Engaged Citizen

Holly + Josh Hudley

Engaged Citizen is a podcast with Holly and Josh, a couple of ordinary people interested in helping you stay informed in a thoughtful and truthful way. We are saturated with news, so we will take three to four issues each week and discuss why they matter. We’ll end with a bright spot because people still show courage, compassion, and love!

  1. May 19

    Engaged Citizen

    If we are being honest, I think we all know what’s going on here. The overt corruption carried out by the Trump administration—from the billions pocketed by his family from cryptocurrency, social media, and presidential merch to stripping away human rights and launching an unprovoked war—is so blatant. If we ignore or wave it away at this point, we are responsible for enabling it. While I think some are weirdly excited by a strong-man, balls-to-the-wall approach to the presidency, it seems the majority of us are not. So it is truly on us to stand up for the rights we have left before any remnants of democracy completely fall by the wayside. Specifically, if you are a White voter, it is your moral obligation to be an ally and protect the rights of Black and Brown voters, who are the ones most squeezed by newly gerrymandered maps. If you are a male voter, it is your moral obligation to stand up for your female family members’ right to vote. They are coming for those, too. We’ve said before that Trump telegraphs his every move. We should not be surprised but utterly sober and awake to what is happening.

    30 min

  2. May 12

    Engaged Citizen

    The conservative Supreme Court has once again sliced up the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Regardless of whether you identify as Conservative or Liberal, Democrat or Republican, or somewhere in between, we should all be horrified by the efforts to manipulate and deny individuals’ right to vote. There is no doubt that Trump and his buddies are feeling their unpopularity and trying to do everything to hang on to power. Too many people have fought long and hard to win their right to vote. It is an insult ot democracy to erase the political power of the voting populace. Hopefully, we will use this alone as motivation to vote—perhaps not simply along party lines, but in favor of preserving whatever remnants of democracy we have left to work with. It will take years to rebuild and improve upon what has been broken in the last 19 months, but the only way we can recalibrate is to show up at the polls.

  3. May 11

    Engaged Citizen

    Let it be said very clearly that political violence does not belong in a functioning democracy. Let it also be said that if our democracy were functioning, it would neither be fomented nor tolerated. What happened at the White House Correspondent’s dinner was wrong. And how might we examine it as a shadow aspect of what happens when unchecked anger guides our behavior? James Baldwin once wrote, “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost all of the time.” How that applies today is that if we are relatively conscious, we likely feel some rage at what is happening in our country. Anger can be informative and activating, but as we have seen, it can also be dangerous. It feels more important than ever to greet our anger with curiosity and compassion, to let it fuel desires for positive change rather than destructive ones.

    35 min

  4. Apr 7

    Engaged Citizen

    Last week, Timothy Snyder published a Substack on the five things we need to watch for in anticipation of Trump trying to manufacture a coup to prohibit November elections. While some of them may seem far-fetched, I honestly would not put anything past this administration to hold tight to power. We walk through the scenarios and give our own take.

    38 min

  5. Mar 24

    Engaged Citizen

    We are a nation at war. We are a nation whose democratically elected president is actively trying to undermine and downright take away the vote of millions of people. ICE is in the airports, and some analytical readers of Project 2025 say it was always part of the design. We have primaries and elections coming up in every state. What can we do about any of it? Well, we can show up locally. We can raise our voices, call our representatives, protest on March 28, send letters, and vote. We are not powerless, even if it takes longer than we would like.

    43 min

  6. Feb 11

    Engaged Citizen

    Let’s talk about what’s working. Protests are working. Going to city council meetings to refuse permits to privately run human warehouses works. Voting works. Calling your reps works. So does checking on your neighbor and documenting what you see. Shoot, we saw artwork in powerfully during the Super Bowl! We are far too creative a species to take this lying down!

    44 min

  7. Feb 3

    Engaged Citizen

    In an unconventional move, Judge Fred Biery wrote these words in his opinion ordering the release of Liam and Adrian Conejo Arias: “Jesus wept.” I don’t read it so much as an imposition of Christian values on the legal system, but as highlighting the moral depravity of an administration that is willing to detain children to prove a point. I’ll link to her commentary below, but a Lawyer and Mother wrote that his use of this verse speaks less to a political failing (though it is) and more to a spiritual failing. In its simplest form, religion, from the Latin relegare, means to bind together. To practice being bound to one another does not require a particular doctrine, only a belief that each person is worthy of dignity and reverence, and to treat them as such.

    33 min

  8. Jan 27

    Engaged Citizen

    The past week has brought an onslaught of events and emotions. We’ve seen ICE double down on Minnesotans, and we’ve seen these resolute midwesterners triple down en masse. It seems the whole state showed up for the protest on January 23. The very next day, we saw ICE brutally murder another citizen advocate, Alex Pretti. Minnesota hasn’t let up. Following the death of Alex Pretti, their National Guard was mobilized and armed with donuts, coffee, and cocoa for the residents they were called to protect. All of this in sub-freezing temps amidst one of the worst winter storms in recent history. I am both dismayed and inspired.

    33 min
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5
out of 5
8 Ratings

About

Engaged Citizen is a podcast with Holly and Josh, a couple of ordinary people interested in helping you stay informed in a thoughtful and truthful way. We are saturated with news, so we will take three to four issues each week and discuss why they matter. We’ll end with a bright spot because people still show courage, compassion, and love!

Information

  • Creator
    Holly + Josh Hudley
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    49
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    Engaged Citizen