Puppets vs. Puppeteers: How L.A. organizers are turning fury into power

An undocumented aunt walks into a direct action—eyes open.

Amy Schur (ACCE) tried to warn her: there’s real risk in a civil-disobedience sit-in at Peter Thiel’s offices over Palantir’s ICE contract. The woman’s nephew had just been swept up. She looked back at Amy: “They’re coming for all of us. I need to be there.”  That’s the line between fear and power—and this episode lives on it.

Three provocative ideas you’ll hear in the episode:

Stop fighting the puppets. Name the puppeteers:

Elections matter, but corporate power often pulls the strings. Movements win faster when they press the real decision-makers—billionaires, contractors, financiers—alongside policy fights. (Yes, that means Palantir.)

Build on-ramps tomorrow, not in two weeks:

When ICE raids spiked, LAANE shifted staff, launched rapid Know-Your-Rights outreach, and reached 27,000+ workers in weeks. That’s what “people are ready” looks like when movements refuse to be caught flat-footed.

Rage + love = scale:

Anger gets people off the couch; belonging keeps them in the fight. The strategy: train volunteer leaders (“pods,” house meetings), pair with unions, and be ready to disrupt—including around inflection points like the 2028 Olympics.

How this ties back to the season

If you liked the Engler brothers’ playbook on turning uprisings into durable power, this episode is that theory—implemented. LAANE and ACCE are capturing mass-moment energy and channeling it into campaigns, leadership pipelines, and economic pressure at scale. That takes innovation (and more funding) to meet the moment. (See S4E1 with Mark & Paul Engler.)

It also echoes other guests this season:

• Center the working class & the real economy (S4E2 Stephanie Luce, S4E3 Hamilton Nolan)
• Build power, not just policies (S4E4 David Callahan)
• Protect immigrant communities while growing leadership (S4E5 Bamby Salcedo)