Talking Government with the Founders of Political Playlist

Nowadays some might find that politics is a sore subject to discuss, but the three creators of Political Playlist have a fresh, new, and nonpartisan take on the topic. Anna Musky-Goldwyn, Anthony Barkett, and Michael Kristoff gather around a communal table every week to talk about different political matters, but they mainly focus on the young people of Congress. This episode of Ideamix radio will dive into how they reach across the aisle and became the founding mother and fathers of the Political Playlist.

Transcript:

Announcer: [00:00:14] Three, two, one! Lift-off! We have a lift-off! 

Sam Jayanti: [00:00:34] It’s wonderful today to have Anna Musky-Goldwyn, Anthony Barkett, and Michael Kristoff here with us today to talk about their company’s political playlist. Anna. Anthony Michael, welcome to Ideamix radio. Thank you for having us.

Anna Musky-Goldwyn: [00:00:49] Thank you for having us!

Anthony Barkett: [00:00:49] Thank you!

Michael Kristoff: [00:00:49] Thanks!

Sam Jayanti: [00:00:51] So we’ve never had three founders on the show before, so this is going to be fun and a bit of an experiment. But I was hoping you guys could kick us off with the story of how you came together and decided to do this.

Anna Musky-Goldwyn: [00:01:08] Yeah, I can start. And then Michael and Anthony can kind of fill in where I inevitably will mess up. But Anthony and I came up with the idea kind of on the tail end of the 2018 midterms. They both came from very political families and sort of was the point people in our friend groups enjoyed talking about politics when no one else did. And so people would come to us and ask, who should I vote for? What should I care about? Or What should I read? And so that’s kind of where the idea was born, was wanting to create a space that encouraged people to dive deeper into politics, not be afraid of it, and especially not be turned off by sort of the rhetoric around politics that really developed over the last five years. And, you know, it has evolved quite a bit since, as every company and idea does. But Michael joined us about a year later when we were still very much in the idea phase. And we built out the company really with the intention of providing an example of how to have political conversations in a way that felt new and fresh. And the way that we really tackle that is not only by being nonpartisan but also by talking specifically about the 76 members of Congress who are under 45 years old. So really looking to what these young people are doing as an avenue into the political conversation.

Anthony Barkett: [00:02:29] I, I just wanted to add what I think is a really funny part of all of this we all used to live in Los Angeles. I no longer do, but, Anna and I actually met at a restaurant… 

Anna Musky-Goldwyn: [00:02:42] That’s true! Sorry, I left out the fun part.

Anthony Barkett: [00:02:43] We were seated at a communal table across from each other and someone had fainted in the restaurant on my side of the table. And that’s how we started talking.

Anna Musky-Goldwyn: [00:02:55] Yeah!

Anthony Barkett: [00:02:55] And you just think about how weird life is. Sometimes you go out to dinner with friends and then you meet someone and we had a… One of my closest friends went to high school with her. And that’s how we became close friends.

Anna Musky-Goldwyn: [00:03:09] Yeah! And Michael and I grew up right next to each other but didn’t know each other.

Michael Kristoff: [00:03:13] Until, through Anthony. Right? 

Anna Musky-Goldwyn: [00:03:17] We were all meant to meet.

Sam Jayanti: [00:03:20] You definitely were. Anthony, in describing the political playlist and what you guys do. Here’s what you had to say. Let’s take a quick look.

Anthony Barkett: [00:03:29] Hi. My name is Anthony Baquet and I’m one of the co-founders of Political Playlist. We started Political Playlist to help highlight the young politicians in our country. When we found out that only 14% of our Congress is under the age of 45, frankly, we were shocked. We wanted to start this to help educate people on these young politicians because they’re often overlooked by traditional news sources. We also wanted to help people engage in politics in a new and exciting way that didn’t feel overwhelming. So we talked about the young politicians who you probably have never heard of. We talked about the issues that they’re focused on, the ones that relate to a younger generation. And it really inspires me to start something like political playlists, because I interned on the Hill for three summers and I see how important it is for our political system to work in an efficient way. And the more people that we can engage, the more people will care about our country and our communities. Thank you!

Sam Jayanti: [00:04:35] So, Anthony, you mentioned that 14% of the members of Congress only are under 45. We’ve gone through a period pre the last election of an extended time of lack of political engagement. I think particularly from the population that political playlist is trying to cater to, to increase that engagement. Talk a little bit about why you think that population is not as engaged and how at political playlists you’re really trying to increase both the level of engagement of the younger voting population, but also if there’s anything that you’re able to do to increase the number of younger politicians actually running for Congress.

Anthony Barkett: [00:05:27] Yeah! No! Absolutely! So we think the reason a lot are not engaged is that they’re not inspired by some of the leaders. And we’ve seen that in stats related to a lot of our generation. The first president they were able to vote for was Barack Obama and John McCain, both very inspirational leaders, especially for a presidential election. And, you know, we may have not really seen that since then. I think, though, from the standpoint of people engaging now, we’ve seen a huge uptick and I think COVID was a part of that because everyone now realizes that government does influence everything you’re involved in. When you ended up being stuck in your home for months at a time and there were restrictions put in place, and we a lot of our users have reached out to us and said, I want to know the people in my area who are doing these things now as it relates to the young politicians. That was very important to us because we want to focus on people who are fighting for issues of our generation and some of these younger politicians. The biggest and I would say, you know, the issue that has to get elected is money. They need fundraising and it generally takes at least we focus on congressional. It takes a minimum of $1.5 million to be elected to Congress today. So we thought if we could bring awareness to these young people, we could help them raise some money. Then hopefully we can get some more younger people elected to focus on issues that affect our generation.

Sam Jayanti: [00:07:16] I mean, that’s fantastic. It’s the connectivity that you’re creating between voters, candidates that are running for these congressional positions, and really being able to bring them together while increasing the engagement and information level and in a bipartisan way is fantastic.

Sam Jayanti: [00:07:39] Do you….. 

Michael Kristoff: [00:07:39] I think just to jump in there real quick.

Sam Jayanti: [00:07:41] Yeah!

Michael Kristoff: [00:07:42] I think one of the things that were the impetus for why we started this was, that we didn’t feel like there was a fun, sexy place to get news or information about these people. And I think for our generation, you know, Anthony touched on this, that engagement is so critical. And so we thought, okay, well, if you want something that’s very far left, there’s a place to go for that. If you want something that’s very far right. There’s also a place to go for that. But where’s that place that sort of feels like that communal table where this sort of all began and where is that kind of fun place to share those ideas, however different or polarizing they may be, or however similar they may be. And so I think that was kind of, you know, one of the big driving factors to like, say, how do we get through to our generation. This is very critical information about the young leaders shaping our future.

Anthony Barkett: [00:08:44] And and and I think, you know, it’s important to also touch on and I want you to speak to this a bit more as our design of this because we spent a lot of time on it. And one of the biggest things that people say is when they go to our website, they are absolutely obsessed with how it was designed.

Anna Musky-Goldwyn: [00:09:04] Yeah, well, I mean, just to toot my own horn, we were nominated for a Webby Award the first year that we ever existed, which was very cool, although the White House beat us, which felt really unfair like they have enough publicity. Why did they need to win the Webby? But. But we were second. So, yeah, I mean, just to kind of wrap up this sort of youth-centric question, I think that what we saw was this real downturn in young people feeling engaged around the news or political information, because to use Michael’s word, it never felt sexy. It never felt like a trendy, chic thing to look into. And what we decided very early on was to focus on design and to get help from people our age who understood that world and understood how to target that demographic. And, you know, if you look at our Instagram, you look at our website, we’re not red, white, and blue. We’re sort of a play on each of those colors. And that was very intentional. And I think that we’ve tried to carry that through in like the graphics that we have and trying to play into what I think can grab a lot of people our age, which is the visual element of information and not relying so much on sort of the strict like black and white newsprint that, you know, still is very important. But I think we can all agree, that millennials, and especially Gen Z, are just no longer that interested in.

Sam Jayanti: [00:10:33] I think, your website. And it’s totally unfair that the White House won, by the way.

Anna Musky-Goldwyn: [00:10:39] Yes! Thank you!

Anthony Barkett: [00:10:39] Thank you! Thank you.

Anna Musky-Goldwyn: [00:10:41] And your social media definitely reflects a very clear voice in terms of you’re discussing politics, but you’re really trying not to be red, white, and blue. And you’re speaking, I think, to a definitely a younger audience who wants to engage with these topics, but not by reading, you know, a 2000-page article necessarily. And the visual piece of what you’re doing is massively, massively important.

Anna Musky-Goldwyn: [00:11:13] Yeah!

Sam Jayanti: [00:11:15] Let’s shift gears a little bit. Let’s take a quick look at how you described it. Sort of who you are and how you operate. Really?

Anna Musky-Goldwyn: [00:11:26] I’m Anna Musky-Goldwyn, one of the co-founders of Political Play List. And who am I outside of work? Outside of work is kind of similar to who I am inside of work. I am a writer, both in my hobbies and in my career. I’m also an athlete. I’m someone who is very passionate about the things that I undertake, and all of that really came together in starting a political playlist. Our goal with the company is to change the political narrative in our country and to sort of use storytelling to attract people to the youngest politicians in Congress and to learn more about the issues that voters might care about. And so for me, being a storyteller, being a writer, all of that is really important in my endeavors as one of the people working on political playlists because I think that to use storytelling as a tool and as a way to connect is really the ultimate way to get people to care.

Sam Jayanti: [00:12:21] One of the things you referenced Anna, is that you look for consistency between the inside and the outside and that whatever it is you tend to do, you’ll engage with great passion. You all had and possibly have still, a different day job that was not building a website or working in politics. Tell us a little bit, starting with you, Anna, about that day job and this duality of really continuing with that day job. But you’re incredibly passionate about, but effectively having this side hustle, which is turning into less and less of a side hustle and taking up more and more of your time as Political Playlist succeeds.

Anna Musky-Goldwyn: [00:13:09] Yeah! I’m the main television writer and you know, for me and Michael will be able to relate to this as well, and he can tell his own journey. But I think that the idea of storytelling is something that I’ve always just had in my bones and that I’ve always been attracted to and when Anthony and I initially started talking about the idea of the political playlist, one of the really important touchstones was this idea that he mentioned of young people not feeling inspired. And I think one of the real ways that politicians are able to inspire voters, but I think especially young voters who are kind of dipping their toes and trying to figure out what they think. I feel like that all comes from a good personal narrative and a good story and a good way to connect that person’s story to the people who might relate to it. And so for me, being a screenwriter and telling fictional stories or adaptations of true stories and creating characters plays a lot into what we’re trying to do at Political Playlist, which is we want to tell the stories of who these politicians are. We want to tell the stories of how they’re existing in government and not just leave it up to sort of the soundbites and the little impressions you might get from them on like a cable news interview. And so I think that what’s been really cool for me and I think that these guys can relate also is the way that we see the two aspects of our professional lives kind of molding together and that I’m now able to really clearly understand the kinds of stories I want to tell as a writer. And I’m also able to bring that sort of creative energy and narrative experience, I guess you would say, to the way that we craft the information and the content that we put out a political playlist.

Michael Kristoff: [00:14:59] Yeah! And I think to sort of, you know, second that one of the really cool things for us, the storytellers, is we’re kind of obsessed with the point of view. Right. And so I think that is a big factor as to why we are Nonpartizan is that obviously there’s storytelling inherently in all politics, right? All politicians craft a story, tell a story, and all media tells a story. But for us, we get to look at the issues from the point of view of each of these different candidates and or leaders, rather. And so, you know, you take a congressman like Tony Gonzales, who’s in Texas along the border, the issues that face his constituency are going to be very different than the issues that say, face Seth Moulton up in Massachusetts or, you know, who’s a Democrat, the list goes on. And I think for us, what’s really exciting is to focus on what is the point of view of each of these different elected congressional leaders and their constituency. And how does that kind of make up this 14% of Congress and then beyond? So for us as storytellers, that’s frankly irresistible because that’s, you know, you kind of get to live in each of those little different points of view, which is cool.

Anna Musky-Goldwyn: [00:16:20] And I also think that that’s kind of where we’re seeing the media landscape in our world going. I think that media tends to be very reactionary, especially Hollywood. And for a long time, it was sort of dancing, the same dance that the partizanship of Washington was and I think that we’re seeing a change in the media landscape and in the kinds of stories that are being told, to Michael’s point, where people now want to understand other people’s points of view, they want to feel like there’s hope to at some point get along or at least create a dialog. And so it’s exciting, I think, to be in this moment in time where, you know, people are sick of the way things are happening in our government. And I think that that’s going to translate into the kinds of stories that people want to consume, whether it’s through a podcast, whether it’s through television or a movie, or like a Tik Tok video. So…

Anthony Barkett: [00:17:17] And I mean, we all love to tell stories, all three of us, and….. 

Anna Musky-Goldwyn: [00:17:21] We’ll talk forever.

Anthony Barkett: [00:17:24] But I mean, quickly, I come from a finance background, very different from Michael and Anna. And I think one of the biggest issues, you know, I’ve seen it on the development side, political issues really affect how things are done, almost to a detriment. But part of this storytelling is we really only hear the stories of these young politicians, the major ones that most people know us. Right. And that’s AOC. She has 11 million followers on Twitter. Madison Cawthorn on the Republican side. And you don’t hear about those other 70-ish politicians who are in between who have much better stories, to be honest, much more interesting, much more engaging. And, you know, they’re often overlooked by traditional news sources, which many of us can all say that we sometimes get our news from. And that’s really the reason why political playlist has become a little bit bigger part of our lives and helping it get off the ground.

Sam Jayanti: [00:18:32] I’m glad you brought up the media point in terms of falling into patterns of how the media tells stories and which stories they choose to tell. And all of that, I think, is also amplified by the preponderance of negative, negative news stories, which has caused a lot, particularly of the younger, engaged adult population, to switch off from the news because it sort of has mental health effects in the end and at the same time. There’s an unavoidable quality of straddling this realm between fact and, you know, kind of very personal narrative in the case of what you guys are doing in Political Playlist with politicians telling their own stories. How do you straddle that line of… sort of soft versus storytelling. Right. Like it’s news in a way. It’s a first-person narrative. It’s very different from the news because it’s not a constant evaluation of what each congressional member or any politician has done in particular. What do you think about that, on the Political Playlist?

Anna Musky-Goldwyn: [00:20:01] I feel… Oh, you want to go ahead, Anthony!

Anthony Barkett: [00:20:01] Go ahead, Dana!

Anthony Barkett: [00:20:01] I was going to say, I mean, it’s a really interesting question, and I think it’s something that the way that we try to approach everything is we are not advocating for anything. I mean, I guess if we’re advocating for something, it’s to have more young people in the office. But we’re not an organization that is effectively raising money to do that. We’re trying to bring awareness. So I think that we have the luxury of that, that we’re not taking sort of a staunch position on anything. But I think that what is most important and why we find it so helpful to look at the young politicians is that they, for the most part, have this kind of way of using social media, of communicating their stories that a lot of the older generations just don’t, just by nature of being raised in the digital era. And so I think that, first of all, it’s pretty easy to tell when something is a blatant lie or exaggeration, and we will absolutely call out anyone on any part of the spectrum on that. And I think also it’s to lighten the mood and be like, let’s poke fun at some of these people who are making decisions that seem ridiculous. Let’s cheer on some of these people that are making decisions that go unnoticed. And I think that what we’re trying to do is we read a lot of their press releases. Right. We’re not necessarily taking our news or the information that we put across from these big outlets. We’re looking at the press releases of the politicians themselves. We’re looking at local newspapers. We’re looking at tweets that come directly from the politician’s mouths. So. Or their fingers, I guess. And I think that you know, we all need to be better at digging beneath, like, the easy access that we might have by turning on the television or kind of reading whatever comes at the top of our feed. And our goal is to do a little bit of that work for you and give you something that doesn’t feel bogged down in opinion but hopefully can be entertaining nonetheless.

Sam Jayanti: [00:22:07] Makes a ton of sense. Did you want to add something, Anthony?

Anthony Barkett: [00:22:11] No. I just want to really quickly say it was very important to us when we started this, that we do not want to be an organization that’s just throwing out random news that we here. It needs to be validated. It needs to be checked by multiple sources and make sure that we do not want to be the ones out there bringing any unnecessary, unneeded information out there. That’s not true. And that’s really important to us here.

Sam Jayanti: [00:22:39] Couldn’t be more important, given the plethora of sources that people derive their news from these days and the various sources of misinformation that exist.

Anthony Barkett: [00:22:48] Mm-hmm.

Sam Jayanti: [00:22:49] Michael, I want to take a quick look at how you described what you do. Let’s take a quick look.

Michael Kristoff: [00:22:59] Hi. My name is Michael Kristoff and I am a founding partner of the political playlist. But that actually isn’t my day job. I am a film director and screenwriter, and whenever somebody asks me what I do and why I do it, I always like to say to them that I didn’t actually choose it. It chose me. And I think a lot of people in the art industry, whether they be musicians or actors or any kind of storyteller, you know, often feel this kind of a calling. And, you know, anybody familiar with the entertainment industry knows that it is oftentimes brutal. It’s filled with rejection. You hear no all the time, not unlike politics. And I think whenever somebody asks me, well, how do you keep going? Why do you keep going through all of the mountains of B.S. that you got to get through? And I think really it comes down to the fact that so much of what I do is a part of me and it is a calling. And I love it so much that really, at the end of the day, the love for it outweighs all of the bad and all of the grinds that it takes in order to to to tell your stories. So I think that’s that’s what keeps me going.

Sam Jayanti: [00:24:19] I loved what you said about how you didn’t choose writing, but it chose you. There are some similarities of politics there that you talk about, but also it feels like Political Playlist chose you a little bit. So tell us more about that.

Anthony Barkett: [00:24:38] We took him.

Michael Kristoff: [00:24:39] They were I was taken and they won’t let me escape. And it’s funny that the paycheck hasn’t come through yet. I keep waiting. I keep checking that mailbox well.

Sam Jayanti: [00:24:49] After the next funding round.

Anthony Barkett: [00:24:51] Yeah, exactly! 

Michael Kristoff: [00:24:52] I can say kind of anecdotally, my, you know, entree into politics was not through parents or family or really having a keen sense of politics. It really stemmed from a college dinner that I would do a semester early with four other of my friends, all of whom were incredibly entrenched in politics to varying degrees on the political spectrum. And so I found myself at these dinners kind of needing to catch up and needing to be able to come armed with some sort of point of view. We talked about that earlier. And so that was, again, like I was sort of pushed into it in a way, right? It wasn’t me seeing like, Oh, I think I’ll check out this politics thing. And so it was like, how do I hang at dinner? And that then just snowballed into this kind of love of, you know, current events, love of, you know, policy, love of what are these people not saying via Twitter but doing via introducing bills? And I think going back to your point about how do we keep a nonpartisan objective lens on our coverage? Well, it’s kind of following the doing, right. So if we are focusing on what, you know, so-and-so is actually introducing into Congress as a bill, as a law or potential law, that’s a good way to then objectively say, okay, what is this thing going to do? Anybody can tweet any sort of crazy idea, and that doesn’t necessarily make them a good or bad politician. I think the real question becomes, okay, what are they doing vs V, what they’re saying and how can we use that to shine a light on these people who otherwise maybe aren’t getting a lot of notice.

Anthony Barkett: [00:26:50] I think.

Michael Kristoff: [00:26:50] And that’s hard.

Anthony Barkett: [00:26:51] But I also think just to piggyback on that, that one of the most interesting things that we find is that if someone introduces a bill or signs on to a bill. Or votes for a bill, but then doesn’t tweet about it or doesn’t issue a press release about it. That is always the most fascinating, I think, analysis of political behavior because it shows that there are people who are voting their conscience, who are pushing for things that they personally believe in or believe are good for their constituents. But if it doesn’t fit the political narrative of where they fall in their party or what’s happening at that moment, then they won’t be public about it. And it’s interesting because you would think that if you’re a politician, everyone would want to say, Hey, look at what I’m doing. Look at the progress I’m making, look at how active I am, what I’ve introduced as many bills, whatever. And there are a lot of times where there will be a bipartisan bill and no one will really talk about it because no one wants to be seen as compromising or working together, or you’ll have a couple from one side or the other joining the side that’s kind of in control of some legislation. And so I think that we want to be able to unpack some of these tendencies. Like a joke we’ve had recently is that literally no matter what, someone is always writing a letter to someone in the administration about something and the like, the efficacy of which is doubtable, but, but that it’s looking into like the practices of our government. And, you know, there’s only I think there are only 13 states in the country that require a full year of civic education. I think the number goes up to like 30 something and you’re talking about half a year. I can speak for myself and say I didn’t have that much civic education at a very good public school growing up. And that is the hole that we want to fill is what is actually happening in our government. We see this partizanship. How is that playing out as Michael says on a sort of doing level let’s call people out for it and let’s try to understand it better so that we can celebrate the people who are voting for what they believe and who are not falling into the partisan conversation or who are really holding their ground when they believe something strongly.

Sam Jayanti: [00:29:06] That’s it’s you know and in investigations, it follows the money. Right. And that’s I guess, following the action.

Anthony Barkett: [00:29:14] Yeah!

Sam Jayanti: [00:29:14] Not the rhetoric and the social media feeds, etc… So it’s.

Anthony Barkett: [00:29:19] We look at the social feeds. The social media feeds are mind-numbing but informative in a lot of ways.

Anthony Barkett: [00:29:26] Yeah!

Sam Jayanti: [00:29:26] Totally true. Well, love what you’re doing. And so to wrap up, the last question for the three of you who’ve been I mean, you’re engaged in this journey, which is part creative. Anthony, in your case, you come from a finance background, but you’re engaged, all three of you, in this entrepreneurial venture. Who are your mentors and coaches? Who do you turn to for advice? What are the sorts of topics that you have looked for help and advice from coaches and mentors on?

Anthony Barkett: [00:30:02] I’ll start! Mine very Personal one. I would just say my grandfather was really one of the main reasons why I was involved in politics. He’s an immigrant from Lebanon, came over here at the age of seven and he settled in the Central Valley. And politics was such a big part of his life. He got very involved in it and he always told us to be involved. And I think that was honestly one of the main reasons why I wanted to start a political company because I think people have forgotten why you need to stay involved in your political system. Michael or Anna?

Michael Kristoff: [00:30:45] Well, I think it’s funny. I think that you know, one of the things that my parents kind of constantly instilled in me growing up was this idea to just be yourself. And it’s sort of very simple, you know, potentially cheesy advice, except that when you look at so many people, they aren’t really being themselves and particularly people in leadership. And so I think what I sort of tend to be drawn to is a certain kind of authenticity of self that, you know, if we can sort of, you know, keep pushing that idea that it’s you’re going to be a more effective leader, you’re going to be a more effective person, whether you’re a politician or a storyteller, whatever you decide to do, if you kind of hold on to that core value. And so I kind of love that we can do that through this in a way, and show the ones who are feeling pretty authentic to who they are and show the ones that are very much not.

Anthony Barkett: [00:31:54] Yeah! For me, I would say sort of my family at large. I think that I look at the idea of just being of service to people, and I think that can be something really different depending on how you slice it. But, you know, I think about like my great grandparents who immigrated here, I think about my grandparents who are very involved in a lot of charitable organizations and endeavors and then, especially my parents who are much more involved politically. For me, it came down to this connection of storytelling and art and being an artist and using that desire and ability to tell stories actually to impact people’s lives. And, you know, I think that philanthropy is really important, but a lot of the money that is allocated in our country goes through our government. And so maybe if we can start thinking a little bit about our government as a philanthropic organization, which is a taboo thing to say, I think that we should all feel like we can be of service. And I view political playlists and our mission as being of service. And that’s just something that I am really grateful has always been part of the legacy of both sides of my family.

Sam Jayanti: [00:33:06] I think what you guys have built thus far and what you’ll continue to build is super exciting and already has had such an impact and were thrilled to watch this as it evolves and watched the three of you as you evolve as leaders and founders. So thanks so much for being with us today and sharing your thoughts and views.

Anthony Barkett: [00:33:28] Thank you.

Anthony Barkett: [00:33:29] Thanks for having us!

Michael Kristoff: [00:33:30] Thank you!

Anthony Barkett: [00:33:31] Appreciate having us!

Anthony Barkett: [00:33:33] Thanks for listening today. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and while you’re there, please do review the show. We love hearing from you. So email us at info at the Ideamix radio com or Instagram DMs. Our episode this week was produced by the incomparable Martin Milewski with music by the awesome Nashville-based singer-songwriter Doug Allen. You can learn more about Doug at DougAllenMusic.com.