Olivia Julianna: The Fierce Latina Leading Youth to Drive Change

0:00From October 7th to 9th in San Francisco, the Masters of Scale Summit returns. It's where the boldest minds in business, tech, and beyond gather to build the future. And we want you to join us. Hear from the CEO of the New York Times, scientists using cutting-edge technology to find cures, the leader of crypto powerhouse Coinbase, a retired four-star general, and many, many more. They're all on the same stage, and it's not just another conference. It is the gathering for remarkable people. Apply to attend at mastersofscale.com slash remarkable. That's mastersofscale.com slash remarkable.

0:49I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People. Helping me today is Olivia Juliana. She is a fierce Gen Z activist. She champions equality and justice. She has mobilized millions of people to defend civil rights across the United States. What began as posting TikTok voting guides exploded into activism to preserve democracy, preserve LGBTQ plus rights, and prevent climate change. She has led a crowdfunding effort that raised over$2.5 million for abortion access after a congressman attempted to publicly shame her. Intimately familiar with mockery over her identities, Olivia wears her queer, woman-of-color status proudly.

1:38Olivia symbolizes the rising tide of progressive youth wielding their choices and voices. She proves that real change comes by turning pain into purpose. I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is Remarkable People. And now, here is the remarkable Olivia Juliana.

2:00Are you or anyone you know affected by this DACA ruling? I don't know anyone personally who's been affected by it. Most of my family, they've been here for a couple generations now. But just reading about it, it's so disheartening. And on the one side, whenever I see something like this, I'm deeply upset by it. because it's like, how are we going to continue to not treat people with basic dignity and humanity? But the other side of me feels, I don't think that relief is the right word, but it's, I have this sense of, I know it's going to be okay because of how much politics has shifted in terms of the amount of organizing and voter education, I think is increasing as time goes on.

2:48I think that people are becoming more and more aware of what's going on. And I think that people are going to start actively fighting because of things like this more and more than we've seen in the past. And so I'm hoping that this is now going to become a legislative priority going into the next election cycle, not just for the president, but I hope that it becomes an election priority for all of the people who are running for Congress of understanding this needs to be a top-line agenda item is immigration reform that is coming from a lens of compassion and dignity rather than espousing great replacement theory talking points that we hear so often from people on the republican side of the aisle i'm fundamentally a marketing person and forget that i'm like as blue as can possibly be but just intellectually it just doesn't make sense to me that you would say, okay, so the population of America is getting more and more non-white, let's say, and women are getting to be more and more powerful.

3:52So why don't we go and piss off all the women and all the Latinos, Latinas, and all the black people? That's our future. That's our marketing strategy. Piss off all the people who are growing and important. I just don't understand yeah and you bring it like a marketing strategy is i also think that we need to talk about it from an economic point of view which is america does not have the birth rates to meet the work field that we are going to need in the next coming years and if we don't have immigration our economy is going to crash that is an undeniable fact that if we do not have people immigrating to the United States.

4:35Our economy is going to suffer. And so you're pissing off your constituency. And now you're trying to pass policies that actively hurt the economy. And I don't think people are pointing that fact out enough. If it's contradictory, and it doesn't make sense, but it's not because their priority is winning elections. Their priority is upholding patriarchy and white supremacy and class inequality. That's why they're not making sense is because all those other things don't matter. It's about keeping their donors rich, about keeping themselves in power and about oppressing people ultimately at the end of the day.

5:13Oh, thank you for explaining that to me because that was above my pay grade. I need to get a little personal here. Have you wrapped your head around a sitting congressman twice your age trying to humiliate you how do you deal with something like that oh i was fine i think that and i've talked about this often is i think a lot of folks victimized me throughout that story and i'm so humbled by people empathizing with me and being concerned but i knew what i was doing i work in politics at the time i was working at a youth-led non-profit as a political director and I baited Matt Gaetz. I was just surprised that he actually took the bait.

6:00And throughout that entire thing, I put out the original tweet. I knew that if he saw it, it would piss him off. But that's what I wanted to do because I wanted him to take the bite because I knew we'd be able to turn into something positive. I just didn't think that he would be stupid enough to do it in such a dumb way. I thought maybe, you know, I'd get a tweet, but a whole speech and all this stuff and talking to reporters i don't think that he navigated it as politic as politically savvy as he could but i always knew that's what i was gonna do i was ready to go and take that and run into the stratosphere and on this list this is why when this all happened i got on twitter and i said thanks matt gates you handed me a national platform on a silver platters where i can now talk to the world about abortion rights in the year that Roe was overturned.

6:52And that's what happened. I think it's not just grasping with the fact that the sitting member of Congress came after me. I've grasped that. That doesn't surprise me. People in the Freedom Caucus are literally children. They don't understand basic marketing or governmental functions. But what I still have trouble grasping is how big of a story it actually was. Like, I know that we raised a lot of money, but I have trouble acknowledging this was not just a story that made headlines here. This is a story that was written about all over the world. There were articles in India. There are articles that were written in Dutch, Spanish, Australia.

7:33It was a global story and I still don't fully grasp that. And it's reflected and I'll look through my social media following analytics or my comments and it's like why do i have so many people from canada and the united kingdom and australia following me and it's because of that story and i think it's absolutely insane in other words you could not have planned it better i would say that i would say that that's fair to say so that dumb ass did you a favor exactly but okay as a technique do would you care to shed some light on how to make zingers? Because, man, you wipe the floor with him. So you got any insights how to wipe the floor with people on social media?

8:24I mean, with people like Matt Gaetz, he's an easy target. He's an alleged pedophile. He has a horrible track record legislatively. I mean, the bottom line is, typically I don't like to resort to name calling or juvenile tactics. Keep it classy. I don't need to say that you're a stupid idiot. I think I would much rather be like, okay, Matt Gaetz, like, you are an alleged pedophile, you are an ineffective lawmaker who has not been able to pass any notable pieces of legislation in your tenure, even though you're a nepo baby who got your position because your dad has money in a political position.

9:00i've always found that the intellectual insults are so much more poignant and jabby than the other ones and people are very receptive to them and matt gates wasn't the first person who i've had run-ins with i had run-ins with the now impeached attorney general of texas ken paxton i've had run-ins with governor glenn youngkin i was routinely ratioing mark wayne mcmullin and all these other republicans talking about like uh you can't say this because you voted no on this bill it's just holding them accountable with their own actions i found is the most effective way to get these people to shut up or to swing the political hammer in your favor you are their worst nightmare i mean you right i mean you are just everything that they stand against basically i am that's why we wanted you so bad on this podcast i actually talked about this there's a la times article out there that talks about this exactly where the journalist asked me she was like what do you think and i was like i think that everything they say is projection i think the right specifically people like in the freedom caucus are constantly talking about people they're hypersensitive they're offended easily they're all these things and i think that is just a confession of themselves.

10:18They're constantly whining about these culture war issues that nobody cares about because it's easier to do that than to actually do their job. I think that people who are affiliated with me and like me, we're a lot tougher than these people are. And I've faced battles a lot tougher than Matt Gaetz name calling me in my life. That's not a big deal to me. And so I think ultimately they're the whiny little snowflakes that they like to say that we are. I think that they're thin-skinned and that they can't handle the heat. So are you saying basically on a day-to-day basis the stupidity and the hatred you deal with it just rolls off your back and it energizes you?

10:57Absolutely. Hate comments regardless of who they're from really do not bother me at all. And how did you get to that point? I grew up a plus size closeted Mexican girl in rural Texas. Like I've been bullied since I was like five years old and I don't know what happened. And especially being like Mexican and anyone who's Latino who hears this will agree with me. When you're Mexican, the meanest people to you are your own family members. I have been conditioned for this since I was a child. I would be at Christmas dinner and my grandparents would be saying the most ruthless things to me every insecurity that someone tries to point out at me online my tias have been pointing out since i was five years old i'm like i'm built for this it's genetics i was built to take this kind of criticism olivia if this activism thing doesn't work out you should go up into you should go into stand-up comedy i see a future for you man i like maybe sometimes i feel like working in activism and politics i am doing stand-up comedy because i'm working with clowns constantly on the other side one of my theories in life is that a sense of humor is one of the most dependable signs of intelligence i agree with that i think that we need more politicians who have a sense of humor I think it like humanizes them and I think it makes people feel like they can open up and talk about this kind of stuff more and I think this goes back to a point I made a little bit earlier about there are a lot of Republicans out there who like me and it's because most of the time I respond to a lot of the criticism with humor like I had a guy on Twitter the other day he's trying to body shame me and I was like all right that's great Tommy why don't you come meet me in the weight room let's go work out together and I'm serious let's do it let's race I've challenged people to races i've challenged people to arm wrestling matches i'm like if you want to be about it then be about it because i'm about it and i can do it what what are we doing here i love when you told gates i'm 5 11 6 4 in heels and i do that because i want people like you to feel as small as you are or something like that right yep yep that was about it was i wear them to remind small men like you of your place and it works it's true i wear heels often in politics and it really does affect the way that men in politics treat me it's this is a real thing it's like a secret weapon i've said this before in heels i am taller than ted cruz if i ever meet him in person i will actually be able to physically look down on him this is a real thing that i have consistently held to be a true fact.

13:45I would pay to see that. So you can look down on him both physically and intellectually, right? Now, you might have to go to Cancun to see him. Yeah, Lord knows he's not facing his constituents. We're going to really digress because I can just tell you're that kind of person. We can digress. You go to the University of Houston, which is not exactly Ivy League. I don't mean that as an insult. That's just a statement of fact. But you ever wonder, this pendejo, he went to Harvard Law School. He went to Yale and Hawley, Gates. All these people went to Ivy League schools. Do you ever wonder what the hell happens to people in Ivy League schools?

14:29Here's the thing. I actually think that Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley are very intelligent people. That's the thing. I think that they are very, very smart. I think that we do a disservice and downplay how dangerous they actually are when we act as if they don't know what they're doing. Like Ted Cruz is a moron if you're somebody who is inside of politics. If you're somebody who, I call it insider baseball. If you're somebody who is in politics and you're listening to what you have to say, you're like, this guy has no idea what he's talking about. But the reality is Ted Cruz did go to an Ivy League university he clerked for a supreme court justice he's a very intelligent man he just chooses to act like he is not because if he acts like he's not then we don't see him as a legitimate threat when the reality is Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley are ferocious at right-wing legislative strategy and helping enact horrible policies that harm people, both federally and on a state level on a consulting basis.

15:39So that being said, I go to University of Houston, Victoria, I go to a satellite campus. It's not an Ivy League school by any means. But I think that's just more reflective on the fact that more people like me who have our political experience from tangible groundwork and growing up feeling policy failure need to be empowered so that we can say I don't have a silver spoon in my mouth like some of these people and I see what they're doing and this is wrong and we need to do something to fix that so that being said I think Ted Cruz is a very dangerous person I don't think that he is just this moron who does silly stuff I think he's really good at okay like Like, yeah, Ted Cruz is online screaming about Bud Light because he wants to get brownie points.

16:27But it's OK, but let's talk about the fact that there are 7000 Anheuser-Busch jobs in his constituency that he's not taking into account. That is dangerous. And it's not because he's not thinking about it. It's because he just doesn't care. Take an aside. Well, Olivia, you're trying to tell me that I should believe that Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley are so smart that they purposely are doing what is seemingly stupid. Don't take it from me. Take it from Mitt Romney. Like this Atlantic article that came out last night about Mitt Romney's biography, Mitt Romney says he believes Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley to be two of the smartest people in government.

17:11and I think we've come to a point at least when it comes to very basic principles and morals I'm willing to listen to Mitt Romney when it comes to things like that because he's shown I think when it comes to basic foundations of government and of the constitution that he is willing to be on the right side of history so I'll listen to him when he says that and I've thought that for a very long time. I don't think that somebody like Ted Cruz gets to the position that he's been in by failing upwards. I think that he's calculated and I think something else and you know what actually I'm so glad that you brought this up.

17:48Something that a lot of people don't talk about is the fact that both Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz have brilliant women behind them. Ted Cruz's wife is a Goldman Sachs bank affiliated person who is largely known for being the blunt of his political operation. Josh Hawley's wife is a very powerful attorney who argues anti-abortion cases in front of the federal government. Both of these men are not just legislators in the U.S. Senate. They are married to very intelligent women who are also having conversations with them about how to act in the U.S. Senate. And no one ever talks about that. These women have extremely successful careers that they are using and yielding to make these men act on their behalf legislatively, on top of their own intentions while they hold these positions of power.

18:45Okay, Olivia, going forward, I'll tell people that I believe that both of them are highly intelligent with highly intelligent wives. But I really don't believe that. But it's safer to say that and be wrong than to say they're stupid and be wrong i think that's very fair i think that's a fair thing to say

19:16here's a funny story so i'm writing a book called think remarkable and it reflects the 200 interviews that I've had for this podcast, as well as my 40 years of experience. And along the way, I met this teacher named Kelly Gibson. She's a public school teacher outside of Oregon, 2 ,500 person city. And she is one of the most remarkable people I've met in this podcast. So I gave her the draft of the book and she comes back to me. She goes, you know, guy, I read the first half of your book. I'm telling you, my students do not know anybody you cited. They don't know Jane Goodall. They don't know Christy Yamaguchi.

19:56They don't know Ronnie Lott, Brandi Chastain. They don't know Waz. They don't know all these people. And I said, who am I supposed to get that they will pick up the book and say, shit, I got to read this book? And you know who she said? Olivia Giuliana. You're kidding. No, no, no. And then, so first of all, just to show you how open and transparent are, I had to say, who is Olivia Giuliano? This is three months ago, okay? And then I did research on you, and I said, holy shit, I could see why. I could see why. That's when we went on this mission to get you. So I'm telling you all this because in my mind, you represent Gen Z for Bob Boomer here, okay?

20:41So you're bringing me out of the dark ages. So I want to know, what are the two or three most important issues to Gen Z? This is a very layered question. And I think that this plays into something that I think is an inherent problem within democratic politics is youth are often seen as a monolith. And I think that there is this cookie cutter idea of, okay, if we want to empower Gen Z, then we're going to talk about abortion, gun violence, climate change. That's our messaging for them. And I think that a lot of times that's crafted around polling that comes out about young people who are already voters.

21:25And the reality is that there are millions of young people out there who are not politically engaged because people are not meeting them where they are and they are not talking to them about the issues that matter most to them. That being said, I think that young people, like young people are not just young people. Young people are students, they're parents, they're workers, they're renters, they're union organizers, they're abortion rights activists, they're caretakers for their family. I think in the same way that we don't treat millennials or Gen Xers or boomers as a monolith, we understand the diversity in them.

22:07We have to start understanding the diversity of young people and in particular the diversity of Gen Z. This is the most racially diverse, politically diverse, ideologically diverse generation we've seen in a really long time and a lot of that is based in the different experiences our generation has had compared to other generations so a sentence that I often say that people are mind blown about when they're older is I have never lived in a world where 9-11 did not happen I was born after 9-11 I was born into a world where the war on terror had already started where I was growing up in the midst of economic recessions, the election of Barack Obama with the plague of school shootings.

22:52And then you see a lot of people in my generation, in our most formative years pre-adulthood and high school, were taken out of school by a global pandemic. So we've faced all these extremely unique generational issues, a lot of which are caused by policy failure or policy inaction. And then we're told to just go live our lives in adulthood where it's become increasingly more difficult to afford a home where it's become increasingly more difficult to get a college education. And so we have no choice but to be politically engaged. And for those who aren't politically engaged, I think it's not because they don't care.

23:29I think it's because they don't think it'll make a difference. And so when it comes to understanding Gen Z, the core principle is understanding that we can't just keep treating young people like they're young people. Because the reality is Gen Z at our age, where we currently at, are the most civically engaged generation we have ever seen politically in terms of voting and in terms of voter education. I know that was a very broad answer. Let's get out of the theoretical, right? Joe Biden calls you up and says, hey, I saw your post on threads, how you said I'm a great president. Help me get reelected, Olivia.

24:05Come on board my campaign. And you tell Joe Biden, of course, you say yes. But then what do you do? What do you tell Joe Biden? This is how to lock and load Gen Z. I tell Joe Biden to talk about, one, the contrast between what he has done and what Republicans are doing and want to do. So I say, OK, you need to talk about how all these major pieces of legislation that you've passed affect the lives of young people. You need to have young people talking about how it affects the lives of young people. And so the story that I tangibly use often is I was able to go to my first year of college. I went to a community college because of the American Rescue Plan.

24:48The American Rescue Plan paid my tuition my entire freshman year of college and gave me enough money afterwards to buy my textbooks and supplies I needed for school. That was done because of the American Rescue Plan. It was also done because Democrats and the omnibus bill expanded Pell Grants. you need to talk about the tangible legislative things that you have done to help Americans and help them understand that the changes that they've seen either in their education or community have come from legislation that you have passed. That's the first thing you would do. The second thing you would do is we have to talk to young people about the economy.

25:27And I actually had a meeting in the White House a couple of months ago where I specifically said we need a youth economic agenda that is concentrated in this country. Don't talk about the economy broadly. I need you to set forward specifically how you are going to economically empower young people and how you have already laid the groundwork to do that because they have. If we are rebuilding the infrastructure in our communities, that affects the longevity of young people going into older adulthood in terms of where are you going to establish your family. If we're talking about Pell Grant expansion.

26:02We're talking about student loan forgiveness. These are things that have already started happening economically. The foundation has been laid. You need to expand on it now. You laid the bricks down. Now we need to talk about how you're going to build the house and what you're going to put inside of it. So I would say talk about how are we going to empower young people in the economy because it's really hard to say hey like the economy is in great standing when there are a lot of folks who can't pay their rent and there are a lot of folks who were having trouble buying groceries. I understand as a politico, I know that that's not Joe Biden's fault.

26:37I know our supply chains are recovering from COVID. I know that a lot of state legislatures are responsible for the issues that we're seeing, like low minimum wages. I know that, but it's because that's my job to know that. We need to communicate what we need to do in order to empower people more financially, especially young people who are entering adulthood. And I think that we're going to see more executive action coming before the presidential election to do that. But he has a record to run on. This isn't 2020 where he's saying, oh, I'm going to do all this for young people. This is 2023 where he has already done things.

27:17This is not about getting him to do things. This is about marketing the fact that he has already started. And if we want this progress to continue we have to put him back in the White House and not just put him back in the White House but I think the third thing and I think that this is the most crucial not just for young people but for politics in general is getting people to understand the dynamics of intergovernmental work we need people to understand that in order for us to rebuild our roads to rebuild our schools to tangibly better our community that we are living in every day. We need Joe Biden in the White House.

27:57We need Democratic governors in the governor's mansion. We need state legislatures that are controlled by Democrats. We need city councils and county commissions and mayors that are going to fulfill this agenda and let that federal money run all the way down the stream until we can tangibly seed in our community. We need elected officials and people who are campaigning to talk about how they are going to work with the elected officials that we see all the time in our communities to make our lives better. If I'm a regular person, chances are I'm never going to meet Joe Biden. But if I'm a regular person living in Fort Bend County, Texas, there's a good chance that I'm going to meet my county commissioner or my county judge.

28:41And I need to know that they're going to be able to take the funding that has been passed through Joe Biden's White House and implement changes in my community that I want to see done. Okay. Can I just ask you a dumb question? Sure. Have you ever had your IQ tested? No. I'm telling you, you are freaking mensa material. thank you olivia you mark my words you will win a macarthur fellowship i'm gonna be honest i don't know what that is when they call you up and they say you've won a macarthur fellowship you call me up and i'll explain it to you okay in the things that you just listed none of them were you know talk smack about the GOP, what they're trying to do to you.

29:35So are you saying keep the message, Joe, completely positive? Don't talk about they took away your abortion rights. They took away black history. They took away this. No, I have a very basic equation that I have for all political issues, which is problem plus hope equals change. The problem is that a Donald Trump Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade. That's the problem. The hope is that we elect two or three more Democratic senators who will abolish the filibuster and codify Roe v. Wade through the United States Congress and put that bill onto the desk of President Joe Biden. And the change is we codify Roe v.

30:16Wade. The problem is that Republicans are banning books in school. The hope is that we have state boards of education and governor's elections that are going to happen that are going to change the dynamic of power to where then public schools are no longer being attacked and books aren't being banned you can't just run campaigns based on fear running campaigns based on fear is a republican strategy that works because the republican party is propped up by fear and propped up by oppression the democratic party is not propped up by fear and oppression it's propped up by hope and systemic change. And so we have to run on, here's the problem and here's how we're going to fix it.

30:57Because if we run just on fear, we will lose every single time. You are just a quote machine. My God. It's like everything comes out of your mouth is quotable. Thank you. I try. I want to meet your grandparents. Here's the funny thing, actually. I am an ideological anomaly in my family. I'm the only Democrat. Every person in my family is a conservative. And the person who really has shaped my political mind is my dad. My dad is a John McCain Republican. He, I grew up in a very conservative Christian household, Fox and Friends on the News every single morning, watched every single presidential election all through my childhood.