INTERVIEW: Caitlin Donohue Discusses Drug Politics & Palestinian Resistance @ The DNC
Welcome to a new series of interviews, starting first with the amazing cultural reporter and author, Caitlin Donohue!!
Hi all! As a result of my school newspaper bolstering my cold emailing confidence, I’m starting a series interviewing a plethora of cultural experts, such as reporters (like Ms. Donohue herself), artists, and anyone who seems to be on that pulse!! Expect this to be a bit more sporadic, but within my schedule of posting during Saturday evenings
If I’m totally honest this one was a bit rough on my part as I didn’t exactlyyy prepare the proper questions, but! It was an absolute pleasure to interview Caitlin Donohue, an incredible author and reporter–here’s that transcript ;)
NOTE: This interview was done Monday, September 30th, pre-many of the Iran-Israel proxy conflicts.
ALAIA AULACHONG: Alright, so, really quick, what is your name and your occupation for those who may not know?
CAITLIN DONOHUE: My name’s Caitlin Donohue, and I’m an author and cultural journalist.
AA: Getting straight into it, so, did you watch the presidential debate on September 10th?
CD: Uh, nope! [Laughs]
*This is where I realized I had the wrong line of questions made, sorry Caitlin!!*
AA: But, um, just from around, do you think it was either a detriment or a benefit to either party?
CD: Well, from the coverage and memes that I checked out, it seems like it was definitely a detriment to Donald Trump! And, I suppose, one could argue, a slight benefit to Kamala, just because of Trump’s poor performance. [Laughs]
AA: Yeah! What were those avenues that you heard this coverage from? I’m just curious
CD: Yeah totally. The publications that I get a lot of my news from are Al Jazeera, The UK Guardian, 48 Hills, Democracy Now, I think those are my main outlets that I check out.
AA: As a cultural journalist, do you ever feel overwhelmed with having to stay “on the pulse” sometimes?
CD: You know, not really. I’ve structured–I’m not a staff writer for anyone at the moment. I’m a freelance journalist, I have a radio show that I do down here in Mexico City that’s about drug politics and drug culture. And I write books about drug politics and drug culture. None of the stuff that I do is on, like, a day-to-day, breaking news basis. So I don’t feel compelled to watch–in terms of the debate, I find them to be political theater and propaganda, so I guess we can learn about the campaign’s messaging from them? But I don’t find that I learn anything of real political substance from watching those kinds of publicity events.
AA: Um, okay, honestly, I did plan on this to be mainly about the debate, so I guess I didn’t do my research that well! But, um, what about your coverage on drug policy, that sounds really interesting. Like, what have you been focusing on lately?
CD: So, let’s see, what’s been going on lately. So, I mean, one thing that I’ve been following closely is what’s been going on in Oregon. A couple years ago, Oregon voters approved probably the most radical drug decriminalization that we’ve seen in the United States in modern times. And last year, legislators chose to roll it back. So, I went up there a couple weeks ago and was really interested in speaking with people about their perspective on why that happened and their perspective that, really just one year of partial drug decriminalization in their community, the impact that it had. So that’s a little bit of what I’ve been focusing on.
AA: Why do you think those legislators decided to roll everything back?
CD: Because, I think that people are really more concerned with having to see addicts on the street than they are in actually fixing the overdose crisis. I think that we’ve been taught that we shouldn’t have to see people who have problematic relationships with substances and particularly people with problematic relationships with substances who are experiencing homelessness. It’s like, extremely upsetting to many people to [laughs] to see homeless people.
AA: I think it’s like a dehumanization thing.
CD: Yes! A dehumanization thing, exactly. And there were a lot of like, and speaking specifically about Oregon, there were a lot of people, like specifically people in real estate, people in large businesses, who had a lot to gain from convincing people that the root of their problems stemmed from poor people not being sent to jail for public drug consumption. There was a lot of money going into a campaign like that and unfortunately it managed to turn public opinion against drug decriminalization. Even though, I will point out, that like, the overdose crisis, homelessness, these are all issues that really are affecting the entire country. And that drug decriminalization was obviously just a statewide measure, so I don’t really think people were taking the time to really reason out: Wait, if this is a national crisis, how can it be that one piece of legislation that only has taken effect for one year, in our state cause it? But, uh, I’m heartened that it wasn’t completely rolled back, as in the community around it has addiction programs that are left in place. In terms of like, if it’s once again a misdemeanor to be consuming drugs on the street, yes it is, that’s a problem.
AA: Um, and from what I’ve heard recently, we actually do have a lot of housing available, it’s just that they don’t want to move in any unhoused people into them and actually make space for those unhoused people.
CD: Totally, totally. I mean, they want to do everything to fix homelessness besides providing people with housing. That’s a nationwide thing, is all.
AA & CD: [Laughs]
AA: Um… yeah! I really don’t have much planned for this interview. I wasn’t expecting this, honestly.
CD: Okay yeah! I don’t know what Tim [Redmond] told you about my coverage, but I was covering electoral politics for 48 Hills, specifically during the DNC. So, I did like a weeklong series for them there, but it really was focused on that week. So, I live in Mexico City and my focus is not on a lot of the like day-to-day US politics, I’m so sorry about that!
AA & CD: [Laughs]
AA: No, it’s totally okay! About the DNC, though, did you cover any of the Uncommitted delegates?
CD: I did yeah, I had an interview with Dan Denver, who is one of the leaders of the Uncommitted Movement from Rhode Island. It was a super fascinating interview.
AA: What did you find some of their biggest issues were, ;ike, what would have swayed the delegates?
CD: Their big issue is Palestinian liberation, that’s really the only issue that the Uncommitted Movement has. Although now, we can add Lebanon and Yemen to that. Um, yeah, that was their issue. [Denver] was of the mind that putting pressure on Kamala and the rest of the main wing of the Democratic party, that it could be possible to put pressure on within the party. Uncommitted Movement is interesting to me, because a lot of like, Pro-Palestine activists in the United States, seem to have lost a lot of faith in the Democrats–
AA: Yeah, and in the administration in general
CD: Yeah! They’ve put it aside, but the Uncommitted people are still committed. They withheld their votes in the primaries in the hopes of pushing the Democratic party to cease funding Israel and undoing all of that.
AA: How effective do you think that has been, like withholding their vote in making changes.
CD: Oh I don’t think it’s been effective. I think that you could argue that it played a role in Biden stepping down. I think concerns over his age was probably the bigger factor, but the Uncommitted Movement could have definitely played a role in that. At this point, it’s very difficult for me to say how it’s impacted Harris’s messaging, besides the fact that they’ve been able to vocalize ‘cease-fire.’ And that’s a really semantic shift. To me, it was a little disappointing because I wanted to believe that this kind of change was possible within the Democratic party, but after being in Chicago that week, I didn’t come out with a lot of faith in it.
AA: It almost seems like they’ve been ignoring it, for the most part. They have been using the word cease-fire, but it doesn’t mean anything if they’re not doing anything.
CD: No, not when they continue to send $20 billion dollar aid packages, you know what I mean.
AA & CD: [Laughs]
AA: They’re continuing to do that, and they probably will continue to do so, even after this election, it seems.
CD: I know, well, I mean, if they get elected! [Laughs] We’ll see.
AA: Either way, it’s not gonna really get better, I don’t think.
CD: No, I know. I mean, I don’t think that there’s a big difference between the Republican and the Democrats when it comes to domestic policy, but I am struggling to find the difference when it comes to foreign policy these days, and I wanna wish that wasn’t the case. [Laughs]
AA: I think, for some people, because he wasn’t in office during this time and even back then, especially with Iraq, they don’t see Donald Trump as much as like–they see him separate from, like, the foreign policy failures of the Biden administration. So, either way it’s kind of like no one really knows what’s going on!
CD: No one really knows what’s going on, but I appreciate your attempts to ask journalists about it and digest the news cycle.
AA & CD: [Laughs]
CD: I wish you good luck on your project and I wish I had more insight on the presidential debate specifically.
AA & CD: [Laughs]
AA: I did get a really good interview from Tim Redmond* though, yeah.
*Which would have been uploaded had the audio not get corrupted…
CD: Good! He definitely does watch the debates, for sure. [Laughs]
AA: Alright! Well, um, I don’t really have anymore questions, but, um, it was really great talking to you.
CD: Yeah! It’s a pleasure! Good luck with everything
AA: Thank you so, so much for everything!
Thank YOU so much for reading, you can find Caitlin’s book Weed: Cannabis Culture in the Americas on Amazon here, her work for 48 Hills here, and her website here. She is so incredible so be sure to check her out :)
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All my love, Alaia