MeidasTouch Co-Founder on His Time in Bakersfield
Written by Ben Meiselas
I read your comments on the story I shared Friday about Colin Kaepernick. Many of you didn’t know I was his lawyer before I started MeidasTouch or the major role he played in my life. Today, I want to share another story about something else that had a profound impact on my life and helped inspire MeidasTouch: my time in Bakersfield.
From 2013 to 2017, my work as a civil rights lawyer took me to Bakersfield, California. For those who don’t know, Bakersfield is a very conservative area—sometimes called the “Oklahoma of California.” During those years, Bakersfield had the highest rate of police shootings of unarmed people per capita in the United States. I became the go-to lawyer for representing families who lost loved ones to excessive force incidents.
Through our cases, we uncovered a shocking truth: some police officers were working with drug dealers to sell drugs on the streets, using confidential informants to facilitate the deals. As a result of our work, several corrupt police officers were sentenced for federal crimes.
I share this story because, when my clients called my office for help, their political affiliation didn’t matter. I never asked if they were Democrats or Republicans, and they didn’t care what my political affiliation was either. Back then, I wasn’t even that political. These were people who had lost loved ones because of acts by the government, and they wanted answers and accountability. They needed help during one of the lowest points in their lives, and they trusted me to provide it. I did my best, and I believe I brought many families the justice and answers they were seeking.
My experience in Bakersfield continues to inform the work I do for MeidasTouch and what I write about on this Substack. For me, politics isn’t about Blue Team vs. Red Team. Like my work in Bakersfield, the work I do for Meidas is simple: it’s about helping people.
I hate when corporate media treats politics like a horse race. People want answers, accountability, and someone who will fight for them. I believe Donald Trump and MAGA have exploited people’s frustrations to turn us against one another, appealing to personal grievances. But the key word is personal.
Democrats need to get personal. Democrats need to get local. Democrats need to think about what a family struggling to pay its bills is going through. Democrats need to connect on a personal level.
MeidasTouch is very personal to me. My connection with the Meidas Mighty is deeply personal to me. The importance of those deep personal connections from my days as a lawyer remains at the heart of the work we do today. For me, politics is about helping people, looking them in the eye, shaking their hands, and offering real solutions. It’s about telling people you care—and, more importantly, showing you care through your actions.
Those long days I spent in Bakersfield are now replaced by long days running this company. But it’s still all about personal connections.
If you’d like to learn more about the cases I handled in Bakersfield, you can watch the documentary I produced with Colin Kaepernick about my experiences there, Killing County, streaming on Hulu. Let me know what you think.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and the others on this Substack.
MeidasTouch Network has zero outside investors, so if you are able to become a paid subscriber, your support would mean the world to us.
Wow!!! One more reason to love you!!! ❤️As a Northern Californian, I’ve been supporting Kap since he first took a knee. I had no idea you were his lawyer. I was horrified when Trump tried to humiliate Kap and any other players who refused to participate in the anthem at games. I was horrified again during the George Floyd protests in DC in June when Trump had Lafayette Square violently cleared so he could make a spectacle of himself by crossing the street to pose with a Bible at a church.
On Labor Day, 2020, in a strange turn of events, I found myself at a redneck MAGA bar up on Clear Lake with some friends with very different political views. The live band there played the anthem. People rose to their feet, hands on hearts, hats off. Not me. In my blue sundress with my blonde hair and blue eyed white privilege, thinking of Kap and of George Floyd and the passionate and necessary protests of that summer, I took a knee. My husband didn’t. No one at our table did. Just me. A woman in a dress. People stared. I didn’t care. I still don’t care. We all sat back down at the end. One of our friends at the table who had served in the military, smiled really big at me and said “I really respect that you did that. This is what democracy and a free country is all about.”
I hope we can keep it.
Thank you Ben for all you do, all you’ve done, and the person you are. You give me hope! 🇺🇸💙
I LOVE YOUR ENTIRE TEAM AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR WORK TRYING TO SAVE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸💙