Episode 320: What Civic Power Really Means | A Powerful Conversation with Cara Stewart
Civic power is something we all have...but are we using it? In this special installment of A Powerful Conversation, Kara Duffy sits down with Cara Stewart, CEO of WunderMarx and Chair of the Costa Mesa Democratic Club, to explore how everyday people can reclaim their voice in today’s political landscape. They talk about the myth of neutrality, the loneliness of civic overwhelm, and the real actions citizens and small businesses can take now, from voting and volunteering to amplifying truth and staying engaged.
This episode explores civic power, community action, and the role of purpose-driven leadership in a changing democracy.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America”
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Follow along using the Transcript
(00:00:00) - Introduction to Civic Action and Political Engagement
(00:00:02) - The Importance of Civil Discourse in Democracy
(00:00:05) - Challenges in Political Participation Today
(00:00:09) - Understanding Orange County's Political Landscape
(00:00:12) - Civic Engagement and Volunteerism in Communities
(00:00:15) - Actionable Steps for Civic Involvement
(00:00:20) - The Role of Individuals in Democracy
(00:00:25) - Encouragement to Take Action and Make a Difference
Today we have a super special powerful Conversation series episode. I have been having so many conversations in my personal circles within the powerful ladies community, and even with my clients about how we can take civic action when we don't like what's happening within our government. We invited so many experts to be panelists for this episode, and for the first time ever, we had invited guests say no because they were nervous about repercussions. All the more reason to have this conversation, in my opinion. As such, we are so lucky that Kara Stewart was brave enough to dive in and answer our questions. May you find new ways to take action, and most importantly. Know that you are not alone in wishing for a kinder more respectful. There's enough for everyone to win. Constitution Abiding Nation. This is The Powerful Ladies podcast. Welcome to the Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Thank you, Kara. Really appreciate having me on.
I'm so excited to be talking to you today. Today's topic is one that has been on my mind for a while. It's actually been very hard to get people to want to talk about this topic. Never before have we invited people to discuss, one of these powerful conversations that we have and had people say no. And I think it speaks so much volume to what's going on today in the us. 'cause everyone who was a no. Not because they didn't think it was important or that they were an expert that could talk about it. They were a no because they felt they needed to keep their head down. I see that a it's just, it's exactly the opposite of what democracy is supposed to be.
Yes. And we're supposed to be able to have differing points of view and have civil discourse around it.
Yes. And I'm very excited that you are a yes to talking to us about, our civic power in America and what we can do right now, and just get your perspective on how everyone listening can. Step into their power and do everything that they can to feel like they're doing what they need to without losing their minds.
And that is the key. A lot of people are spiraling, understandably, but not realizing how much power they do have. And also, kudos to you for opening up this forum because I think. Much like what you are seeing of women being hesitant to speak up about this topic. We're also seeing content creators, leaders, event organizers. The media shy away from having a discussion about this, which is only amplifying the ill effects that we're seeing.
And it's really where this entire powerful conversation series came from. I look at, I believe that if you bring powerful women and men around a table, we can solve almost any problem that we have. Like we are at a time in civilization where we have solutions, we have answers if we want to solve the problems and. I don't know if it's from growing up on the East coast or how like we're so trained in Boston to like, discuss and debate and not be afraid to talk about things. Like the social discourse is critical for. Functioning in a democracy that I can, I don't understand. Not talking about, like we're all talking about it privately in book clubs or with our friends on the phone. Why are we not talking about it at a bigger level? Because we're all having, I. The same conversation ultimately.
Oh, you're absolutely right. You probably do have it in your DNA to have politics and political discourse as part of an everyday conversation and I just can't even imagine how amazing it was growing up in Boston and Boston area for that reason. But you're right. I think probably 80% of us feel the same way.
We may come to ultimately a different conclusion but we're not that far apart When you get us around a table and talking, it is become polarized though, when we only allow these echo chambers to dominate the conversation. And on both sides of the political spectrum, what we're doing. Right now is allowing the loudest, angriest, most crazy voices to dominate and thinking that they are somehow in charge, but they only are because we've allowed them to be, and we all need to take back our power.
And that's exactly why we're having this conversation today. So before we go any further, let's tell everyone your name, where you are in the world, and what you're up to that makes you an expert in this space.
Okay thank you. I don't know if I'm an expert, but I have a lot of hot takes. My name is Cara Stewart and I am based in Orange County, California. Professionally, I lead Wonder Marks, which is a high stakes strategic communications firm. We work in the realm of public relations, crisis communications and public affairs. And my volunteer capacity, I am the elected chair of the Costa Mesa Democratic Club, and I have been involved as a volunteer or in a professional capacity on the fringes of public service, public affairs elected work for most of my. Professional career and as a child I had a family, much like you did Kara, that really encouraged learning about issues, discussing issues, and my mom helped me write my very first advocacy letter when I was probably eight years old.
And I wanna start with just talking about Orange County and Orange County politics because I think from the outside, most people think of Orange, California County, California and think Red County. It's, we have the highest income disparity of any county in the US we have, and like the crazy amount of people of millionaires and billionaire status. And it was a red county for a long time. And then switched, I believe, during the Obama election years. The blue wave. So how has Orange County specifically evolved and do you have any insight into why that's happened?
Sure. I can give you some historical perspective, professional insight, and just personal opinion around that. You are right. Orange County, California is such an anomaly. We historically have been read, there was the joke about the orange curtain between us and la and. The idea of Orange County really did develop over time of a lot of people moving out of LA for various reasons. And being a county that is very much steeped in real estate development, it does have a more conservative bit. But that has changed over time, as you said, for example during the past several elections. Orange County actually has voted blue in some major elections, and I think that what we're seeing is the confluence of several factors.
One, everyone does wanna live here despite the high housing costs. And some things that you don't find other places. It is gorgeous to live here. So we do have a lot of transplants who bring their values here. Second we do have one of the most aging populations here who have been traditionally of course, more conservative, but their children and grandchildren are here and they are the ones that have maybe up as the last election voted warm blue. Then we're also seeing things that are issues like our housing cost is out of control. That makes people want to be able to look at more progressive issues so that we can reign in housing costs for example.
Yeah and my experience living here, I've been in California since 2012 and in Orange County since 2015, and it's also one of the most volunteer centric. Areas I've ever lived. There are very few people I know here who are not on some board, on some committee, doing some sort of fundraising, some sort of giving back component, which I've also been really impressed with. The community here cares and I think acknowledges the discrepancies that are happening from town to town, neighborhood to neighborhood. And I see a lot of people doing whatever they can to. Make the difference that they wanna see here, which I think is pretty impressive for knowing that most people here don't have to because they could be fully busy with work all the time.
And we all have those options. But you're right. Orange County as a whole is an incredibly philanthropic county. Not only in terms of charitable dollars, we lead the country in that, but in donor hours of getting behind. Fundraising initiatives, volunteer cleanups, volunteering at schools. These don't always have to be faith-based. We're seeing a lot of civic engagement and volunteer engagement. A few weeks ago I had the privilege of hearing the CEO executive director of the Points of Light Foundation talk about volunteerism in America. And one of the best stats that came out is Generation X. Is the most volunteer driven. We donate the most amount of hours and orange County demographics certainly support that as well. But we really are a tale of two counties. A couple years ago, orange County Community Foundation did a report, and I think that was actually the title of it, because you'll have these multimillion dollar homes and literally across the street will be people who are struggling.
To put food on the table and that although we have pockets of our county that are completely insulated, it's really difficult not to be out and about and not see that people are struggling. And, I don't know if you saw the report that came out last. Week we are on the verge of the poverty line in Orange County being a hundred thousand dollars.
So if you make less than a hundred thousand dollars, you're considered low income and below the poverty line. And. That puts things into perspective. So when people realize, oh wait, she's fully employed, or she's trying to be, but is underemployed, that family is actually working and doing the best they can with their kids.
You, it all comes it opens your eyes and you can't listen to some national rhetoric about supposedly that, people aren't pulling their own weight and we shouldn't be carrying people along who aren't contributing. When you realize. Yeah, everyone is contributing. It's not people's fault that they're having difficulty with housing or keeping up with bills, that there is systematic changes, that there are systematic changes that need to occur, and it is the responsibility of all of us to figure this out together.
And it's baffling when you look at the financial statistics. I, heard another study that said if you earn over $120,000 in annual revenue, you're in the top 10% of wealthiest people in the globe. And when I heard that number, and then I also know that a hundred K means you're low income in the same county.
It's a 20 k difference, like that is so small between being in the top 10% wealthiest in the globe and below poverty and like it's, it just has, that number has made me crazy ever since hearing it, because if you're making $120,000, you should feel. Like you were in the top percent of global wealth and you don't need to live in Orange County to be making 120, right?
Like when we look at housing costs in Boston, in New York, in other major cities, it's actually not that different than what it is here. You might, the housing costs might be similar, you might get more for your money in other places, but if you wanna rent a two bedroom something in most of the cities I mentioned, it's gonna be about the same.
Absolutely. So it's just so enraging to me that, especially with the financial wealth transferring that's supposed to be happening from, boomer and older generations downward. And then to see what just passed in. The big, beautiful bill of we're moving in like the opposite direction of ever getting people to feel like their hard work is getting them somewhere.
Yeah, it's the redefinition of the American dream, which, we were told growing, most of us growing up was you worked hard in school, you got a good job, you settled down, you bought the house, and you were going to be able to have a beautiful house and raise a family or live your life, whatever that version of it was.
And. We have to ask, is that American dream shifting? Is that still within reach? But we also have to ask, do most of us even want that definition of an American dream too? And a lot of the angst I think we are seeing is that we do have more choices and. The traditional pathway is not the pathway that a lot of people wanna choose anymore. And how do we make sure everyone is able to have a piece of an American dream together.
Yeah. And talking. There's a really funny age group that I see having the biggest struggle. In career, starting in kind of finding their foothold. And it tends to be people who were born between like 1994 and 1997. And I think it's because when they graduated they were being impacted by the init, the recession in 2008, nine. And they're the first wave of people I've seen getting forced into this freelance consultant economy. I had someone in that demographic come to me the other day and say, I just want a regular career at a company that is nice and going to respect me. And I said, I don't know if that exists anymore.
Yeah.
And I'm a little bit biased being someone who helps people be entrepreneurs on a regular basis, but they're the companies that have the ability to support people in the way that. Maybe in the 1950s people were supported. It's smaller and smaller.
Nowadays it's fewer companies, and it's not that every company is owned by somebody who's mean and evil and a scrooge McDuck. It's that providing all of those social security safety nets from a company is so expensive. Yes. And and I think to give people some quick math too, like when we're talking about minimum wage, you can take the hourly rate and double it and add some zeros to get a annual salary.
So even for someone to be making a hundred KA year and still be in poverty, that's $50 an hour. And we're still debating if people should have 15 or 20 in
many cities. And then you know the rhetoric of if we raise minimum wage, we're gonna have to lay off people. You are already planning on doing a lot of this through automation anyway, so it seems like a disingenuous argument.
And, but you're right. I think we're seeing a couple things is if you look generationally, baby boomers still were of the ilk that they were going to have essentially at least older baby boomers, the younger, so the cohort, the generation Jones. We're the outliers and we claim them as Gen X just because of behavioral and what was happening in the world as them growing up.
But older baby boomers really thought you have the one main job, the one main career. You take that through retirement and then you're able to live a good life. Gen X, we were the first generation of entrepreneurs, and yes, it absolutely filled fills our soul because we were basically all left to raise ourselves anyway.
So we're used to being self-directed. We're used to taking risks, but also I have a new company launching just based on this concept and. We were told things like, go to college. Oh wait, getting a college degree is not enough. You have to get your MBA take out student loans. It'll be cheap. All these things.
And every time we got to the point of, all right, we're on the verge of success. There was another recession, something else happened in the economy. We're the first generation that is going to be financially worse off than our parents. And then we have. Millennials who started to see our struggles, who also, as you said, many came of age right after the recession and graduated with student debt fantastic degrees, thought that they would be able to walk into the career of their choice and instead we're back.
Waiting tables and then you know, the younger you get, and I feel especially bad for those who were in high school during COVID and coming outta college. So you didn't have the normal high school experience. Got into college. Now you're emerging from college. And we are in. Recession stagflation, we're not even sure where we are, but we certainly all know and have this collective dread that we're in a very precarious situation and we're seeing companies claw back job offers.
We're seeing them rescind benefits. We're seeing a complete upheaval. Oh, an add layer to all of this is you send. Since the early two thousands, there's been the talk of the new world order is around this gig economy and how much. Better it is for workers, how much better it is for businesses. But has it been really, it just transfers all of the burden and the stress to individuals and to manage their career, to figure out benefits, to figure out housing, to figure out work-life balance, to figure out everything.
And while I am a very much pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of person, and I can figure out everything. That's more of a temperamental decision or temperamental bias of mine. We cannot have a whole nation of gig workers and feel like that we're going to be able to not have a disastrous outcome when there is no safety net for an entire or two generations.
And I think so. I am right on that millennial Gen X cusp and my experience in the corporate space was. I was told to get a degree. I was told to get a master's degree. I did those things and I started my career a few years before the 2008 recession. I actually moved to Europe in 2008, so I got to skip that whole recession experience here.
But I was under the impression that, yeah, a job is not gonna give you a pension and you're probably gonna change career seven times, but it should give you a paycheck. It should give you advancement and it should definitely give you healthcare. And we've in this gig economy, which can be very powerful for people who are oriented towards it.
We aren't setting up the thing like California's a little bit different, right? We have covered California so anyone can get their own health insurance, but when you look at what that costs.
Which is less and less affordable every year, however.
Yes, exactly. That's exactly where I was going. 'cause it's yes bananas now. Like what? We're having to pay for that and, but we don't have any of the. Structures set up to allow people to be independent. We also don't have any structures set up for people to choose a corporate path if they want to. And where my head gets swirly and maybe overwhelmed is. I look at the things that I agree with you.
Most people want the same things. Most people want their family to be healthy and safe and to be able to come around a dinner table and enjoy meals together and host friends, and they want to just have access to the dreams that they have in front of them. Even how varied they are, and I don't understand why.
We as a nation say no to things that would lift everyone up. Like I just can't do the math in my head about why we're choosing against ourselves. Yeah. So before we go down a whole rabbit hole of things, I wanna come back to a few points. One is just to check in with you. I'm talking to women all the time, either clients or through the podcast in our community, and.
So many of them have felt so overwhelmed the past six months that they've gone into like freeze mode. They have been so overwhelmed they can't decide how to best use their resources. They are juggling a family and a business or a career and feeling like they're failing at making the differences in our country that they wanna be a part of.
How are you feeling? How are you staying sane in the past couple of months? What approach have you been taking?
I don't know if I'm staying sane, but I guess I, it just goes back to I've always been a doer and that's a. Personal preference and a personality quirk. My mom, even as a kid, used to tell me, stop raising your hand and volunteering for everything.
And, but if I see something, I wanna jump in and fix it. So that is it. Knowing that everything is not lost and everything is not as bad as we could allow it to pretend to be, but also knowing it can be that bad if more of us do not stand up and make a difference. I also. I try to tread lightly here because we all need to choose how much time we can allocate to things.
But I, I really do encourage people at this point that there is a lot of performance art going on right now in, in shouting out. Objections to what's happening in a federal stage or in politics. And a lot of them may feel good in that moment, be that little dopamine hit, but they're falling on deaf ears.
And I think that the rhetoric or those. Just complaining about things or to one another may feel good in that moment, but it's only amplifying the angst and isn't going to actually affect change. So instead of just doom scrolling on social media, which trust me, I do, I am not, I'm not. Disparaging anyone who's doing that, but recognizing that get fired up and then take something that's a piece of action that actually can move the needle in the direction you want it to do.
And that's perfect because I'm hoping to arm listeners today with what are actions that are actually. Purposeful and impactful. So if someone is feeling lost of like, where do I even start to do something that if I'm gonna take even five minutes to take an action instead of freaking out on social media, what should I be doing?
First and foremost, make sure you're registered to vote. It was, I did a lot of canvassing in the last election and it was really astounding to me how many women were not registered to vote. And young women too, who I would think would be among the most politically active because. Mores left on the planet, more earning potential reproductive rights at stake, and they kinda shrug their shoulders of, oh, it's all very complicated to me, so I don't vote. I. Deep breath. But please make sure you're registered to vote. Also, if you've moved recently, it's something that you might forget. Just make sure you're updating. If anything that's happening in politics has caused you to question your political party affiliation, might be time to update that right now.
So that's first and foremost. Second is to think about the core areas that are most important to you. And we all wanna get involved in federal policy. We all do, but let's face it as individuals, there's very little we can do other than working within the known channels of contacting our elected officials, things like that.
Where we really see individual action having dramatic impact is on the local landscape. Get involved in your city and your county, or your township, wherever you live, because I. Everything has that trickle down effect and what makes you happy day to day is probably what you're seeing reflected in your local community, and I encourage everyone to get involved.
Most city council meetings, you don't even need to show up in person. Most are online. You can watch them. Same with all the committee and commission meetings and get involved in that way and just choose one little. Small aspect of your local community to follow and to try to improve. Another way is looking at the groups that can help you magnify your efforts if the issues of reproductive rights is important to you.
There's Planned Parenthood of course, but there's also other groups that maybe are on the other side of it. I'm not here to advocate which side you're on. I am advocate, though, get involved with. Reputable groups that actually can take charge. And by having all of our voices collectively amplified, those groups will be able to have more effect.
There's just power in numbers. If things like housing is important to you, that's done on a local level. Find out what your city and your county is doing. For example, and I love being online and TikTok, but really we also all have the responsibility of not clicking, or hitting share unless you verify the information that's there.
What I think that we can't divorce this conversation from a topic of misinformation and, purposeful lies that are really trying to dismantle dis democracy to enslave us in an ideology that is not American and to distance ourselves from each other, making us seem like we have issues with our neighbors when we really don't.
I think that's what's been the most enraging for me is. You turn the TV on and if you're watching something at the national level or you go into social media and you're getting anything at the national level, it sounds one way. And then I go out in my neighborhood and I'm like do I live in a bubble?
Or is this what everyone's experiencing? A little bit everywhere because. All of my neighbors are lovely and we talk to each other and, oh, you forgot. Take your trash bin in. Someone else is making sure you have it. Like it. There's, we don't have these issues of crisis on our street and I'm not noticing them in the neighborhood.
And of course there can be examples of everything that if you wanna find it, you'll find it. But in general. Whether it's here or other places, most people's day-to-day lives are humming along as they have been for better or worse. And we don't have the divide that we're talking about in such, I don't know, like it's, it feels like it's a level 100 when you look in those places.
And I go outside and I'm like. On a scale of one to 10, it's maybe a 1.5. Yeah. I it's it's not matching.
It's not, and that is what is most concerning to me.
And I don't know.
And that's what's causes rage and anxiety in me.
And I don't know if it's not matching because at a local level, we're being pulled into a hum of just do what you have to do. Like the other stuff will figure itself out. And I'm like, no, it doesn't. Nothing figures itself out and. I've seen some things pop up the city of Irvine is having a, I believe it's monthly Town Hall, open Air Forum going on, and I think that's great and I'm looking for to be like, I know people around here are like all stressed out.
I'm not feeling it out and about, but I know that people are so like, where, to your point, where's the discourse happening and where are people? Getting involved or are they just in their homes freaking out. And I think there's too many people in our homes freaking out and not coming together to be like, what do we do?
Or Am I alone in feeling this way?
That's my sense too. There's a lot of private freak outs and a lot of group texts and group messaging freak outs. I think it's like for a couple of reasons. One, it's just the enormity of these situations of we do feel alone because we feel powerless against it.
Two, these are really complicated situations. We are probably in the middle of a constitutional crisis at least once a week, and it feels surreal. It feels like this can't be happening here. It also feels we've never, or is this something real? And we're told by one side this is the worst thing to happen.
Democracy is ending. The other side is the other side wants you to think democracy is ending because this is real change and to be pulled into the middle and most of us. Are not constitutional scholars. We do not have political science degrees. We do not study this every day. I think back to, this was a little bit before my time of being cognizant of it, but Watergate I remember my parents telling me though.
After work, everyone would rush and watch the same news channels because you only had 2, 4, 7, you only had the major networks. You didn't have this fragmentation in media. So we were all consuming the same media. We were living in the same zeitgeist, so we had the shared experience and we don't have that today.
From, we have generational divides. We have income divides, we have media consumption divides, and you could have 14 hours of content just on the information and the maliciousness of social media algorithms of what is showed to us that reinforces what we already believe. Believe instead of pre presenting balanced and fair information.
And I think tangential to the gig economy idea is that we have lost the media institutions that are sacred, that are supposed to be watchdogs. And when I was getting outta journalism and going into public relations and marketing, everyone told me this is a fantastic time because you can be an independent journalist.
And then social media came, and then everyone was a influencer. That doesn't mean that everyone is qualified to give analysis or to really be independent. So we're also trusting voices that I'm sure they're lovely, but they really shouldn't be trusted as view makers because they aren't informed with first person reporting that can shed a light on things.
They're just hot takes.
Yeah. And I do feel more than ever that the older I get, the more research I have to do on my own about everything. And I think that's where part of the overwhelm comes from. It's is this sunscreen safe for me for the environment? Is this food safe? Is like everything has either, I think part of it is through.
Perception in the storytelling that people want you to be under. And then also some things are happening where people are being fired from the USDA and you're like wait. No. I do want someone else to make sure that, meat people are eating is safe. Yes. And so it just keeps feeling like the burden is going more and more onto the individual, across the board and.
There's nothing about that, that it's not freeing people up to dream. It's not freeing people up to be in their zone of genius. It's not freeing people up to take a breath at any point. And so that's the part that is I. Yeah, making me crazy.
If I have to worry that the water in this glass out of my tap is safe for me to drink, I'm not thinking about innovation. Yes. I'm not thinking about moving my life forward, my business forward, the local economy, forward America forward.
We have these watchdogs. And these safety institutions in place for a reason. They were put there over the Development America, everyone talks, we wanna get back to good old America. This was the time when we were doing these things or dismantling them. What do you think is going to happen?
And I think, six months ago, we were all dealing with the crazy fires that were in the area, and you felt firsthand the air quality shift. If you wanna be grateful for clean air, spend one day near a fire zone.
When you can't go out, you're running special filters, you're having to potentially wear a mask just to go outside. And you're like no. We do need I want clean air. I want the clean water. Yeah. Like the fact that we have to it feels like we're fighting for all of the basics all over again.
Yes. And I know it's a tactic. I know it's part of overwhelmingness distracting us, so we can't have bigger conversations and I feel like we have to keep taking it and putting it aside yep. Thank you for saying that. It's. It's like another thing that we have to deal with and it's okay, how do we stay focused when suddenly everything is now our problem individually?
Chaos, confusion, and cruelty is the point. It's to keep us distracted and, the P Diddy trial, for example. Horrific, absolutely horrific. Judgment has not, as of when we're talking together, judgment's not been down and everyone deserves a fair trial. But what we are seeing as horrific, and even if a 10th of what has been reported is true, we as women and as a society need to be looking at this.
However, most people I know have followed that trial more closely and can talk about the intimate details of it and who is going to on the stand next, what other things have been revealed than they know about what's go that what is in the big beautiful bill. And so I use those things of, oh, you are capable of following detailed stories and of knitting together disparate information into a story.
You do have the time to research something. It's that we need to get people compelled again to believe that what happens on a national level, federal, state, and local, is their responsibility and. I think somehow over generations we have been told, and you started off the hour with this, is it's not polite to talk about politics or it is somehow unpatriotic to question. Or that it's just too difficult to understand and all of those things are complete and utter bullshit.
You said first this is. Yes, you can, and this is where I think politics and business have a lot of correlations because, we look at people who are running businesses, and I'm gonna get the stat a little bit wrong, but it's simply in the zone of like between 90 and 90% of business owners have never taken a business class.
Guess what? The majority of people in politics have not taken a civics class, right? They aren't lawyers. Ma, many still are more than not, but anyone can run for office. Anyone can become a CEO, and the idea that the people who are in government thinking that they are smarter than anyone else in the population is I'm very suspicious of because. Chances are anyone listening to this episode has more degrees, more experience, more ability to read the bill on their own without staffers than people who are assigning and pushing the bill into law.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. You know that's the duality of America. It is beautiful. Any of us can start a business. Any of us can run for office. The problem is any of us can start a business and any of us can run for office. That doesn't mean that we're necessarily the most qualified to be in those positions, and I don't want that to change that any of us can achieve anything that we want, but that also means we must hold each other and ourselves accountable for that.
And just because someone's been elected into office does not mean that. That individual is the most qualified, is the most intelligent, is the right person to be making these decisions. And let's remember something I. Those individuals serve their constituents, they work for us. So even if you believe that person is doing all of the right things, that individual needs to hear this. And I guarantee you there's not one elected person is doing all the right things. And more often than not, they're doing us a whole lot of harm.
Yeah, I mean we, I want to, coming back to the actions people can take so people can get involved in their local town hall meetings, they can get involved in their county Yes.
Meetings. I would re also recommend being on the newsletters or following on social media, your local officials, because you learn so much. I think that there's also being someone who does not have kids in the local school district. It's very hard to be an adult without kids and be connected to what's happening unless we go find it.
You do PR all the time. I would really like there to be some PR campaigns of connecting, like for example, I live in Costa Mesa. Why is there not a Costa Mesa citizens page where even like fun things that are happening are all in one location? Like you would think that the. Town website would do it, but like it's not proficient enough for all the things that are going on.
So it's like we're not doing a good job of communicating things. And I think that's where so many people are also getting enraged with maybe state officials or our, senators or congressmen because we hear these people being loud and we're like, Hey buddy. We elected you. What are you doing? Like your voice is not showing up anywhere.
Like at least give us confidence. You have a thought. And so that's why personally have been okay. Dave Min is one of my representatives. Am I on his newsletter? 'cause I'm sure he's sending something out. I just not getting it. And. I've been using the five. He communicates a lot.
Yeah, he communicates a lot. So make sure you're signed up to that newsletter. It's really fun. You said that last week we had our monthly Costa Base Democratic Club meeting and our guest speaker was Councilwoman, Andrea Maher, who represents the third district. And one of our members raised her hand and said, I have to admit, I don't know what you vote on or really your policies and things.
Why don't you have a newsletter that I can follow? And she says, I know you're doing great things. It's not a criticism, but I wanna be able to follow it. How do I find out this information? And, she made a really good point. It's a part-time position and she doesn't have a staff to do it, and she has a full-time job and her personal life, and she doesn't have a photographer or a journalist or someone following her around all the time.
You the, there is no easy answer to any of these questions. We do need to be responsible for signing up for where we can and actually reading our newsletters, reading the local news as it is. But there's always ways that everyone can do a better job of communicating as well. And some of the community pages on Facebook, for example are just the volition of a local resident who wants to post.
So again, you're getting filtered information. But sometimes you're getting good information.
Yeah. Cottie, Petri Norris, who's been on this po podcast, she actually does a pretty great job with her newsletter of if they all like, here's the bills we're working on. Here's what's coming up, here's where all my people have been. But she's also a state representative, so she has some staff to be doing that. And you, she's even really transparent about Hey, I had to send the staff to this event because I am over here doing this instead. So I like that transparency.
But that's still your tax dollars at work. Yes. Sending a staff member who they did go to school for all of this is their life's work. They very often know more, especially for someone who's newly elected on issues. Supervisor Katrina Foley, orange County supervisor, who represents the fabulous Fifth District, does an outstanding job of communicating. She is, it's her personal penant of communicating, but she also has a team that works with her that is employed by the county. So it, it is possible, but we still do need to take our on volition to read and to share it with one another.
I definitely agree. Another thing I've been using is the Five Star app. It gives you all the things that are being voted on at a federal level. It gives you access to your representatives to call 'em. It even gives you a script if you wanna leave a message for them. And the other thing I've heard recently is that, yeah, the phone calls are great. But they have to open every piece of mail you sent and you can send mail to anyone.
So you can take the same thing, print it out, and send it in an actual envelope, and it may actually get seen more than your voicemails are. So I thought that was very interesting. But I think the biggest takeaway I hope people have from our conversation today is the era of being a passive citizen. Is well over.
If we, there are many people who believe in a 10% of your money ties to your religious organization. I think we have to start thinking about is 10% of our time going to being an active citizen at, whatever level we feel we can participate at. Because it's the only way I think to take back.
What, how we want this country to go. And I think some of the success we've seen on the Republican and MAGA in particular side is that people got very involved at a local level. Yes. And they've been, it's been a slow burn that if you haven't been paying attention, you haven't noticed.
Yeah, it's true.
That's the thing. Democracy dies. It eyes and, there's so many campaigns, eyes in darkness, but it's a participation sport. We all have to, it's not so for someone else to be involved in. We each own the responsibility of making our country, our city, our state, the way we see fit for ourselves, our families, our future generations.
But that only works. If literally, and I'm using that word correctly, literally every one of us takes part in it in the way that we can, not all of us are gonna run for office. That's just a crazy idea. But everyone needs to take part in democracy, and that's all the things that we're talking about today.
Yeah. Thank you so much for being a yes to this conversation and sharing your perspective for people who want to get involved locally and support some of the part things that you're in. How can they find and follow those organizations?
Oh yeah, absolutely. I would love for you to, if you live in Costa Mesa or work or shop, really ever drive through, check out the Costa Mesa Democratic Club.
You can find the Costa Mesa Democratic Club online. We're just@costamesademocrats.org and we're on Facebook and Instagram as well. And then, as I said, look. At your local government sites and sign up for all of your newsletters. Take part and show up to city council meetings, planning commission meetings. You'll know what's going in on your city. And Costa MEA has an animal services committee. If you're a pet owner, check us out. I'm part of that. We meet the third Wednesday of every month at five 30 at City Hall. There's really no excuse. There's something for everyone.
And just such a great reminder that. You can find your people and the things that you're passionate about. If you look and if they don't exist in your specific state of your county, you can create them.
Yes.
If anyone is feeling stuck about how to create the organizations that they believe are needed locally. Please reach out, comment on this episode and we can get you some of those resources that you need.
So one of the other things that I think people are struggling with is they have their individual components of being involved, but also if they're a business owner. A lot of people are thinking, we gotta stay neutral. We don't know where this is going. I am not a neutral person. I don't agree with being neutral.
I don't even know if I don't agree with it. I just don't think I can be, like, it's impossible for me to be Switzerland about things. And I think it's really important that business owners do take initiative because we're seeing at the national level the influence that large businesses are having.
How can businesses of any size. Be taking action and kind of what rights or protections or what do you recommend that businesses do to be participating? Because if you're an LLC or an S-Corp or anything like that, you equal a person in many ways.
Yes, it's exactly. I think that surprises people. Most people don't know that I'll set aside publicly traded companies because they're a different structure and they.
Their first responsibility is to their shareholders. Having said that, if you notice, even the publicly traded companies that side with their employees and with their consumers are seeing an uptick in their stock prices now, and those that have not are seeing while they're in crisis and free fall. So for everyone else, businesses really do wield a whole lot of power for a couple different reasons.
One politicians. Elected and appointed officials, trade groups. Look to business owners. And remember, the majority of businesses in America are small businesses. What do we want America to be? What do we want to be voted on? How can it help us? So your voice matters there. So speak up to your elected and appointed officials as a business owner.
Two. Speak up about the issues that are important to you. I know this tariff issue, and do we pass along the tariffs to consumers? And some companies have backed down by disclosing it. There is nothing wrong in transparency. Your consumers will want to know that you're not just jacking up prices because everyone else is so that they can see, they can help you make decisions about even how to market your business by getting feedback from them with it.
So that's one. Three is that. Your employees are caring about these issues, whether or not they're telling you and okay, you may not be able to do a a big increase in salaries this year. What can you do? Give them time off to volunteer in their community to make the community better. Give them time off to go get an participate in an educational lecture.
Help them get informed so that they can be participants not only in voting and society, but in growing your business and tackling what's going on. And then a third thing or fourth thing rather, is as various privacy and data laws are being clawed back, do what you can to commit. To the privacy and data integrity of your customers and your employees.
That is probably gonna mean you're going above the law, but that is going to pay you dividends and trust in the future and probably keep you out of some sticky situations too.
I love that you brought up a different points about. Behaving in alignment with the values that you believe in. Because I mentioned earlier that as a business it can be really hard to offer all the things you would love to offer to your employees.
It's hard to offer everyone healthcare. It's hard to offer everyone a 401k type plan. It's hard to offer everyone the salaries you wish that they could have because. Sometimes the math just doesn't math. But there are so many things that we can do to take things that are of no cost or very low cost to business owners.
Like you said, the volunteer time. I believe that businesses should be you don't need to be a B Corp to be right. Participating in the things that matter to you, there's a whole level of intentionality that I think we as individuals, and we have business, excuse me, business owners have to be looking at now, and as a business coach and consultant, I'm seeing very similar things happening that did in 2020, but for different reasons.
In 2020, if there was. Any gap in the physical fitness of your business, it became exacerbated at that time. And so to survive, everybody had to get really in shape from a business perspective to make it through that period. And I'm seeing that happen again now, but in a different way where it's are you in integrity?
As a business, which is very different than are you foundationally sound. You need both those things. But there's a pressure now of is your marketing and integrity? Me? Not that from a moral perspective, but I. Are we doing things with intentionality or are we doing things wastefully there's no room for things just because anymore.
And that I think, gives people actually so many opportunities to choose each thing with more put more significance and more weight into the choices we do make. Who are we donating money to? How are we giving our people, to your point, volunteer time to get involved? What are we organizing to allow people to.
Check the box of, okay, I, I did my monthly volunteering, if that's all I have capacity for. And you don't have to do it alone. Businesses can come together to do these as well and share costs if needed together. The same way we do marketing collaborations, there can be value and volunteer collaborations too.
Absolutely. That collaborative power is important.
Same with us, right? Why we all need to get together.
Often.,
Cara, thank you so much. I think this conversation is so important and I can't wait to hear what people have to say. Have they been moved and inspired to be more engaged? I really hope so.
Thanks for giving us this platform.
All the links to connect with Kara and her recommendations for action are in our show notes@thepowerfulladies.com. Please subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening, and leave us a rating and review. Come join us on Instagram at Powerful Ladies, and you can find me and all my socials@karaduffy.com. I'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Until then, I hope you're taking on being powerful in your life. Go be awesome and up to something you love.
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Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
Audio Engineering & Editing by Jordan Duffy
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Music by Joakim Karud
