Action Is the Fuel to Beto O’Rourke’s Fire

Note: Text has been edited and does not match audio exactly

Katie O'Connor: Hi, listeners. I'm Audible Editor Katie O'Connor, and today I'm honored to be speaking with the former congressman from El Paso and current Democratic candidate for governor of Texas, Beto O'Rourke. Welcome, Beto.

Beto O'Rourke: Hey Katie, thanks for having me.

KO: Thank you so much for being here. Your book, We've Got to Try, is part history, part call-to-action on a range of issues, but really centered on voting rights. The narrative is bookended by the story of Dr. Lawrence Nixon, a Black civil rights leader who twice went to the Supreme Court about the right to vote in a Democratic primary. His historic cases originated in your hometown of El Paso, and yet you shared that you never learned about him growing up or in school. Can you share with our listeners more about how you first encountered the story of Dr. Nixon and why you chose his fight to anchor your book?

BO: Yeah, that's right. He's this extraordinary historical figure in Texas, and really for the country and really for anyone globally who cares about democracy and the right to vote. He moves here at the turn of the 20th century, starts the first chapter of the NAACP in the state of Texas. Very involved civically. He's a physician, he's a leader in the community. And in 1923, the Texas Legislature passes a law that essentially bars him and any other African American from being able to vote in the Democratic primary.

And at the time, the Democratic Party was the only party in the state of Texas. Nominally, there was a Republican Party, but it was so weak that it couldn't even organize a primary system in the state of Texas. So, if you won the Democratic primary for governor, for Congress, for state rep, for county commissioner, you have won the general election. And so by barring African Americans from voting in that primary, the state of Texas had barred them from participating in this democracy.

So, Dr. Nixon goes to his polling place, Fire Station No. 5 on Texas Avenue, where he has voted every single election since he's been in El Paso, and for the first time is denied the right to vote. And the poll judges—who, by the way, know Dr. Nixon because he is such a consistent, regular voter and so civically involved in the community—they say, "Dr. Nixon, you know we can't let you vote." And Dr. Nixon says, "I know you can't, but I've got to try." And as you pointed out, he continues to try year after year, decade after decade, taking his case to the Supreme Court, not once, but twice, winning two significant signal victories that paved the way for integration of our elections in the state of Texas—and ultimately for the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which is signed into law by the first Texas president, Lyndon Baines Johnson.

And with all that history I just shared with you, it blows my mind that I was never once made aware of his existence growing up in El Paso, the town from which he came and which he won these extraordinary victories, and an important community in the state of Texas, which has a very long and troubled history with voting rights and democracy. And so I learned about him by listening to others here in this community, and primarily within the African American community and the civil rights community centered around the McCall Center in El Paso.

"When we settle, when we stop moving, we begin to accept the status quo."

So, this really came from leaders in the community, not our government, not the school system, and at a time that we find democracy under attack unlike any time in my lifetime—you'd have to go back to Dr. Nixon's lifetime to find a precedent for this attack on voting rights and the ability for free and fair elections to be conducted in Texas. I just really thought it was important that we elevate his story and his example, because for the faint of heart who think that all hope is lost and the sky is falling and you never get past this, we need an inspirational hero like Lawrence Nixon, who shows us that, yes, you can get past this. It involves a tremendous amount of effort and courage and persistence and patience, and this idea that you've got to try. I mean, the odds may be stacked against you, they may tell you, "You can't do this,” but you gotta try nonetheless, just like he did. And that's how you make it possible and that's how you get it done.

KO: His story is so inspirational, and I particularly appreciated how you shared that he continued to pay his poll tax year after year after year, just in the event that he would finally be granted that right to vote, as did hundreds of others. Just maintaining that hope—and, as you say, that hope is so critical right now. There is so much to contend with. There's this issue of voting rights that's only gotten worse since the 2013 Shelby decision, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, what feels like perpetual gun violence, and, of course, the ongoing pandemic. It's exhausting, frankly. And it can sometimes feel like we are regressing as a country. But you invoke that old Joan Baez quote in We've Got to Try, which is: "Action is the antidote to despair." And I'm curious where you are personally finding that strength to be energized right now?

BO: It's in action. It's in motion. It's in connecting with other people. When we settle, when we stop moving, we begin to accept the status quo. Even physically, when we're sedentary, and then beyond that, civically, democratically—with a small “d”—when we're disengaged, I think we tacitly accept the status quo and the trajectory that we're on. As you just described, it's not a good one.

For the first time in half a century, women in the state of Texas and through much of this country no longer are able to make their own decisions about their own body and their own health care and their own future. Our state, as you alluded to, has four of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history. We had one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history just earlier this year, in Uvalde.

And not only have those in power done nothing to make it less likely that we'll have more shootings, they've in fact made it more likely by passing bills that allow essentially any Texan to carry a loaded gun in public without a background check or any vetting or training whatsoever. And in democracy, this idea that we can freely and fairly choose those who will represent us in the course and direction that our community or our state or our country will take is under attack in Texas more so than it is anywhere else.

Thirteen percent of the mail-in ballots cast in this last March's election, just this very year, were rejected. Thirteen percent of the ballots that were mailed in were rejected. If that had happened in Cuba or Venezuela or some other part of the world where we really question whether they accept democracy on the terms that we maybe have taken for granted, maybe we'd accept that that's just the way it happens in other parts of the world. For that to happen here is something altogether different.

It can be tempting to succumb to the despair. But if you take action and you accept that you have agency and responsibility and an opportunity to do something, it changes everything. And so, for me, going out and meeting voters, knocking on doors, registering people to get on the rolls so that they can participate in this next election, making the case for democracy—not for Democrats, not for Republicans, but for your ability to vote in elections where your vote will be counted and your voice will be heard—I do a day of that, and even when it's 106 degrees out here and a million percent humidity and I'm drenched to my socks, I feel so good because I'm in this fight. And it's not happening to me or to us anymore. We are happening to it. And that's what I think we all have to accept.

And another thing, Katie, real quick, is I think I, like perhaps many of us, maybe even you, labored under the illusion that progress, at least in this country, was inevitable. Maybe it was too slow for our liking, but we were, by and large, moving in the right direction. What I have since learned—especially with the Dobbs decision, especially with the Shelby decision, especially with everything that's taking place in this country, but especially Texas, which is the epicenter for it—I've learned that not only is progress not inevitable, it can be reversed. That no victory is final, and the fight is never over. And that's a hard thing to accept.

You know, we like to think, “Hey, we won this election, we won this Supreme Court victory, we won this legislative achievement, you know, job is done. You can go on with the rest of your life.” Well, if you live in a democracy, there is no “the rest of your life.” The rest of your life is this democracy and being engaged as much as you can be, at the school board level, voting in elections, running for office, supporting other candidates, registering people to vote, fighting for voting rights—whatever it takes, because if you do not do that, we will slide back to where we were before or even worse. And Texas is the case in point.

So that's really the choice between us. That's where I find my fire and my fuel and my drive: in the understanding that if we don't do this, then we're going to get something that we will have a hard time answering for to our kids and grandkids and the generations that follow ours going forward.

KO: Why do you think that is, where Texas is concerned? You know, so many of the stories that you share in We've Got to Try really demonstrate how Texas is resonant as a symbol of the larger country, right? The push and pull is incredible. Roe v. Wade originated in Texas, and now, as you say, it's one of the strictest anti-abortion states. Dr. Lawrence Nixon won his Supreme Court cases, obviously, coming out of Texas. And as you shared, it's one of the most difficult states to vote in. You don't even have online voter registration. So what do you think it is about Texas that makes it a reflection of our nation's biggest debates?

BO: Texas is extraordinary. It’s unlike any other part of the country. And it defies so many of the stereotypes that I think people outside of Texas hold for the state. To the point you were just making, some people may say, “Well, this is a very conservative, very red, very Republican state,” and that's not necessarily the case. Medicaid was signed into law and championed by the first Texas president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, as was the Civil Rights Act, as was the Voting Rights Act, as was Head Start, as was Medicare. I mean, go through the list of progressive achievements and so many of them find their origin here in the state of Texas.

When it comes to the right to an abortion in America, that right was won by two Texas attorneys, both women—Sarah Weddington from Abilene, Texas; Linda Coffee, who's still alive now, in Dallas—on behalf of Jane Roe, who herself was a Texas resident. And then on the issue of voting rights, yes, Lawrence Nixon, who, you're right, anchors this story, or bookends it. But it's also Opal Lee, who walked from her home in Fort Worth all the way to Washington, DC, in her late 80s—she's now 95 years old—in order to win recognition of Juneteenth as the first federally recognized national holiday I think in, like, three decades. And not just as a celebration for the end of slavery, but a recognition for the work that still lies ahead. All of that came out of Texas, as does the total ban on abortion with no exception for rape or incest under our current governor, as does the attack on voting rights and making this the hardest state in the nation now in which to cast a ballot or to register to vote.

"It can be tempting to succumb to the despair. But if you take action and you accept that you have agency and responsibility and an opportunity to do something, it changes everything."

This is a state that has promised that if you are raising transgender children, that we will pursue you for child abuse and remove those kids from your custody and care and turn them over to a foster care system that has lost the lives of 100 kids just over the last year and a half. There is a lot going on in Texas, and all of my work, and really what I'm betting on, is that if the true, full genius of Texas is revealed through democracy and the ability to vote—if we all turn out, you'll get the version of Texas that I think we in Texas, most importantly, and the rest of the country, and the world, can be proud of.

In this state, you have the most diverse city in the United States of America—Houston, Texas—where there are more Vietnamese language speakers in that city than anywhere else on the planet outside of Vietnam. They speak more than 120 different languages in the Houston Independent School District. That may not be most people's impression of this state, but that's our reality. And we have 30 million people here who want to live to their full potential, be able to reveal their full promise for their own benefit, for the benefit of this country. The right to vote makes that possible and that's why it's so central to the story of this book and so central to the work that I've been doing for most of my life.

KO: Thank you for that. You have a strong stance about gun violence and you spend a lot of time in We've Got to Try talking about the 2019 Walmart shooting in El Paso that specifically targeted Latinos. You underscore how the shooter appeared to be influenced by the national discourse around the border and the widespread fearmongering. And I really appreciated your chapters on the border. You eloquently describe El Paso and its sister city, Juárez, Mexico. You say that, "From certain viewpoints around town, the two cities are indistinguishable." Your roads are interconnected, your families, and I wanted to ask you to spend some time for our listeners on the beauty of this interconnectivity and share more about your experience, as a native of El Paso, on the benefits of these shared communities.

BO: Katie, it's really beautiful, and I did my best to describe this in the book but I think it defies description. You almost have to come out here and see it. We live in the Chihuahuan Desert and it's beautiful, and life abounds in this desert, but it is tough. And I think it makes tough people. And it requires us to depend on one another—our neighbors, our friends, our family, and also these two sister cities of Ciudad Juárez in Chihuahua, Mexico, and El Paso, here in Texas in the United States of America. You look beyond our two communities and it'll be hundreds of miles before you find other major centers of population.

So, we share this narrow valley of the Rio Grande River that cuts in the Rocky Mountains, which here are called the Juárez Mountains and the Franklin Mountains. And you have about three million people who speak two languages, who live in two communities, but are conjoined. The street grids, as you mentioned, flow into one another, families are interconnected on both sides of the border, our economies are inextricably linked, and there's a culture here that you just won't find anywhere else in the United States, or anywhere else in Mexico. And here's the kicker—and again, it defies conventional wisdom or what you may have been told by those in elected office and in positions of power—we also in El Paso happen to be one of the safest cities in the United States of America. And that is not despite the fact that we're a city of immigrants and that we're connected with Ciudad Juárez. I would argue it's because of those facts.

And so to have a president, our former President Donald Trump, talk about us as being one of the most dangerous cities, not only is that completely wrong and a lie, but when he adds to that that we were being invaded by animals—which is the term he used, by an infestation, which is how I might describe rats or cockroaches or vermin that you want to exterminate—when you have policies that separate children from their families or put kids in cages, when that's echoed by the governor of our state, who urges people in Texas to defend themselves against this invasion and literally, this is a direct quote, "to take matters into their own hands," there's a connection between all that to the horrific shooting that took place in August of 2019 in El Paso.

In fact, just months before that, and I talk about this in the book, Donald Trump is conducting a rally in Florida and he asked the crowd that's assembled at that rally, "What are we gonna do about these invaders, these immigrants who are coming here?" And someone in the crowd yells out, "Shoot them." And there's a roar of laughter and the president smiles as though to confer consent or agreement. And I've got to just think that all that found a home in the mind and the heart of that shooter who traveled 600 miles from Allen, Texas, to El Paso, armed with an AK-47, which is a weapon originally designed for use on a battlefield for combat, for killing human beings. It has no purpose in hunting animals or self-defense or anything else where you might reasonably expect somebody to have a firearm. It's high-impact, high-velocity rounds. Once it hits your body, it just destroys the soft tissue, the blood vessels, the arteries, the organs inside.

And this guy, armed with that weapon, fueled by that kind of hatred and those lies, comes into this incredibly peaceful community where, Katie, we may have 15 to 20 murders a year. And he murders 23 people in a matter of minutes. And these are parents and grandparents and their kids and grandkids who are in this Walmart on the last Saturday before school starts in that school year in 2019, buying backpacks and notebooks and supplies for the school year. And he posts a manifesto ahead of time—and I talk about this in the book—where he repeats many of these phrases, that he's coming to repel an “invasion,” this is the word he uses, echoing Donald Trump's language, echoing [Texas Governor] Greg Abbott's language. And talks about a political takeover of the state and, of course, this is connected to voting rights and democracy because he fears that as Hispanics gain more political power, that he, as a white man, will be replaced in this state. And he sees no democratic way to overcome this and so he turns to violence and to murder and to terrorism.

I think it's important for us to know that story and that's why I lay it out in such detail in the book, because some will say, “Well, this is just crazy and unpredictable.” And, “How can we stop a monster or this level of evil?” And there is evil here and it is a monstrous act, but it is not totally unpredictable and it is not unconnected from the rhetoric—and the violence that is called for in that rhetoric—that some people will respond to. As we've seen since then, in the shooting in Buffalo and individual acts of terror and violence across this country, there are people who are taking up this call to arms. We saw it on January 6, 2021 at the United States Capitol, and it continues. It continues through violence and threats of violence, but it also continues through the changing of our election laws.

One of the points I try to make in the book is that, though that insurrection attempt was stopped on January 6, 2021, and Joseph Biden was inaugurated as the next president of the United States of America, the attempt and the sedition did not end. It's now rolling through our state legislatures, and nowhere more so than in Texas, which has more significantly curtailed the right to vote here than in any other state in the union. So really twin challenges of political violence and a retrenchment or regression in political rights and voting rights and the disenfranchisement of significant portions of the electorate here in Texas and in different parts of the country, all of this is connected.

KO: And Texas, of course, unfortunately, as well as the rest of the nation, faced yet another tragedy with the recent shooting in Uvalde. And I saw [on social media] that you were there last week. Can you share with us how the families are doing?

BO: It's hard to describe the pain that these families are going through. Their suffering, their loss. I was with many of them the day after the shooting. I visited again in the weeks following the shooting to attend visitations and funerals. And as you said, I came back last week, six weeks, roughly, after the massacre there. These families are looking for answers. They want and are really beginning to demand justice, you know, accountability for what happened. They are learning about the details in the press, on broadcast television, through social media, in print journalism, when they really should be hearing from those in power and in positions of public trust.

They are worried that the memories of their children, and in the case of those two teachers, you know, their parents or their siblings or their children, in the case of their parents, that their memories will be lost, that they would have died in vain. And they all, to a person, want action. They all want changes. They know that we have to improve school safety. They know that we have to change our gun laws, recognizing that we can very well protect the Second Amendment while doing a far better job of protecting the lives of our kids and our loved ones in our communities. And what was so inspiring to me, visiting last week, was these aren't just idle wishes or things that they'll share to me or maybe to a member of the press, these are things that they're fighting for right now, literally.

"We also in El Paso happen to be one of the safest cities in the United States of America. And that is not despite the fact that we're a city of immigrants and that we're connected with Ciudad Juárez. I would argue it's because of those facts."

They organized a massive march in Uvalde, hundreds of people came out. You know, it was very hot. Over 100 degrees, very humid, and braving the conditions and the fact that most of them self-described to me as not having ever been politically involved, in some cases not having voted, not having been engaged, not having thought that those things would make a difference. They realize that winning political power, having people in positions of public trust and key offices who will do the right thing, is critical to stopping the next mass shooting. Their kids, Katie, are all going back. Those of them who still have children are all going back into the classroom in a matter of weeks.

Here in El Paso, you know, my kids will be back in school in 12 days. And that's all happening after the Uvalde shooting with no changes at all to our gun laws. It's still perfectly legal and possible for an 18-year-old to go into a gun shop and buy two or three or more AR-15s, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, tactical gear, and be armed to go in and commit the same kind of horrifying violence that we saw in Uvalde at the end of the last school year. We're gonna get change, we really will, and it's going to be because of those parents who are taking the lead in this. And it's stories like that, that I try to elevate in this book. It's everyday people, who in some cases have gone through horrifying circumstances, who overcome not only their personal pain but overcome the obstacles in their place, the dynamics of political power, and use every lever of our democracy—voting, registering to vote, for sure, but also protesting and marching and rallying and calling public attention—to try to jumpstart and galvanize the conscience of this country to do the right thing.

It's taken families from Sandy Hook and Parkland and survivors of events that never made the headlines to overcome their pain and be persistent in the face of the gun lobby to finally get us to a point where we just passed something fairly significant in Congress, signed into law by President Biden. It's a step in the right direction, wholly insufficient for the task at hand, but you look at those families in Uvalde: They'll get us over the line. They really will, and I'm just so proud of them, inspired by them, and want to do everything I can to support them.

KO: As you say, it's a step, and please the next time you are back in Uvalde, let them know that we here in New Jersey are holding them in our heart and also fighting right alongside them. You've mentioned you're a dad, you're a parent to three kids yourself. How have your conversations with your kids changed or shaped any of your political viewpoints?

BO: The greatest fear I have is the judgment of my kids. And not the judgment of my kids today, although it's something I pay attention to for sure. But I think about them looking back on us, you know, on you and me in the year 2022. Let's say they're looking back 20 years from today, right. They're starting their own families and they're bringing their kids up in this world and they're gonna say, “You know, Beto and Katie…” They knew that there was an unprecedented attack on the right to vote, that all the signs were clear. I mean, you look no further than January 6, but if you need to, you look at the voting laws in the state of Texas or the 13 percent of mail-in ballots rejected last March. They know that we've borne witness to Uvalde and El Paso and Sutherland Springs and Santa Fe High School, Midland–Odessa, and all these awful gun violence tragedies in America and especially here in the state of Texas. They say, "Hey Dad, you guys were alive and had a chance to do something about it right after the Dobbs decision, which removed the right, or at least the protection for the right in Texas, for women to make their own decisions about their own bodies, and it wasn't even an exception for rape and incest. All this stuff was happening. What did you do?" And I need to have an answer for them. And it cannot just be that we tried—although that's important and that's where everything starts and that's the title of this book, We've Got to Try.

That's maybe half the battle: not succumbing to these conditions or accepting the status quo or believing that we can't win or overcome this. How the hell did Dr. Nixon in 1924, with very limited civil and constitutional rights relative to Anglo-Americans or Anglo-Texans, how in the world did he believe he was going to overcome this attack on his freedom, on his ability to vote, on his civil rights? Well, he did, and by having that faith he was able to ultimately overcome this. So, we've got to get there, but we then got to win. And that's what Dr. Nixon focused on. It took him 20 years, people. Twenty years. He starts that fight in 1923; he doesn't win the fight. We don't win the fight until 1944. And even then, it's an incomplete victory that's really not finished until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That level of persistence and strength and determination and courage—we've got to find that in ourselves.

And I've got to tell my kids, “Listen, I found that in me. Katie found it in herself. We all dug deep and we did the hard work and we did it right now.” And as I'm talking to you, there’s a little more than three months left until the most important election of our lifetimes. There's the midterm elections of 2022, which I will argue right now may determine whether we have elections at all in 2024. And in my view, unless somebody thinks that this is hyperbole, in my reading of the history of the world—I talk a little about this in the book—democracy is a really exceptional thing. It flourishes for a little while on the Greek peninsula 2,500 years ago, largely is extinguished from humankind for millennia, before it reemerges on the North American continent, deeply imperfect, you know, originally white men with property, and then you get all the way through to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which really might have been our most recent peak. And you see kind of a chipping away at that until you get the Shelby decision and these current attacks on democracy.

There's nothing to say that democracy is in our future or it's something that we can count on for the generations coming. You got to fight for it. You've got to win it, and that's the struggle that we're in right now at this moment. So, you know, a very long answer to your question about my kids, but I want to make sure that I can account for myself to them, that we can account for ourselves for the generations to come. We're either going to be—look at it this way, we're either going to be the generation that won our democracy or lost our democracy. And if we lose our democracy, it is forever. It is not coming back. It didn't come back in Greece. It didn't come back with the Roman Republic. It just doesn't come back when you lose it. And so we've got to win it now.

KO: Well, I think you'll be able to say to your kids that you did more than try, you really fought for it. So, I mean, you are a father, you're on the campaign trail, you wrote this book, and you also performed this book. What it was like to perform the audio for We've Got to Try?

BO: You know, the process of writing and reading over what you've written is one thing. The act of reading out loud, performing the book, including all the characters in the book, from Lawrence Nixon to Opal Lee to Jenika Ragsdale, who's a young woman that I registered to vote in Cooke County who helped me understand the history of Cooke County, by extension the history of Texas during the Civil War and over the course of the Confederacy and then afterwards, and her efforts on a grassroots level to have the true, real story of Cooke County in Texas told, even though she wasn't registered to vote. To give voice to those people through that reading was a very powerful experience. And to read that book all the way through out loud also helped me to see it in its whole, versus, you know, you work and you struggle and you come back and you work on a chapter again and again and again until you feel like you've got it just right. And then you go to this next chapter, and you go back to a previous chapter to make sure that the flow is correct.

"To know that other people are going to hear their voices through mine? Wow, what an honor and what a privilege and how proud I am of the people that I met along the way."

But to see it and read it in its totality just made me so proud of Texas, honestly, because what I was hoping to do was to tell the story of this state and what I think is the most consequential fight of our lifetimes and in the life of this country. And the everyday heroes like Dr. Nixon, like Opal Lee, like Judge Joe Shuster, who's the county judge in Pecos County. You know, probably nobody's ever heard of this guy, but he's done some amazing things to connect people with care and to overcome the odds against him and his community. To know that other people are going to hear their voices through mine? Wow, what an honor and what a privilege and how proud I am of the people that I met along the way. What a wonderful experience.

KO: And I really enjoyed listening to it. You did a great job. I mentioned to you, Beto, when we were chatting before the interview, just how motivating I found this book. And for people that listen and want to get involved in their local communities, what do you recommend they do?

BO: Well, I hope that the stories in this book offer us a path, a guide, a blueprint for how we can take action in our lives. And it's as obvious and maybe as simple as voting. It's realizing that sometimes voting isn't obvious or simple for others, especially if they’ve been the targets of voter suppression and voter intimidation. So signing up with an organization that goes out to register people to vote or to fight for voting rights, and we list a number of organizations in Texas who’ve been doing this great work, not on behalf of candidates or even political parties, but on behalf of democracy. We highlight those who step up and hold people in positions of public trust accountable for their actions or lack of action.

We talk about running for office and how important that is and how, in some communities, it wasn't possible for people who looked different than I do, who had different life experiences than I have, to even contemplate running for office until they did and made it possible for others.

So, my hope is that as you read this book, not only are you engaged in these stories of everyday people who made extraordinary things possible, but that you find yourself in that category of someone who wants to do something that maybe you’ve been told is impossible or too hard to do or why bother trying or “Listen, things are the way they are for a reason so just accept it.” This is about getting past that, overcoming that, and doing it on an individual basis and banding together with others to do it collectively. That's how we come through, that's how we fulfill our promise, that's how we reach our full potential.

KO: So, speaking of potential, you've got about four months to go until your election for governor of Texas. I'm sure the campaign trail is incredibly taxing and, you know, you're out there defending the rights of others, but you're also getting personally attacked, and it's already in a time where so many of us are struggling with mental health. I'm curious how you protect your own mental health. And also, relatedly, just what you do to unwind and find those moments of peace between everything else you have going on.

BO: Well, I run every day, religiously. I haven't missed a day in more than 215, 220 days. And I do it less for my physical well-being, although that does not hurt, but for my mental well-being. And it's a great way to elevate my mood and my attitude, to get blood pumping and oxygen flowing through my system. I think better thoughts. More seems possible to me after running a few miles. It's a great way to see this state. I've been to every one of the 254 counties. And what I do, I wake up in the morning, I put my shorts, shirt, and running shoes on, and I just walk out the door and I just run four miles. And I get to see that side of that town, that part of this state, and I love it.

And then, in that same vein, it's just staying in motion. So, I'm about to start 49 days straight of travel. We'll visit more than 70 communities, we'll hold town halls, I'll meet people, I'll be with people. There will be joy and fun. There'll be, you know, stories of struggle and sorrow and personal sacrifice. And all that will become part of me and will become part of this campaign and will become part of why we're running and what we want to do once we win to make life better for everybody in this state. So, all of that is deeply motivating and keeps me going.

When I'm at home—and I'm talking to you from my kitchen here in El Paso—I'm spending time with family. My youngest, Henry, is a wonderful musician, so he and I were just playing some music in the basement. We have a drum kit and guitar and amp set up there. So just being able to do that and communicate without words through music and bond in that way is wonderful. My daughter is an extraordinary rider, a horseback rider, and so we were at the barn yesterday taking care of, grooming, washing, tending to the horses. Cleaning out the mouth of one of them that's got an infection, which is disgusting, but really cool to watch Molly fearlessly do what needed to be done to help that horse. And then my oldest, Ulysses, is just a terrific runner. I mentioned running, and getting to go out and run with him just feels wonderful.

So, with Amy, my wife, and these kids, getting to see my mom and my sisters here too; being home always recharges me. Reminds me why we're doing this in the first place and makes me so, so grateful for the lucky life that I lead. And so that's how all this works.

KO: What's the parting message that you want to leave our listeners with?

BO: You know, on the one hand, to everything you said, Katie, at the outset about the dark days that have descended on Texas and on this country, the Dobbs decision, the attack on voting rights, the level of gun violence that we see, the economic struggles that so many people are having right now. All that is true and we've got to be there for one another at this moment of need. But we've got to be very careful about not letting that drive us down into hopelessness or despair. And instead, think about how fortunate we are to be alive at this moment with the capacity to do something about this. There are very few generations that are as lucky as ours. To have this opportunity to fight for our democracy, the right to vote and everything that it confers on every issue that you could possibly care about at its moment of greatest peril—that is us right now.

You can think about those who were alive at the time of the American Revolution or during the Civil War or the voting rights struggle in 1950s and the 1960s. Our generation has an opportunity not unlike those to define the future of this country and whether we really will be a democracy that includes all of us going forward. If we win that, we win the ability to help everyone with every issue that we could possibly care about because everyone's now involved, invested. Their voices, their votes, are reflected in the outcome. This book talks about those who understand that, who've acted upon that, and have made our country, our state, and our lives much better for their willingness to struggle, to serve, and to sacrifice. We've inherited that sacrifice. How we use that determines our future and defines us in the eyes of our kids forever.

KO: Well, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

BO: Katie, thank you. And thanks for listening to the book. I'm glad that you liked it. I hope that we can get this out to more people, and I’m looking forward to the feedback and the ideas that people have after they have a chance to listen to it.

KO: Thank you again. Listeners, you can get We've Got to Try by Beto O’Rourke right now on Audible.