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Credit: Andrew Roth/Sipa USA via AP Images
Hi, I’m Josh Sanburn, producer for More To The Story. I can vividly remember when a mass shooter opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
I was far removed from high school by then, but it struck me as something that could’ve happened at my school—or any high school in America. And I can recall being drawn to the then-18-year-old who soon became the face of the nationwide student-led movement that urged America to do something—anything—about gun violence across the country.
David Hogg was an outspoken, brash, polished teenager, somehow ready and unafraid to take on the NRA and much of the Republican Party on the seemingly intractable issue of gun control. He and his fellow Parkland students started March For Our Lives, an organization that led to demonstrations around the country in support of gun control legislation. Those protests formed one of the largest political movements in recent memory and—after several other needless mass shootings across the US—helped lead to the first federal gun control legislation in decades.
Today, David is one of several vice chairs at the Democratic National Committee while simultaneously trying to reform the party through his PAC, Leaders We Deserve. He’s working to recruit younger candidates to challenge Democratic incumbents in primaries, Democrats he argues are ineffective and “asleep at the wheel.” But the Democratic establishment hasn’t taken kindly to a disruptor in their midst. The party has set a vote for June 9 on whether its members should redo David’s election. Some in the party say vote rerun is about a procedural complaint. David says it’s about his primary strategy.
“It is extremely convenient timing for the Democratic establishment,” he tells More To The Story host Al Letson.
On this week’s episode, Hogg says his primary efforts could get him ousted from the DNC altogether and talks about how the anger he felt after the shooting in Parkland has led to “righteous indignation” today over the country’s gun laws and the work that lies ahead. I hope you listen, which you can do here on Apple Podcasts.
—Josh Sanburn, More To The Story producer
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