393. Megan Greenwell with Jay Willis: Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Release Date: 07/22/2025
421. Rashad Robinson with Angela Rye: From Presence to Power
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Why do some fights for justice hit a wall while others succeed? What does it take to win social change, especially now? According to author and social change strategist Rashad Robinson, it all comes down to understanding one thing: the difference between presence and power. Robinson has watched many movements unfold in his more than twenty years at the highest levels of leadership in two of the most significant social movements of our time: the fight for LGBTQ rights and the fight for racial justice. He’s taken on tech giants and the criminal justice system, politicians in Washington and...
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420. Ben Wikler with Governor Jay Inslee: This Is The Plan: How to End America's Meltdown and Save Democracy
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Ben Wikler, hailed as the “preeminent state party chair” by Nancy Pelosi, led Wisconsin Democrats through a series of hold-your-breath fights against right-wing extremists that resulted, against the odds, in the unrigging of the political system of the most divided — and, until recently, most gerrymandered — state in the nation. His new book, This Is The Plan: How to End America’s Meltdown and Save Democracy, draws on decades of experience in everything from school-board races to presidential elections to bring readers inside the hidden web of power that shapes our lives....
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419. Cole LeFavour: A Memoir of Land, Love, and Queer Resistance in Red America
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Finding and forging one’s identity and purpose can be challenging enough. Doing that while also being a member of a marginalized identity living in a conservative milieu can add more complexity to this experience. For former state Senator Cole LeFavour, that was very much a reality. LeFavour chronicles their life in a new book, In the Arms of Mountains: A Memoir of Land, Love, and Queer Resistance in Red America. As Idaho’s first out LGBTQ+ lawmaker, LeFavour explores a journey through gender, power, and rebellion against a reactionary system. When LeFavour was 11 years old,...
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418. Barbara McQuade with Debora Juarez: Preserving Our Democracy
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
New York Times bestselling author and former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade offers an exposé on what she frames as an escalating threat of far-right politics to both national security and American democracy. In The Fix: Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government, McQuade draws on her decades of legal experience to argue how systems of organized crime and political opportunism exploit the levers of power — using corruption, cruelty, and chaos as tools to dominate institutions and eliminate accountability. McQuade exposes government tactics like information...
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417. Peter Beinart with Smadar Ben-Natan: Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
As the Gaza war stretches into its third year, journalism professor and MSNBC analyst Peter Beinart claims that, as a Jew, he must reckon with the intense moral and theological tensions that not only he holds, but what he sees as challenges for Judaism as a whole. Because of these tensions, Beinart believes the Jewish community must build a new answer to the question: What does it mean to be a Jew? From his book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning, MSNBC analyst Peter Beinart imagines a world where Israeli Jews have the right to equality, not supremacy, and in...
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416. Kimberlé Crenshaw with Angela Rye: Backtalker: An American Memoir
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
By way of structured academia or outspoken social commentary, the work of Kimberlé Crenshaw can be found woven throughout the fabric of modern American sociopolitical discourse. Through establishing the concepts of intersectionality and critical race theory, Crenshaw helped lay a foundation for decades of discussion and activism around race and gender across the world. In her upcoming memoir Backtalker, Crenshaw recounts the personal journeys that shaped her as someone who champions taking notice and speaking up. With intimate and compelling storytelling, Crenshaw takes readers...
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415. Celebrating Bike Everywhere Month 2026: 2nd Annual Bike Month Bash
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Do you bike in Seattle — or want to? Join Cascade Bike Club for Town Hall Seattle’s 2nd annual Bike Month Bash. Seattle’s bike network and transit connections are expanding as the city prepares for the FIFA World Cup and a flood of visitors this summer. But gaps remain, and more work is needed to make people of all abilities feel safe biking in our city. There are also many opportunities to support better biking in Seattle, such as the Pedaling Relief Project that rescues and delivers food on behalf of multiple food banks. Bring your enthusiasm and questions for our panel of...
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414. Red May 2026: ICE-Age Policing presented by Town Hall Seattle and Red May
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
a month-long spree of red arts, red theory, and red politics based in Seattle, Washington, gathers each spring to discuss a world beyond capitalism. For this year’s event at Town Hall Seattle, Red May brings together a panel to discuss policing in the age of ICE. “Counterinsurgency has come home. Since the end of the Vietnam War, innovations in militarized policing have come one after another. No knock raids. AI surveillance. Clear and hold neighborhoods. Each new tactic or strategy has been rubber-stamped in Congress by both Democrats and Republicans under the guise of a...
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413. Khiara M. Bridges with Dr. Karen A. Scott: Expecting Inequity: How the Maternal Health Crisis Affects Even the Wealthiest Black Americans
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Black people are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause, a harrowing statistic that reproductive advocate and author Khiara M. Bridges has been dedicating efforts towards examining for years. The heightened issues facing Black people in maternal healthcare have deep roots in the history of racial inequality in the US and — as Bridges’ most recent work unpacks — persist now even across income levels. In her newest book, Expecting Inequity: How the Maternal Health Crisis Affects Even the Wealthiest Black Americans, Bridges brings attention to the stories...
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412. Speaking of Seattle: Immigrant Rights Are Human Rights: Hosted by Marcus Harrison Green with Angelina Godoy, Roxana Norouzi, Erika Evans, and Alexis Mercedes Rinck
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
At a moment when national politics are testing the boundaries of constitutional protections and human dignity, local communities are asking a vital question: What can we do to protect one another? Town Hall Seattle and The Stranger present the March 19 edition of the Speaking of Seattle civic conversation series, an evening focused on immigrant rights, community responsibility, and the everyday actions that help safeguard our neighbors. This timely conversation explores how federal immigration enforcement policies ripple through local communities — and how ordinary people can respond...
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Did you know that private equity firms have a hand in many U.S. industries, including hospitals, daycare centers, supermarket chains, local newspapers, and prison service providers? They also manage highways, municipal water systems, fire departments, emergency medical services, and a growing swath of real estate. In her new book, Bad Company, journalist Megan Greenwell illuminates how ingrained private equity is, and how it’s preying on the most vulnerable people in our society, controlling congress, and causing destruction in communities around the country.
Private equity is a system of finance that pools money from outside investors and huge bank loans to acquire companies that hold a lot of debt. The company retains their debt, which makes it difficult for the company to recover and protects the investors from those debts. This might sound like a lot of finance jargon, but Greenwell wants to show how this industry is affecting all of our lives. Entire communities are ruined as a result of their buyouts. Workers lose their jobs. Communities lose their institutions. Only private equity wins, Greenwell argues.
Greenwell shares personal experiences of four workers and how private equity upended their employers and communities: a Toys R Us floor supervisor, a rural doctor, a local newspaper journalist, and an affordable housing organizer. Throughout these stories, Greenwell highlights how private equity executives are among the wealthiest people in the United States and are reshaping the economy, disrupting communities, and hollowing out the very idea of the American dream.
Megan Greenwell is a journalist who has written or edited for publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, WIRED, and ESPN. She is also the deputy director of the Princeton Summer Journalism Program, a workshop and college access initiative for students from low-income backgrounds. A California native, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their pug.
Jay Willis is a writer who covers courts, politics, and democracy. He is the editor-in-chief at Balls & Strikes, and was previously a staff writer at GQ magazine and a senior contributor to The Appeal. Before his journalism career, he practiced law at large firms in Washington, D.C. and Seattle.
