Rachel Maddow: “Activism is a very specific and technocratic thing.”
On a lot of the activist issues I worked on it was very important that we get no press. And I think, from the outside, one of the things people assume about activism is that you’re trying to consciousness-raise around an issue, and get public discussion and raise public awareness and raise the profile of an issue–not if you’re talking about the comfort of death row prisoners. You don’t actually want that subjected to a popular referendum, because that’s going to be a kneejerk, regressive response.