Duke's Download Hosted by James Duke Mason

In this episode, I’m sitting down with Kyle Brazeal an 11-year West Hollywood resident running for West Hollywood City Council — but this conversation is really about something much bigger than one city or one campaign: why local politics matter so much in our everyday lives. We spend a lot of time focused on national politics — and of course, those elections matter. But the decisions that affect your daily life most directly often happen much closer to home. Your city council, county officia...

In this episode, I sit down with Evan Wolfson, the civil rights attorney, strategist, and founder of Freedom to Marry, whose decades of work helped make marriage equality the law of the land in the United States. Our conversation looks back at the road to the historic 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision, but it is not just a conversation about the past. Evan and I talk about where the LGBTQ movement stands now, what has changed since marriage equality, and why the fight for freed...

Hello everybody. I am really excited to share my interview with Oliver Ryan, a UK Member of Parliament for the Labour Party. Oliver’s story is inspiring — from watching the 2010 UK televised debates with his trade-union grandfather, to becoming a councillor at just 19, to entering Parliament at 31. In this episode, we talk about what first drew him into Labour politics, why public service still matters, and how personal experience can shape political purpose. We also get into the bigger pictu...

Welcome back to Duke’s Download — and welcome to Season Two! For this season's first guest, I’m sitting down with my longtime friend Brian Sims, former Pennsylvania State Representative, LGBTQ+ civil rights attorney, activist, and one of the most unapologetically outspoken voices in progressive politics. Brian served in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 2012 to 2022, and in this conversation, we get into something every LGBTQ+ person and ally needs to understand: so much of the f...