gifts have been announced publicly . )
But perhaps the most important consequences have been a series of missteps in Vote.org ’ s public-facing work that have harmed its most critical asset : its reputation .
Text messages sent to voters in Wisconsin this month made no mention of the explosive voting rights fight waging during the coronavirus and encouraged them to vote on Election Day .
That angered some Wisconsin leaders who were seeking to delay voting altogether , Recode is told .
And then there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ advertised the wrong date for Election Day on 16 billboards in parts of Mississippi with large black populations last November , a gaffe that angered its principal partner in the state and triggered a round of damaging headlines .
The error on the billboards wasn ’ t entirely Vote.org ’ s fault , but a vendor ’ s .
Nevertheless , it was deeply embarrassing for the organization , and some people believe it wouldn ’ t have unfolded the same way with Cleaver .
“ We understood the mistake to be a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our voters .
However , the backwash and reality of all this is that folks were still confused and there was never any formal apology made to the communities most impacted by the mistake , ” Arekia Bennett , the head of Mississippi Votes , Vote.org ’ s partner , told Recode .
“ MS Votes reached out for a debrief post-election and never got one .
Recently Vote.org has reached out , but we are wary and not sure how or if we want to engage.
” There ’ s also been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s inherent to losing Cleaver , who is a minor icon in civic circles and has been inextricably linked to Vote.org for a decade , for better or worse .
So one of the biggest concerns that even relatively neutral observers voiced is that the brand of Vote.org has been damaged by her firing , which has been widely gossiped about in voter-registration circles .
Some of this brand damage is due , no doubt , to Cleaver herself , who has been more than willing to tell everyone from billionaires to her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as when she bashed them for cutting off her health insurance and telling her Facebook audience that she had “ one hell of a story coming.
” Critics say that Cleaver ’ s grudge against the place and people that fired her has harmed the movement .
The incentive is there : Cleaver ’ s new organization , VoteAmerica , is a direct competitor to Vote.org .
“ For everyone who called , I told them faithfully what happened .
But these people are free to make their own decisions , ” Cleaver @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in retaliation and still expected nothing but the utmost discretion .
And I have a professional reputation as well.
” Even defenders of the board privately concede that it mishandled public communication about Cleaver ’ s exit .
Cleaver had also been able to shape the narrative because Vote.org had said next to nothing publicly or even privately to its supporters about what happened .
Vote.org ’ s board , which Cleaver had recruited over the prior two years , had generally given its CEO a long leash , like most volunteer boards @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the start of 2019 as the board began to scrutinize Cleaver ’ s performance , according to people close to the board .
They felt that she wasn ’ t prioritizing fundraising enough , and that she was hamstringing the organization ’ s growth by not hiring a chief operating officer .
They were also growing concerned about reports of how Cleaver treated her employees , which ended up being the catalyst for the accusations and counter-accusations that led to her boardroom firing — and eventually , to a number of key @ @ @ @ @ @ @ began when an employee who clashed with Cleaver voluntarily resigned in May , but the board awarded him a $ 40,000 severance payment anyway .
Cleaver alleged this move violated the law , leading her to ask the board to resign .
Critics say that Vote.org no longer appears to be prioritizing the grunt work of researching and activating unlikely voters Just before she was fired that August , Cleaver even tried to leverage a potential donation , convincing a donor named Sage Weil to pledge $ 4 million to Vote.org , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the nonprofit — but it was conditional on her remaining the group ’ s CEO .
“ It had never occurred to me that Vote.org could exist without Debra , ” Weil told Recode .
But the board wouldn ’ t relent .
It zeroed in on reports , including some that came in unsolicited over LinkedIn ’ s InMail , that Cleaver , described by even her allies as bulldozing and brawling , could be a harsh and volatile boss .
Some former employees told Recode that she presided over a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” and “ toxic , ” descriptions that Cleaver and her supporters say are sharply gendered .
Cleaver had a tendency to bombard employees with blunt messages on Slack , especially late at night , former employees say .
Former employees also say that she was quick to disparage her own colleagues and partners behind their backs , often calling them “ idiots.
” “ Am I a demanding boss who pays well and expects excellent work product ?
Yes , ” Cleaver told Recode .
“ We weren ’ t running a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voter-registration and get-out-the-vote drives in a country with a fragile and crumbling democracy.
” Despite these complaints , the board never conducted an independent investigation or placed her on a performance-improvement plan .
They did ask her to take a sabbatical and assigned her an executive coach , but board defenders feel that she didn ’ t engage seriously .
They officially fired Cleaver in August .
Cleaver believes that her firing had nothing to do with her performance , but that the board retaliated against her as a “ whistleblower ” after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Tempers got hotter , not colder , when they terminated her .
Key partners and donors to Vote.org , including Hoffman , were blindsided when they received a mass email blast that August saying that Cleaver was out .
They would spend the fall fighting bitterly with the board to return her to her role .
Over the next few weeks , donors led by Goldstein , the young entrepreneur who had planned , in the distant future , to leave $ 1 million to Vote.org in his will , began demanding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to at least explain why they fired her .
Goldstein organized a coalition of wealthy backers that included some of Silicon Valley ’ s marquee names like Altman , who altogether claimed they were responsible for 60 percent of all the money raised by or pledged to the nonprofit .
“ Today Vote.org appears to lack leadership and strategy .
Vote.org seems to be losing funders , key partners , and essential consultants , and there is a risk of the remaining full-time employees resigning , ” the donors wrote the board in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Vote.org ’ s future is uncertain.
” They prepared to go public with their complaints that fall , but at the last minute , Hoffman ’ s team — Hoffman conspicuously had not signed Goldstein ’ s letter — intervened .
An operative who worked for him , Tamer Mokhtar , who declined to comment , embarked on a last-ditch mission to try to broker a truce .
He flew to Los Angeles , without the other donors ’ knowledge , and floated a compromise to the board , but the talks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t end up going public , but now Hoffman , its biggest donor to the tune of $ 3.8 million , is no longer currently planning to fund Vote.org going forward .
Hoffman prides himself on only backing founders .
The best- and worst-case scenarios for democracy So where does this leave Vote.org ?
The best-case scenario for democracy is that Cleaver and Vote.org manage to build two distinct , successful organizations , creating a redundancy in the voter-turnout universe that experts say isn ’ t always a bad thing .
There are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work , such as Rock the Vote , and there ’ s been booming donor demand in this space since 2016 .
“ It may well be that Debra does her thing and [ Vote.org ] does theirs , and combined they are about as effective as [ Vote.org ] was in the past , ” Donald Green , a political scientist who is unaffiliated with the group but pays close attention to it , told Recode .
The worst-case scenario ?
That the iciness between the two teams creates factions in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ together impossible .
Or that the runup to the 2020 election resembles the runup to the 2019 election , when some employees felt that Vote.org was rudderless , partially because they had to deal with Cleaver ’ s antics after she left .
The complaints submitted by Cleaver and a major donor to the California attorney general show that she has no intention of burying the hatchet .
Another troubling possible outcome is that Vote.org might struggle to rebuild its donor base and may no longer afford to execute its same work .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ frustrated that they have not been told why Cleaver was fired — the only public comment came on a little-noticed podcast where the new CEO said she was terminated due to “ differences in opinion ” — which could leave the organization underfunded for 2020 .
Its two biggest donors , Hoffman and Weil , are now considering funding Cleaver ’ s new nonprofit , which is doing similar work and has raised $ 4 million .
“ The danger in this type of setting is whether she takes all the funders with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who ran the experiments department of the Obama reelection campaign .
But neither Cleaver nor Vote.org can rebuild overnight .
And with six months to Election Day , the clock is ticking .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching @ @ @ @ @ @ @ distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
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How one of America’s most important voting rights groups plunged into chaos just before it was needed most
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A voting rights group called Vote.org seems like precisely the type of nonprofit that should thrive in 2020, with fans from Barack Obama to Taylor Swift and a URL that can’t be beat.
Its efforts to expand vote-by-mail — during an election year when more Americans are likely to do exactly that than ever before — should only make it more essential.
But the organization, which has established itself as one of the country’s most important civic engagement groups thanks to its research on how to turn out voters with absentee ballots and for its work to help defeat Alabama’s Roy Moore in 2017, has been derailed in recent months by an ugly internal drama featuring several of Silicon Valley’s most powerful personalities.
Last summer, Vote.org’s board fired founder Debra Cleaver and replaced her with one of the board members that ousted her. That presaged a bitter months-long war between Cleaver’s donors and her former board, and in its aftermath, at least three of Vote.org’s potential partnerships crumbled, millions in expected contributions fell through, and a series of embarrassing missteps tarnished the nonprofit’s brand.
Recode’s interviews with more than two dozen people, including Vote.org’s major donors, partners, and former board members and employees, along with two legal complaints submitted to the California attorney general, paint a portrait of a nonprofit that has been arrested in development. And it couldn’t have come at a worse time: Now that the coronavirus pandemic is likely to stress test the American election system — with voters waiting in five-hour lines in Wisconsin during the pandemic this month, for instance — the work of organizations like Vote.org, which says it “plans to turn out more than 5 million low-propensity voters” in 2020, is more important than ever.
“If Vote.org were a public company, the shareholders would have voted the board out — and it wouldn’t have been close,” said Adam Goldstein, a past Vote.org donor who canceled a $1 million pledge to the group that had been in his will.
“If Vote.org were a public company, the shareholders would have voted the board out — and it wouldn’t have been close”
As you’d expect with an acrimonious split, both sides in the fight are pointing fingers. Defenders of the board told Recode that the fallout is Cleaver’s fault and that she poisoned the well with donors, caused havoc by refusing to leave her post quietly, and trash-talked the group to its partners so they cut ties.
Vote.org declined to comment on any specific reporting that Recode presented. Instead, it pointed Recode to data, such as that it had registered 550,000 new voters in 2020 and had helped about 500,000 voters request an absentee ballot. It also noted that it had created a website with resources on how to vote during the pandemic.
But no matter who is to blame, the mess has been crippling Vote.org and its ability to execute its mission. No one interviewed for this story, even those close to the board, thinks the nonprofit has fully recovered from the chaos. And experts worry that the saga could stifle efforts to make voting easier for people during an unprecedented election and pandemic. For all the rancor that has divided Cleaver and her former board, everyone on all sides could agree on this: A weaker Vote.org is bad for American elections.
“Startups and board drama are nothing new,” Sam Altman, the former head of Y Combinator, who has been among the Silicon Valley celebrities trying to outfox the board over the last year, told Recode. “But it’s a real shame when it sets back democracy.”
How democracy was set back
After Vote.org’s board voted to fire Cleaver last summer, the organization suffered what one donor called an “organizational shock” that negatively impacted its partnerships, its bank account, and its brand.
Cleaver had used her cult of personality to found a clearinghouse for absentee ballot information in 2008 that would become Vote.org. Her success depended on everyone from her former college classmates to fellow activists from her decade in the voting rights trenches. But if you live by a cult of personality, you die by a cult of personality — and when Cleaver left, many partners and donors did, too.
“Startups and board drama are nothing new. But it’s a real shame when it sets back democracy.”
“It’s a shame because what we’re seeing right now is total chaos. And these two vectors in American life — of the pandemic, and our really high liability that we can’t run elections — those two things are colliding in a way that no one is ready for,” Dan McSwain, a political operative and a former board member at Vote.org who left as Cleaver crafted an all-female board, told Recode. “It’s a shame that an organization with so much momentum behind it seems to have spent a year of its life wading through something that, as far as I can tell, seems self-inflicted.”
Vote.org’s first withdrawn partnership was one Cleaver had planned with MTV’s parent company ViacomCBS, which would’ve included billboards in Times Square advertising her group, along with hosting a new youth-focused voter registration push called +1 The Vote. Cleaver had a personal relationship with the head of Viacom’s election programming; immediately after her ouster, Viacom pulled out of the not-yet-finalized deal and instead struck a similar agreement with a Vote.org rival, TurboVote, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
And two other high-profile groups that Vote.org had worked with in recent cycles to turn out low-propensity voters, the Voter Participation Center and the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, are no longer currently planning to sign up to work with Vote.org on voter-turnout projects after Cleaver’s departure, according to people familiar with the matter.
Board defenders downplayed these losses to Recode, saying that while they lost Cleaver’s network, other partnerships are now more possible without Cleaver, such as recently announced ones with the NAACP Youth and College Division and the Transformative Justice Coalition.
But the Voter Participation Center and the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund were historically among Vote.org’s most important partners and were key parts of its celebrated research program. Research accounted for about half of Vote.org’s total spending in 2017, the most recent year of available tax records. That year, the Voter Participation Center and Vote.org ran an experiment in Alabama to assess how text messages and mailers together could turn out black voters. The next year, in 2018, the League of Conservation Voters spent over $1 million through Vote.org to send 18 million texts to young voters and people of color.
While Vote.org still occupies a prized URL that registers already-likely voters who intentionally seek information about elections, critics say it no longer appears to be prioritizing the grunt work of researching and activating unlikely voters.
For instance, despite the nonprofit’s plans to use the 2020 primary season to test the effectiveness of various get-out-the-vote strategies, such as using texting to encourage voting-by-mail, Vote.org did not end up performing any research on ways to engage these low-propensity voters during the primaries this spring, according to people familiar with the matter. The group’s longtime research head, a college friend of Cleaver, stopped working with Vote.org after Cleaver’s firing. The group just didn’t have the money to do that expensive research, people close to it said.
That’s another way Vote.org suffered after Cleaver left: financially. Multiple political advisers to major Silicon Valley donors told Recode that Vote.org has suffered serious reputational damage and that they are recommending their clients give money elsewhere. Several of Vote.org’s former major supporters, including LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, venture capitalist Ron Conway, and Altman, are no longer advising their networks to support the organization, sources say. And in a letter in September that urged Vote.org’s board to reconsider Cleaver’s ouster, donors who claimed their donations and pledges accounted for 60 percent of the group’s funding warned that they would no longer back Vote.org if her firing wasn’t explained.
“Vote.org was the Silicon Valley group,” said one person close to the nonprofit, who sees errors on all sides. “When you’ve pissed off all the Silicon Valley donors with the way you handled the transition … you lose your Silicon Valley base of funders. I think they can stay stable, but they can’t run the scale of the program that she had planned.”
The group had about $2 million remaining in the bank at the end of 2019, according to a person briefed on the figures, which is $1 million less than what tax records show it had on hand at the end of 2017. Vote.org’s new CEO, Andrea Hailey, was telling people late last year that it was operating on a shoestring budget, although its board members are now said to be personally financing the nonprofit more.
Some people close to the board concede that the group has lost its base of Silicon Valley donors, but they say it is focusing on grassroots donors and that Cleaver’s ouster has improved relations with more traditional funders, like foundations: “One door closed, and another opened,” one person said. (No major gifts have been announced publicly.)
But perhaps the most important consequences have been a series of missteps in Vote.org’s public-facing work that have harmed its most critical asset: its reputation. Text messages sent to voters in Wisconsin this month made no mention of the explosive voting rights fight waging during the coronavirus and encouraged them to vote on Election Day. That angered some Wisconsin leaders who were seeking to delay voting altogether, Recode is told.
And then there was a high-profile screw-up in which Vote.org advertised the wrong date for Election Day on six billboards in parts of Mississippi with large black populations last November, a gaffe that angered its principal partner in the state and triggered a round of damaging headlines.
The error on the billboards wasn’t entirely Vote.org’s fault, but a vendor’s. Nevertheless, it was deeply embarrassing for the organization, and some people believe it wouldn’t have unfolded the same way with Cleaver.
“We understood the mistake to be a mistake with no malicious intent to confuse our voters. However, the backwash and reality of all this is that folks were still confused and there was never any formal apology made to the communities most impacted by the mistake,” Arekia Bennett, the head of Mississippi Votes, Vote.org’s partner, told Recode. “MS Votes reached out for a debrief post-election and never got one. Recently Vote.org has reached out, but we are wary and not sure how or if we want to engage.”
There’s also been an impact on the reputation that’s inherent to losing Cleaver, who is a minor icon in civic circles and has been inextricably linked to Vote.org for a decade, for better or worse. So one of the biggest concerns that even relatively neutral observers voiced is that the brand of Vote.org has been damaged by her firing, which has been widely gossiped about in voter-registration circles.
Some of this brand damage is due, no doubt, to Cleaver herself, who has been more than willing to tell everyone from billionaires to her Facebook friends about her ouster, such as when she bashed them for cutting off her health insurance and telling her Facebook audience that she had “one hell of a story coming.” Critics say that Cleaver’s grudge against the place and people that fired her has harmed the movement. The incentive is there: Cleaver’s new organization, VoteAmerica, is a direct competitor to Vote.org.
“For everyone who called, I told them faithfully what happened. But these people are free to make their own decisions,” Cleaver told Recode. “They fired me in retaliation and still expected nothing but the utmost discretion. And I have a professional reputation as well.”
Even defenders of the board privately concede that it mishandled public communication about Cleaver’s exit. Cleaver had also been able to shape the narrative because Vote.org had said next to nothing publicly or even privately to its supporters about what happened.
What happened at Vote.org
Vote.org’s board, which Cleaver had recruited over the prior two years, had generally given its CEO a long leash, like most volunteer boards do. But things began to sour at the start of 2019 as the board began to scrutinize Cleaver’s performance, according to people close to the board. They felt that she wasn’t prioritizing fundraising enough, and that she was hamstringing the organization’s growth by not hiring a chief operating officer. They were also growing concerned about reports of how Cleaver treated her employees, which ended up being the catalyst for the accusations and counter-accusations that led to her boardroom firing — and eventually, to a number of key donors pulling their support.
The snowballing began when an employee who clashed with Cleaver voluntarily resigned in May, but the board awarded him a $40,000 severance payment anyway. Cleaver alleged this move violated the law, leading her to ask the board to resign.
Critics say that Vote.org no longer appears to be prioritizing the grunt work of researching and activating unlikely voters
Just before she was fired that August, Cleaver even tried to leverage a potential donation, convincing a donor named Sage Weil to pledge $4 million to Vote.org, which would have been the biggest gift ever to the nonprofit — but it was conditional on her remaining the group’s CEO.
“It had never occurred to me that Vote.org could exist without Debra,” Weil told Recode.
But the board wouldn’t relent. It zeroed in on reports, including some that came in unsolicited over LinkedIn’s InMail, that Cleaver, described by even her allies as bulldozing and brawling, could be a harsh and volatile boss. Some former employees told Recode that she presided over a culture that could border on “bullying” and “toxic,” descriptions that Cleaver and her supporters say are sharply gendered.
Cleaver had a tendency to bombard employees with blunt messages on Slack, especially late at night, former employees say. Former employees also say that she was quick to disparage her own colleagues and partners behind their backs, often calling them “idiots.”
“Am I a demanding boss who pays well and expects excellent work product? Yes,” Cleaver told Recode. “We weren’t running a fruit stand. We were running nationwide voter-registration and get-out-the-vote drives in a country with a fragile and crumbling democracy.”
Despite these complaints, the board never conducted an independent investigation or placed her on a performance-improvement plan. They did ask her to take a sabbatical and assigned her an executive coach, but board defenders feel that she didn’t engage seriously. They officially fired Cleaver in August.
Cleaver believes that her firing had nothing to do with her performance, but that the board retaliated against her as a “whistleblower” after she confronted them about the severance payment.
Tempers got hotter, not colder, when they terminated her. Key partners and donors to Vote.org, including Hoffman, were blindsided when they received a mass email blast that August saying that Cleaver was out. They would spend the fall fighting bitterly with the board to return her to her role.
Over the next few weeks, donors led by Goldstein, the young entrepreneur who had planned, in the distant future, to leave $1 million to Vote.org in his will, began demanding that the board reinstate Cleaver or at least explain why they fired her. Goldstein organized a coalition of wealthy backers that included some of Silicon Valley’s marquee names like Altman, who altogether claimed they were responsible for 60 percent of all the money raised by or pledged to the nonprofit.
“Today Vote.org appears to lack leadership and strategy. Vote.org seems to be losing funders, key partners, and essential consultants, and there is a risk of the remaining full-time employees resigning,” the donors wrote the board in a formal letter around Labor Day. “Vote.org’s future is uncertain.”
They prepared to go public with their complaints that fall, but at the last minute, Hoffman’s team — Hoffman conspicuously had not signed Goldstein’s letter — intervened. An operative who worked for him, Tamer Mokhtar, who declined to comment, embarked on a last-ditch mission to try to broker a truce. He flew to Los Angeles, without the other donors’ knowledge, and floated a compromise to the board, but the talks fell apart.
The donors didn’t end up going public, but now Hoffman, its biggest donor to the tune of $3.8 million, is no longer currently planning to fund Vote.org going forward. Hoffman prides himself on only backing founders.
The best- and worst-case scenarios for democracy
So where does this leave Vote.org? The best-case scenario for democracy is that Cleaver and Vote.org manage to build two distinct, successful organizations, creating a redundancy in the voter-turnout universe that experts say isn’t always a bad thing. There are already a half-dozen other groups doing this work, such as Rock the Vote, and there’s been booming donor demand in this space since 2016.
“It may well be that Debra does her thing and [Vote.org] does theirs, and combined they are about as effective as [Vote.org] was in the past,” Donald Green, a political scientist who is unaffiliated with the group but pays close attention to it, told Recode.
The worst-case scenario? That the iciness between the two teams creates factions in the generally cozy voter-engagement world that makes working together impossible. Or that the runup to the 2020 election resembles the runup to the 2019 election, when some employees felt that Vote.org was rudderless, partially because they had to deal with Cleaver’s actions after she left. The complaints submitted by Cleaver and a major donor to the California attorney general show that she has no intention of burying the hatchet.
Another troubling possible outcome is that Vote.org might struggle to rebuild its donor base and may no longer afford to execute its same work. To this day, many donors remain frustrated that they have not been told why Cleaver was fired — the only public comment came on a little-noticed podcast where the new CEO said she was terminated due to “differences in opinion” — which could leave the organization underfunded for 2020. Its two biggest donors, Hoffman and Weil, are now considering funding Cleaver’s new nonprofit, which is doing similar work and has raised $4 million.
“The danger in this type of setting is whether she takes all the funders with her,” said David Nickerson, who ran the experiments department of the Obama reelection campaign.
But neither Cleaver nor Vote.org can rebuild overnight. And with six months to Election Day, the clock is ticking.
Correction: This story has been updated with the correct number of billboards that had the wrong date in Mississippi.