Block & Build

Convergence Magazine
  • 5.0 (19)
  • POLITICS
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Block & Build is a newsmagazine podcast from Convergence Magazine that examines the balance of political forces in the US from a movement perspective. Every week, host Cayden Mak explores what's happening in politics—and what we can do about it. The show takes Convergence's Block & Build framework as a jumping-off point for responding to escalating authoritarianism in ways that focus on preventing harm while building the strength, resilience, and strategy for our movements to win in the long-term. And we're not just talk. Block & Build is made by and for doers: every week we hear from organizers, strategists, movement journalists, and others who are helping to refine our strategy and develop strategic unity in a time of great peril for people and planet. But we have no time for doomerism. This show is about how to fight, and while we are clear-eyed about what we're up against, we're also determined to win. Join us.

  1. 2D AGO

    Co-Governance in Philly w/ Kendra Brooks, Nicole Kligerman, and Nikki Grant

    Examples like Zohran Mamdani’s win in the New York City Mayoral race last year or Brandon Johnson becoming mayor of Chicago a few years earlier, are some of the highest profile examples of progressive movement candidates winning local office. They’ve demonstrated that movements can win as well as how challenges can arise when working to place a single elected official into a local seat amidst a sea of colleagues to their political right. Meanwhile, left leaning electeds often immediately face criticism about their commitments to the movement organizers and the communities who helped put them in office the day their tenure in office begins. But in Philadelphia, City Councilmember at Large Kendra Brooks, along with the community organizations who serve her constituents and shaped her values, have stayed in the difficult work of governing together. Councilmember Brooks is a member of the Working Families Party who holds an at-large minority seat on the city’s council. She contends that this role requires a diligent tending to the feedback between her office and the communities she serves if she is going to deliver the promises she campaigned on. We had the opportunity to talk with Councilmember Brooks as well as two of the community stakeholders she continues to work with as a sitting Philadelphia city councilmember. They are Pennsylvania Director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Nicole Kligerman and Director of Amistad Law Project, Nikki Grant. In the episode we discuss the opportunities and challenges they’ve faced together winning material victories for working people in the city. Want more? Enrich your media diet: Movement Media Alliance Contact us: mailbag@convergencemag.com Subscribe to Convergence Magazine’s YouTube to catch the video premiere of each episode: Mondays at 7:00 PM ET / 4:00 PM PT Have we made a difference in your life? Help us keep it going. convergencemag.com/membership

    55 min

  2. MAR 23

    The Attention Economy Navigator, March 2026 w/ Rynn Reed and Ravi Mangla

    his week we are building March's Attention Economy Navigator, our guide to what you should be paying more attention to, and what you can probably pay less attention to. And why those stories might not be what you’d assume. Joining to help build this month's Attention Economy Navigator in real time are founder of Creator Congress, Rynn Reed and National Press Secretary for the Working Families Party, Ravi Mangla. Together, they co-publish the Substack newsletter, Signal Break, which is all about agitating, disrupting, and challenging the prevailing orthodoxy around how we communicate and charting a new way forward. You can also watch the panel plot these stories in real time on YouTube. Stories we referenced in this episode: Dark money groups offered influencers $1500 per post to attack, specifically, progressive candidate Kat Abughazaleh in Illinois 9th District congressional primary. Exploring if the mythical moderate Democrat voter really exists. AKA Chuck Schumer's favorite fictional family of voters, The Baileys. Resignation of Director of National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent – making the correct moral move for the wrong reasons. The "Creator Wars" which broke out over the highly contested Texas congressional primary race between Jasmine Crockett and James Talarico. Data centers are becoming an electoral wedge issue. Trump can't stop talking about taking over Cuba. Open AI's Sam Altman has suggested a model in which all their stolen "intelligence" is sold back to us like a utility. Want more? Enrich your media diet: Movement Media Alliance Contact us: mailbag@convergencemag.com Subscribe to Convergence Magazine's YouTube to catch the video premiere of each episode: Mondays at 7:00 PM ET / 4:00 PM PT Have we made a difference in your life? Help us keep it going. convergencemag.com/membership

    55 min

  3. MAR 16

    Lawyering for Liberation w/ Ameca Reali and Marbré Stahly-Butts

    Social movements are often centered around the law: who it protects and who it does not. And as you heard in this week's headlines, we also find ourselves in an era of increasing weaponized “lawfare” by MAGA and its allies. On top of the "antifa" domestic terror case in Texas, there have been other recent attempts by the federal government to criminalize dissent, from the RICO cases against Atlanta’s Stop Cop City movement, to more recent charges against protestors in Minnesota this winter. Legal representation for these cases and others is necessary as the systems of power which marginalize these communities in the first place seek to criminalize our work toward liberation. This is the work of “movement lawyering.” Movement lawyering is when attorneys and other legal professionals align their work with the values and politics of movements for liberation. Our guests this week recently published a guide and handbook for legal professionals and organizers alike. We were recently joined by the coauthors and coeditors of Lawyering for Liberation: A Tool Box for Movement Lawyers. They are movement attorney Ameca Reali and Associate Professor of Law at CUNY School of Law, Marbré Stahly-Butts. We discuss the work lawyers need to do to bring their work and values into alignment with liberation movements, as well as how organizers can think about how to work closely with legal professionals who share their goals. Want more? Enrich your media diet: Movement Media Alliance Contact us: mailbag@convergencemag.com Subscribe to Convergence Magazine’s YouTube to catch the video premiere of each episode: Mondays at 7:00 PM ET / 4:00 PM PT Have we made a difference in your life? Help us keep it going. convergencemag.com/donate Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links to Convergence’s Bookshop. Ten percent of purchases made through our bookshop directly support our movement media work.

    51 min

  4. MAR 9

    Tabletop Solidarity w/ Gabor Fu and Sam LeDoux

    Tabletop games like Magic the Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, and many more have long been a natural community building space for those of us who have felt culturally marginalized. But as fandom has expanded, so has the ability of neoliberal capital to commodify and profit from just about any niche “nerd” interest you can think of. A massive tabletop industry has grown which requires a growing customer-facing workforce. In the past decade both Magic and D&D have come under ownership, and begun generating massive profits for, the multi-billion dollar toy and entertainment publisher Hasbro. A cottage industry of tabletop game stores to support these games, products, and their fans has also risen. But these businesses are more than just stores; they are community spaces new and dedicated gamers depend on for play space, social support, and more. This necessitates a staff skilled in customer service, deep game knowledge, and even childcare for school students attending aftercare programs. As this business grew, workers at a collection of game stores in New York City unionized as Tabletop Workers United in 2023. Throughout their long journey to a contract last spring, they were supported by a partner organization of volunteers known as the Tabletop Solidarity Committee; a group of dedicated customers who love the stores and their workers as community resources and want to see the employees who run the spaces supported by their employers. Our guests this week are two members of that Tabletop Solidarity Committee out of NYC, Gabor Fu and Sam LeDoux. They’ll tell the story of how their organizing supported the workers’ journey to a contract and why these game stores are such valuable community and organizing spaces. Want more? Enrich your media diet: Movement Media Alliance Contact us: mailbag@convergencemag.com Subscribe to Convergence Magazine’s YouTube to catch the video premiere of each episode: Mondays at 7:00 PM ET / 4:00 PM PT Have we made a difference in your life? Help us keep it going. convergencemag.com/donate

    40 min

  5. MAR 3

    Minnesotan Resilience w/ Doran Schrantz

    It is deeply unsettling how quickly mainstream media headlines and narratives moved on from Trump and DHS’s so-called "Operation Metro Surge” in Minnesota. The removal of Greg Bovino and the “drawdown” was a concerted attempt to force public attention to move along, in spite of the fact that there are still a disproportionate number of agents on the ground in the state.  This operation yielded two highly visible, extrajudicial murders of peaceful American protestors by the state. No one was held accountable. Communities are still grieving the loss of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, as well as the kidnapping and disappearance of thousands of their neighbors by DHS. The operation brought the country perhaps the closest it has come to civil war since the last one ended. However, the administration has tried to leverage the nature of the attention economy to force us to dust off our feet and move on like it never happened. Internally at Convergence, we think deeply about the importance of slow media, as well as preserving historic and institutional memory, as a counterweight to the hypernormalization of dizzying MAGA brand fascism. The administration pushes to normalize the violence being visited upon communities all over the country. We continue to see stories of abuse and overreach from DHS which aren’t making it “above the fold” in the mainstream press. So we’re going back to Minnesota as the subject of this episode, because Minnesota still has lessons for us. I was joined last week by longtime Minnesota organizer and former Executive Director of Faith In Minnesota Action PAC, Doran Schrantz. We discussed what she and her neighbors experienced and continue to experience from Trump’s DHS invasion in their state, including some crucial warnings and lessons for us all. Want more? Enrich your media diet: Movement Media Alliance Contact us: mailbag@convergencemag.com Subscribe to Convergence Magazine’s YouTube to catch the video premiere of each episode: Mondays at 7:00 PM ET / 4:00 PM PT Have we made a difference in your life? Help us keep it going. convergencemag.com/donate

    1 hr

  6. FEB 24

    The Attention Economy Navigator, February 2026 w/ Chris Fields Figueredo and Steven Renderos

    This week we are building February's Attention Economy Navigator, our guide to what you should be paying more attention to, and what you can probably pay less attention to. And why those stories might not be what you’d assume. Joining to help build this month's Attention Economy Navigator in real time are Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, bruja, Bad Bunny super-fan, and Executive Director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center; and Steven Renderos, DJ, culture critic, and Executive Director of MediaJustice. Find the full navigator chart here. You can also watch the panel plot these stories in real time on YouTube. Stories we referenced in this episode: Chris draws our attention to the emergence of "competitive authoritarianism": The SAVE America Act; FBI raids Fulton County, GA, election office; The arrest of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort; Steve Bannon wants ICE at polling places. Ring walks back from "Search Party," which was featured in a super creepy Super Bowl commercial, Nancy Guthrie's offline Nest camera footage, and the community-powered surveillance we didn't sign up for. Colbert says CBS blocked interview with James Talarico, but now the video has over 8 million YouTube views. Benito Bowl is a rich text. Prairieland 19 trial kicks off and immediately gets declared a mistrial; how this case might be a bellwether for the state of protest to come. Is something big happening with AI, or is Matt Shumer just trying to get us to join his weird cult? The MAHA Boys are hitting the gym in this bizarre sensory nightmare of an ad, featuring Kid Rock (and apparently Kid Rock's home gym?). Want more? Enrich your media diet: Movement Media Alliance Contact us: mailbag@convergencemag.com Subscribe to Convergence Magazine's YouTube to catch the video premiere of each episode: Mondays at 7:00 PM ET / 4:00 PM PT Have we made a difference in your life? Help us keep it going. convergencemag.com/donate

    1h 1m

  7. FEB 17

    Voters vs. Data Centers w/ Michelle Martinez, Molly Sweeney, and Christy McGillivray

    At the end of 2024, Michigan’s state-level Democratic trifecta passed a massive tax incentive for data centers to the tune of $90 million in exchange for, essentially, an IOU for future “community benefits.” Organizers saw this as representative of a two-pronged problem: desperation on the part of local and state governments to bring in revenue, and corporate control of the functions of democracy. In the time since, Michigan has fast tracked data centers, and those community benefits have been…elusive. As pushback against data center development has ramped up as a non-partisan community issue across the country in the time since this tax break was passed, organizers in the state have begun circulating petitions for two ballot measures which address each side of the problem. Invest in MI Kids is a ballot measure that would repair a regressive tax and require the rich to pay their fair share into the education system and Money Out of Politics would dismantle the system of lobbying which allows corporate control of their state assembly. Joining this episode to discuss are Co-founder and Organizing Director of 482Forward and steering committee member of the Invest in MI Kids ballot initiative, Molly Sweeney, Executive Director of Voters Not Politicians and steering committee member of the Michigan Money Out of Politics ballot initiative, Christy McGillivray, and Director of the Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment at the University of Michigan, Michelle Martinez. Additional Resources One Solution to Data Centers? Tax the Rich in Convergence Magazine Want more? Enrich your media diet: Movement Media Alliance Contact us: mailbag@convergencemag.com Subscribe to Convergence Magazine’s YouTube to catch the video premiere of each episode: Mondays at 7:00 PM ET / 4:00 PM PT Have we made a difference in your life? Help us keep it going. convergencemag.com/donate

    53 min

  8. FEB 10

    Feed Drop: Art Against Empire Ep. 1

    Art Against Empire, hosted by textile artist Ian Danger Capstick, examines the intersection of creativity and politics through conversations with artists, craftspeople, and activists who use making as a form of resistance. The show features interviews with dozens of artists, crafters, and theorists from around the world exploring the history of makers fighting back against capital control of their craft—including Convergence’s very own Kimmie Dearest. Art Against Empire, Episode 1 – Our Hands Know How to Build the World We Want Quilters, blacksmiths, weavers, embroiderers - 25 artists across four countries using craft to fight systems of power. Welcome to Art Against Empire! This series introduction launches a 16-episode journey featuring over two dozen artists, craftspeople, and theorists across four countries. You'll hear from quilters stitching memorials to police violence victims, blacksmiths forging tools as acts of reclamation, embroiderers translating climate data into thread, and weavers who are building queer community. Ian traces why empires from Rome to Britain built their wealth on controlling cloth, and why makers have always fought back. The history runs from the 1378 Ciompi Revolt through Gandhi's spinning wheel to the AIDS Memorial Quilt that covered America's National Mall. Additional Resources G92 - Learn more about those organizing to protect immigrants in Springfield, OH Want more? Enrich your media diet: Movement Media Alliance Contact us: mailbag@convergencemag.com Subscribe to Convergence Magazine’s YouTube to catch the video premiere of each episode: Mondays at 7:00 PM ET / 4:00 PM PT Have we made a difference in your life? Help us keep it going. convergencemag.com/donate

    34 min
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About

Block & Build is a newsmagazine podcast from Convergence Magazine that examines the balance of political forces in the US from a movement perspective. Every week, host Cayden Mak explores what's happening in politics—and what we can do about it. The show takes Convergence's Block & Build framework as a jumping-off point for responding to escalating authoritarianism in ways that focus on preventing harm while building the strength, resilience, and strategy for our movements to win in the long-term. And we're not just talk. Block & Build is made by and for doers: every week we hear from organizers, strategists, movement journalists, and others who are helping to refine our strategy and develop strategic unity in a time of great peril for people and planet. But we have no time for doomerism. This show is about how to fight, and while we are clear-eyed about what we're up against, we're also determined to win. Join us.

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