Update your bingo card

What if you threw a party to transform the country—or at least your little corner of it—and everybody came?

Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer's Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What and get Andrea's posts first: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Read the post that inspired this episode: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/of-by-and-for-the-people 

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@degenerateartnews

This week's "Next Comes What" is a snapshot of a city responding to the havoc of the second Trump administration, and follows the drafting of a candidate for Congress who aims to flip the tables. Andrea Pitzer visited Roanoke for the fourth time in the last year, having been intermittently involved in a group of do-gooders who gathered to support the vulnerable groups Trump had specifically targeted in the runup to the 2024 elections. Later, as the administration and its allies took aim at federal workers, farmers, Medicaid, and more, the group realized everyone was at risk. Their movement grew from meetings coordinating with existing nonprofits to protests and educational programs.

This week, the core protest group formally drafted journalist and author Beth Macy to run for Congress, opposing a Republican incumbent who has stopped holding town halls for months at a time and refuses to meet with his unhappy constituents. Andrea traces the growth of the movement to reclaim Virginia's sixth district for the people, and attends Macy's coming-out party as she announces her candidacy. The episode closes with what it all means for the rest of us.