Introducing – ChangeMakers Digest
Welcome to a new kind of podcast on our channel
We’re launching a new podcast called Changemakers Digest
Here’s a note about why – from our new co-host: Samuel Chu
Which, admittedly, means we are contributing to the already alarming number of people with microphones discussing democracy, politics, movements, and the state of the world.
But we promise this one started with cows.
More specifically: cow digestion.
A few years ago, I, Samuel, became emotionally committed to a metaphor after rereading a Saul Alinsky quote that has stayed with me for years:
“Most people go through life undergoing a series of happenings, which pass through their systems undigested. Happenings become experiences when they are digested, when they are reflected on, related to general patterns, and synthesized.”
And honestly? That explains a shocking amount of modern political life.
Most people are just freebasing happenings.
A headline.
A TikTok.
A billionaire posting through a divorce.
A protest clip.
Another AI app promising to either save civilization or destroy it while helping you answer emails.
Nothing gets digested. Everything just slams directly into people’s nervous systems at full speed.
Which brings us back to cows.
Cows, apparently, have four stomach compartments. I checked because once the metaphor lodged itself in my brain, I needed to make sure I wasn’t accidentally spreading livestock misinformation.
A cow eats something.
Digests it.
Brings it back up.
Chews it again.
Digests it again.
Rumination.
Honestly? That feels healthier than how most people consume politics.
Most people consume information like seagulls at a landfill.
Just swallowing entire objects whole and screaming.
But real movements learn through rumination. Something happens. People argue about it. Reflect on it. Test interpretations. Connect it to older experiences. Somebody notices a pattern. Somebody else says, “No, you’re missing the actual pressure point.”
That’s digestion.
And that’s really the vibe of Changemakers Digest.
My co-host, Amanda Tattersall, and I have never lived in the same city, country, or even continent. Most of our conversations happen through messaging apps or via video conferencing at deeply unholy hours because of the time difference between Sydney and wherever I happen to be. Every once in a while, we end up in the same part of the world for a few hours and actually get to break bread together.
A lot of our conversations begin with one of us sending the other some tiny story that everybody else ignored and saying:
“I don’t know why, but this feels important.”
Or one of us becoming weirdly obsessed with something that initially sounds far too small to matter.
And then suddenly we’re three hours deep into a conversation about public life, loneliness, organizing, democracy, power, institutions, and why the exact same emotional dynamics keep reappearing in completely different places around the world.
That’s the vibe we want this podcast to have.
Not polished certainty.
Not hot takes.
Not tragedy porn.
Not people turning movements and suffering into aesthetic content.
Just conversation. Reflection. Disagreement. Storytelling. Strategy. Weird observations. Trying to think honestly together while history keeps speeding up.
A place to think together a little more honestly about what’s happening to public life — and how people still manage to build trust, move others, and act together anyway.”
Or at the very least, a place to suffer through history with slightly better analysis.
Which means, unfortunately, this podcast is now spiritually committed to becoming the cow stomach of democratic life.
Too late to change it.
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