Shows
Is This Democracy44. Is Trump Winning or Losing – or Should We Ask a Different Question?Where does American democracy stand as we are headed into the summer? About a month ago, around the 100-day mark, the idea that Trump was losing, that maybe we were already experiencing the beginning of the end of MAGA’s attempt to erect authoritarian rule, started gaining currency among prominent commentators. We look at the main arguments presented by those who believe that Trump is losing: The constant chaos and incompetence, public opinion turning sharply away from Trump, the courts pushing back and civic society resisting. All of these are important factors. But we are not convinced that means Tr...
2025-06-041h 08Is This Democracy43. Mass “Deportation” Is the End of Constitutional GovernmentSince early March, the Trumpist assault on the rule of law and the constitutional order has been most visible in the radicalizing attempt to purge the nation from anyone this regime deems unwelcome or “undesirable.” Foreign students who are labeled a threat to American foreign policy, Venezuelan migrants who are declared foreign “invaders,” innocent people like Kilmar Abrego Garcia who are treated as “terrorists.” Every day brings new horror stories of the Trump administration’s complete disregard for the fundamental rights of people who live in the United States, of the gleeful cruelty with which the government is destroying their lives. W...
2025-04-251h 25Is This Democracy42. Stupidity, Ideology, and Tariffs (plus: why protests matter a great deal)Are you feeling “liberated”? The long-dreaded “Liberation Day” saw America declare a trade war on the rest of the world. We discuss why Trump loves tariffs and what to make of the different rationales emerging from the regime. Most importantly, we unpack the politics of the tariff madness, what it can tell us about how this government operates, and how it all fits (or doesn’t) with the broader political project of Tumpism. There is no cunning masterplan, no coherent policy process – but that doesn’t mean these actions aren’t rooted in a worldview of hierarchies and tied to a broader pol...
2025-04-091h 07Is This Democracy41. EscalationOver the past two weeks, the Trumpists have significantly escalated their assault on the rule of law as well as on both individuals and institutions they regard as the “enemy within.” We focus on two dimensions of this truly dangerous escalation: We start with the Trump government ramping up its attempt to purge the nation from what they now officially call “alien enemies.” Ten days ago, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, claiming emergency wartime powers to detain and deport foreign nationals – specifically a group of Venezuelan migrants, disappeared into a prison labor camp in El Salvador with no due pro...
2025-03-251h 11Is This Democracy40. The Precarious State of the UnionA little over six weeks since Trump returned to the White House – and the assault on democratic self-government and the modern state is not slowing down. We start with Trump’s speech before a joint session of Congress. On the one hand, he didn’t say anything he hasn’t said many times before. But on the other, the whole spectacle revealed so much about Trumpism as a political project – and about a Republican Party that is entirely defined by its devotion to it. Similarly, the Democratic (non-)response offered a window into America’s nominal opposition party: Split between thos...
2025-03-071h 11Is This Democracy39. The Path to AuthoritarianismExactly one month into the Trumpist regime, we reflect on what has happened since Trump returned to the presidency, what might be coming next, and what we have learned about America along the way. We start by discussing Trump’s declaration that the law doesn’t apply to him because he is chosen to “save his nation” (and because he seems to believe he is a king): Such assertions of unchecked power are not just distractions – they are manifestations of what MAGA really is as a political project. We then dive deep into the much-discussed essay “The Path to American Aut...
2025-02-211h 10Is This Democracy38. Is the Constitution Still in Effect?We take stock of our rapidly escalating constitutional crisis and how our interpretation has evolved over the first few weeks of the Trump regime. We talk about the role of Elon Musk, the political project the feudal tech barons are pursuing, and how Musk’s side coup relates to what the other MAGA factions have been up to: the Project 2025 crew, the America First nativists, and Trump himself. We also zoom in on what the stakes are in the fight over the agencies and departments the Trumpists want to eliminate – specifically USAID: If the regime can just shut down what...
2025-02-071h 05Is This Democracy37. Into the Trump RegimeIs This Democracy is back! And what a time to be discussing the conflict over how much democracy, and for whom, there should be in America. We reflect on the Inauguration and the first 72 hours of the Trump regime: What stood out from the transfer of power on Monday and Trump’s speech(es)? Most importantly: What have we learned from the onslaught of presidential executive orders and proclamations? We try to establish a framework for how to think about what is happening around us: This is not merely a presidential transition, but an attempted regime change. The Trumpists wa...
2025-01-241h 05Is This Democracy36. From Reagan to Trump: A Conversation about “Landslide” and the Transformation of American Politics since the 1970s – with Ben Bradford and Seth Cotlar (Part II)We continue our conversation about “Landslide,” the fantastic new NPR podcast series – and about the transformation of politics in the 1970s, the emergence of a new kind of populist politics, how the Republican Party was taken over by rightwing radicalism that ultimately rose to power with Ronald Reagan in 1980, and how all that relates to what we are experiencing today.
In last week’s Part I, we already talked about the process of partisan sorting and party realignment – certainly one of the key stories in recent U.S. history; about the reaction of the Republican establishment to the Reagan-led rightwing insurgency...
2024-04-1654 minIs This Democracy35. “Landslide”: How the Radical Right Took Over the Republican Party and Transformed American Politics in the 1970s – with Ben Bradford and Seth Cotlar (Part I)“Landslide” is a new NPR podcast series that tells the story of American politics in the 1970s, specifically of the 1976 and 1980 presidential elections, of Jimmy Carter’s unlikely path to the White House and, most importantly, of how Ronald Reagan and the New Right rose to power. And as you will hear in our conversation with our guest Ben Bradford, the man who created, hosted, narrated, and produced “Landslide,” it is also so much more. For this episode, I recruited the help of Seth Cotlar, professor of history at Willamette University (and our first returning guest on the show), who is cur...
2024-04-1155 minIs This Democracy34. What Today’s Republican Party Is Made Of – A GOP Primary Post-MortemHave we learned anything new about the Republican Party, its base, and MAGA America from the GOP primaries? We talk about why Trump was always going to win, why he is the dominant force in Republican politics – but also, even though too many people pretend he is electoral magic, a relatively weak general election candidate. We also discuss what is animating the group of self-identifying conservatives who do not like MAGA, but still overwhelmingly vote for Trump. And we examine the role of the Republican establishment: Nikki Haley’s primary campaign can tell us a lot about the trajectory of c...
2024-03-191h 19Is This Democracy33. The Many Blind Spots and Pitfalls of the “Biden Too Old” DiscourseJoe Biden is “too old” and should step aside – at least that is what many of the nation’s most prominent commentators are telling us. But do their arguments actually hold up to scrutiny? Is Joe Biden too old and unfit to be president? Is he incapable of campaigning and defeating Donald Trump in the 2024 election? And if he were to step aside, what should be the plan going forward? Specifically, is an open convention in the summer, as Ezra Klein has argued, the best path towards a Democratic victory in November? We discuss why this discourse, although frustrating and exhausti...
2024-02-231h 22Is This Democracy32. “Project 2025”: What the Right Plans to Do Once Trumpism Returns to PowerWhat would a second Trump presidency look like? We dive deep into the detailed plans that have emerged on the Right for what they want to do immediately upon getting back to power. Almost two years ago, “Project 2025” was launched under the leadership of the Heritage Foundation. Different factions on the Right are preparing separate plans, but “Project 2025” stands out because it unites much of the conservative machine behind the goal of installing a much more effective, more ruthless rightwing regime. We look at the people behind these plans and what animates them – specifically Kevin Roberts, the president of Heritage...
2024-02-011h 23Is This Democracy31. Why the Reactionary Campaign Against Claudine Gay Is a Matter of Great ConcernClaudine Gay, Harvard’s first Black president, resigned on January 2 – the endpoint of a brutally dishonest rightwing campaign that could not have succeeded without the mainstream media eagerly joining the crusade to get her fired. We discuss why this disastrous affair matters: It was the latest iteration of the eternal reactionary grievance against higher education, which conservatives have always seen as a place of subversive liberal indoctrination and dangerous social engineering; part of an attempt to recapture the institutions of American life that “the Left” has supposedly hijacked; and a crucial battle in a much broader struggle to extinguish whatever...
2024-01-111h 20Is This Democracy30. Mad Poll Disease and the Folly of “Popularism” – with Michael PodhorzerIn early November the New York Times released a poll that had Donald Trump clearly ahead in 5 of the 6 battleground states that will decide the 2024 election. It caused an earthquake and outright panic among (small-d) democrats. But just two days later, Democrats emerged victorious from an actual election. What on earth is going on in American politics right now? What are we to make of poll after poll claiming that Trump is on a path back to the White House? Do they tell us anything about what’s actually going on in the electorate? How should Democrats react in this si...
2023-11-301h 20Is This Democracy29. What Do Americans Value in 2023?We start with a reflection on the results in Tuesday’s elections, and how they relate to polls that indicate Joe Biden is not just unpopular, but actually trailing Donald Trump in key swing states. What can and can’t we take away from such polling, one year out from the presidential election?
We then dive deep into a very different kind of polling and survey data: the 2023 American Values Survey – arguably the most in-depth attempt to capture the values, ideas, and attitudes that shape American society and politics. What do American think of democracy, politic...
2023-11-101h 14Is This Democracy28. The New Speaker vs. Democracy, Threats of MAGA Violence as the New Normal, and the State of the 2024 Presidential RaceThe Speaker drama is over (for now) – but who is Mike Johnson? His ascension is not only further evidence that the January 6 insurrectionists are now fully in charge of the House, but also a manifestation of how much the Republican Party is dominated by the interests and sensibilities of religious reactionaries. Johnson rejects the separation of church and state, he disdains pluralism, and he certainly doesn’t like “democracy.”
We also discuss the role threats of violence played in this whole affair. The MAGA base wanted Jim Jordan – and threatened those who didn’t support him. We talk...
2023-10-271h 17Is This Democracy27. Reflections on the Israel-Hamas war – and what the latest Speaker drama can tell us about the dangerous state of Republican politicsAfter a very long summer break, “Is This Democracy” is back! We start with a reflection on the terrorist attack on Israel and the ensuing Israel-Hamas war, how it’s being discussed in the U.S., and the moral, political, and intellectual obligations that shape our own perspective.
We then tackle the latest round of Speaker drama: It took Kevin McCarthy 15 tries to get elected – and just 269 days later, he is out. Can we learn anything new from this Republican chaos? Maybe not – but it is a crucial reminder of what defines and animates today’s GOP. We talk about the dogma of...
2023-10-131h 09Is This Democracy26. Taking Stock: The State of American Democracy Heading into SummerLet’s survey the political landscape and take stock of where things stand almost halfway through 2023. We started this podcast a little over half a year ago, just a few days before the midterms. The election ended in a better result for Democrats than most people expected. That led to a lot of commentary about how the guardrails were supposedly holding, the system was working. Then in early December, the January 6 Committee referred Trump to the Department of Justice for prosecution. All that convinced a lot of commentators that 2022 had been a good year, that the ship had been turned ar...
2023-06-071h 10Is This Democracy25. The Ideology of Silicon Valley vs the Idea of Democracy – with Adrian DaubLet’s tackle the philosophy and culture of Silicon Valley, and how they help us explain the politics of reactionary-to-far-right tech titans like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. In 2020, Adrian Daub published “What Tech Calls Thinking: An Inquiry into the Intellectual Bedrock of Silicon Valley.” In the book, he applied his skills as a literary and cultural scholar, as someone who is trained to dissect and analyze the stories that help us make sense of the world, to his immediate surroundings. Adrian is a Professor of Comparative Literature and German Studies at Stanford University, where he specializes in culture and po...
2023-05-1740 minIs This Democracy24. “Cancel Culture”: How a Moral Panic Is Capturing America and the World – with Adrian DaubLet’s dive deep into the “cancel culture” moral panic, what it can tell us about U.S. society, culture, and politics, and how it has spread across the “West.” There is no one better equipped to help us do that than Adrian Daub. He is a Professor of Comparative Literature and German Studies at Stanford University, where he specializes in culture and politics of the nineteenth century, as well as questions of gender and sexuality. In the fall of 2022, Adrian published “Cancel Culture Transfer: How a Moral Panic is Gripping the World” – which is currently available in German only, but will b...
2023-05-171h 47Is This Democracy23. “Polarization” Is Not the Problem. It Obscures the Problem – with Shannon McGregorWe need to be a lot more critical towards the pervasive polarization narrative, towards “polarization” as the central diagnosis of our time. “Polarization” obscures not only what the key challenge is – the anti-democratic radicalization of the Right – but also transports a misleading idea of America’s recent past and how we got to where we are now.
We start by outlining the central arguments and claims of the polarization narrative. We then offer an empirical, normative, and historical critique. On the empirical level, it is true that the gap between “Left” and “Right” is very wide in many areas, by international standard...
2023-05-021h 14Is This Democracy22. Land of Unlimited Gun ViolenceGun violence is a political problem, a democracy problem, an exceptionally American problem. We decided to do this episode after the shooting at Covenant School in Nashville. But that was over three weeks ago, and so there have been so many more mass shootings since, so much more death and destruction. In the U.S., it’s always right after and right before a mass shooting, regardless of whether we apply the term to shootings in public space or in the home. And day after day, myriad social interactions and conflicts escalate because guns are ever present.
We start our...
2023-04-211h 15Is This Democracy21. Trump Arraignment in Manhattan, Wisconsin Supreme Court, Tennessee Assembly: Many Different Battles – One ConflictIt’s hard to keep track of everything that’s happening in the struggle against the reactionary assault on democracy, on so many levels, all at the same time. We go through some of the big stories of the week and reflect on how to relate them to each other, where to direct our attention, how to process it all. We start in Manhattan, where, finally, Donald Trump had to turn himself in, was arrested, had to appear before a judge on Tuesday – and it was all… rather ordinary and boring, exactly the way it should be. We tackle some of...
2023-04-061h 09Is This Democracy20. Walter Huss and the History of Republican Radicalization, From the 1950s to Today – with Seth CotlarLet’s talk about the history of American conservatism, the past and present of the Far-Right, and the paths that led to Trumpism’s rise. If there is one underlying assumption that defines this podcast, it is that the central threat to democracy is the anti-democratic radicalization of the Right. In this episode, we talk about when, how, and why that actually happened – and Seth Cotlar is the perfect guest to help us tackle these questions.
Seth Cotlar is a professor of history at Willamette University and, by training, a specialist on the history of the Early Americ...
2023-03-301h 24Is This Democracy19. The Legal Fate of Donald Trump – and What Republicans Really Mean When They Say “Law and Order”On Saturday, Donald Trump used his social media propaganda platform to urge his followers “TO TAKE OUR NATION BACK” – by which he really meant: Protect him from being arrested, which he announced was going to happen on Tuesday. We dive into the ex-president’s legal trouble (that’s a euphemism) and use it as a springboard for a discussion of some bigger-picture issues: What conservative reactions can tell us about Trump’s status in the Republican Party and on the Right more generally, and what role criminal prosecution can play in solving what is essentially a political problem. – We then tackle wha...
2023-03-2252 minIs This Democracy18. The War on Public Education Is Escalating – with Jennifer BerkshireWe are in the midst of an escalating rightwing assault on public education in America. It comes in the form of an attempted authoritarian takeover of schools and universities, in hundreds of bills establishing state censorship, banning books, purging anything that dares to dissent from a white nationalist understanding of the nation’s past or present from the classroom, the libraries, the curriculum – but also as a radical push for school privatization, a dimension that has received far less attention.
None of this is new – all of it is in line with the decades-long conservative fight against public...
2023-03-161h 15Is This Democracy17. There Is No “Free Speech Crisis” On Campus – and the Latest in Fox News vs DemocracyLily and Thomas dissect the “free speech crisis on campus” discourse. The pervasive “free speech crisis” narrative wants us to believe that liberty and freedom in this country are being threatened by “woke” radicals imposing an ever-more authoritarian “cancel culture,” a culture of censoriousness on college life and on the nation in general. According to a never-ending barrage of op-eds and editorials in leading mainstream papers, this is a national emergency in desperate need of intervention. But not only does this diagnosis stand in stark contrast to what we actually experience on campus (we are both college professors, after all, so we can r...
2023-03-101h 11Is This Democracy16. A Conversation on Critical Race Theory and Democracy - with Victor Ray (Part II)We are in the midst of an escalating moral panic around “Critical Race Theory” that is serving, across Republican-led states, as justification to censor and purge anything that dares to dissent from a white nationalist understanding of America’s past or present. That is the context in which Victor Ray published his book “On Critical Race Theory: Why It Matters and Why You Should Care.” Victor Ray is a sociologist, a professor at the Universitxy of Iowa, and you’ll hear in this conversation that he really is an incredibly thoughtful observer of race and racism in America. In his book, Vic...
2023-03-0857 minIs This Democracy15. A Conversation on Critical Race Theory and Democracy - with Victor Ray (Part I)We are in the midst of a reactionary moral panic over “Critical Race Theory” that is being used by Republicans across the country to justify an escalating assault on academic freedom and attempts to stifle, censor, and ban any dissent from the white nationalist patriarchal worldview, anything that dares to upset reactionary sensibilities. This manufactured panic took off in the fall of 2020 – not coincidentally in the aftermath of the mobilization of civil society after the murder of George Floyd, as it is intimately tied to the ongoing racial counter-reckoning.
The Right talks a lot about “CRT,” but never in good faith, never...
2023-03-0231 minIs This Democracy14. The Reactionary Crusade Against Trans Rights Is an Assault on Democracy – and Some Thoughts on the Idea of a “National Divorce”After an unexpected hiatus, we are back! And we focus on what is undoubtedly one of the most pressing democracy and civil rights issues in America today: The escalating assault on trans rights, the reactionary crusade against one of the country’s most vulnerable communities. We talk about the situation of trans people in the U.S. and do our best to address the confusion, misinformation, and anxiety that are constantly being weaponized. We look at the unprecedented wave of anti-trans bills, the efforts to legislate trans people out of the public square and out of existence, and why al...
2023-02-231h 04Is This Democracy13. The Murder of Tyre Nichols, the Authoritarian Takeover of Florida Education, and the Case *for* Teaching “CRT”We share our thoughts on the murder of Tyre Nichols, on why we need to grapple with structural, systemic racism and how it produces discriminatory outcomes, and why the lack of accountability for police departments is a democratic crisis – We then focus on Ron DeSantis’ authoritarian takeover of the education system in Florida: We discuss why the rejection of the AP African American Studies course is emblematic of an escalating assault on public education, of a reactionary rollback of all attempts to establish a more gender and race inclusive education; we talk about the longer-term context of the Right’s disd...
2023-02-031h 28Is This Democracy12. Six Burning Questions About the State of DemocracyWe asked for your questions – and you delivered. We tried our best to answer some of them. The result is a wide-ranging discussion on a bunch of crucial issues, including: Why “economic anxiety” is not what fuels Trumpism or the rightwing radicalization, and why the eagerness with which some people cling to this narrative despite all the empirical evidence to the contrary is indicative of a tendency to sanitize the political discourse; how Democrats should react to the GOP’s radical abandonment of all norms, and what the pitfalls of “hardball” politics (or the lack thereof) are; the inter-and transnationa...
2023-01-271h 01Is This Democracy11. America’s Racial (Counter-) Reckoning – and some reflections on the latest “scandal” involving classified documentsEvery year, MLK Day brings a lot of shallow proclamations of admiration for a man whose actual vision and political project are often sanitized and sterilized to such extent that even Republicans whose mission it is to undo any of the racial progress since the 1960s will happily (and shamelessly) “celebrate” the legacy of Martin Luther King. But the racial reckoning King envisioned has never happened. It seemed possible, perhaps, in the summer of 2020, during the mass protests after the public murder of George Floyd. But it never materialized. We dive deep into the reasons behind the unprecedented mobilization of 2020 – and ex...
2023-01-201h 12Is This Democracy10. Republican Extremism, MAGA Nihilism, and the rise of Ron DeSantisIt took 15 votes, and in the end, the insurrectionists finally captured the House: Our takeaways from how the speaker drama played out and what has transpired since, what it all tells us about the Republican Party, and how the rightwing fringe has moved to the center of conservative politics – Nihilism. Chaos agents. Burning it all down. To many observers, the speaker spectacle confirmed that’s basically all there is to the MAGA Right. We discuss the “nihilism” interpretation, why it risks obscuring the ideological core of the rightwing political project, and why it falls short of explaining what, exactly, holds al...
2023-01-131h 12Is This Democracy9. Chaos in the House! And What We Expect from American Democracy in 2023We are witnessing a historic spectacle in the House. A deep dive into the Republican inability to elect a speaker from all angles: How to explain it, what the fault lines are, why it’s misleading to present the McCarthy camp as “moderates,” what it means for government and governance going forward – Whatever happened to “moderate” Republicans? We look at the case of Elise Stefanik and reflect on the lure of Trumpism, the relationship between opportunism and ideology, and the personal dynamics of a radicalization that is shifting the GOP ever further to the right – We look back, we look ahead: Th...
2023-01-051h 13Is This Democracy8. How Do We Save Democracy from Donald Trump? (And a proper dissection of the terms “culture wars” and “identity politics”)The January 6 Committee is recommending prosecution: Justice is (maybe) coming for Donald Trump. We discuss the larger implications of this decision, the potential pitfalls, and the role of legal procedures in solving a political problem like Trumpism – Now that the Committee has finished its work, we reflect on what it has and has not achieved, about the story the Committee has decided to tell, and on the dangers of focusing too narrowly on Trump as the threat to democracy – Culture wars! Identity politics! We dissect the origins, meaning, and political implications of these terms, assess their utility to make sens...
2022-12-231h 22Is This Democracy7. We Need to Talk About CentrismA deep dive into “centrism,” inspired by Kyrsten Sinema leaving the Democratic Party: What is centrism (as an ideology, a political project, a brand)? Who are the centrists? And what do they actually want? – The centrist critique of the democracy discourse: Why do certain centrists reject the focus on the crisis of American democracy? What kind of democracy do centrists envision for the country? – Anti-“Left” centrism: The centrist critique of “wokeism” and the reactionary sensibilities of the centrist mind.
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2022-12-161h 16Is This Democracy6. Where to Put Trump in the History of Modern Conservatism (and Why Republicans Don’t Do “Soul-Searching” After Lost Elections) – with Nicole Hemmer!What the Georgia runoff tells us about American politics, why Republicans mostly stuck with Walker, and why “hypocrisy” is really not a very useful (albeit well-deserved) criticism of conservative politics – What to expect next from the GOP, and why our default assumption based on the evidence of the past several decades of Republican politics should not be “soul-searching” leading to moderation, but further escalation – How to situate the rise of Trumpism in the history of modern conservatism, why Trump is not an aberration, but the manifestation of long-standing anti-democratic tendencies, and why we still need to grapple with a significant...
2022-12-091h 20Is This Democracy5. What Does “Democracy” Even Mean, And Why Conservatives Don’t Want to Be Conservatives Anymore (Oh, and the meeting of white supremacists at Mar-a-Lago)Trump hosted a leading Holocaust denier and white power activist for dinner: What to take away from this latest reminder of who Trump is and what the Republican base wants, and why we must not be lulled into a false sense of security by the ridiculousness of it all – And we dive deep into the question of how to best capture and describe the defining political conflict: Why we are experiencing a counter-mobilization, rather than a backlash; by reactionaries, rather than conservatives; against egalitarian multiracial, pluralistic democracy, rather than simply democracy.
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2022-12-021h 07Is This Democracy4. The Rogue Court, the Threat of Rightwing Political Violence – and Discussing Politics Over ThanksgivingConservative justices are leaking decisions, but more importantly, they have made the Supreme Court the spearhead of a reactionary counter-mobilization against democracy: What is to be done about a Rogue Court? – The Assault on the LGBTQ community in Colorado Springs: America’s gun cult(ure), the escalating rightwing demonization of vulnerable groups, and why the reactions to the latest shooting are indicative of a significant radicalization of conservative politics – Thanksgiving politics talk: Here are some political statements that you might encounter over the weekend, and how we think you should respond. And a little bonus discussion at the end: Why it’s a...
2022-11-251h 13Is This Democracy3. Elon Musk, Donald Trump – and Should Journalists Be Rooting for Democracy?The fate of Twitter: The democratic stakes of having so much of our media infrastructure in the hands of billionaires; the fraud relationship between the libertarian-to-far-right tech oligarchy and democracy; Twitter’s importance as an essential part of the virtual public square – Midterms fallout: The major storylines and key narratives that have emerged; the deepening chasm between “red” and “blue” America; and why Donald Trump remains an acute threat – The relationship between journalism and democracy: Should the media be explicitly pro-democracy? What would this look like in practice? And what does it mean to prioritize “neutrality” when democracy itself has become a parti...
2022-11-181h 14Is This Democracy2. The State of Democracy After the Midterms (Still bad; Could have been way worse)A big-picture reflection on the midterms (what else!) and what they can tell us about the state of American democracy – Why the result, while heartening, doesn’t simply prove that “the system works” and why democracy is still very much in danger – What to make of Republican elites clamoring for DeSantis and why Trumpism without Trump is far more likely than a pivot to the center - What Democrats can learn and why the idea of neatly separating “kitchen table” from “culture war” issues is deeply misleading - And what’s behind the flawed mainstream media coverage that was all too eager to adopt r...
2022-11-111h 08Is This DemocracyEpisode 1 - November 4, 2022Our mission statement: Podcasting about a democracy on the brink – Joe Biden says democracy is on the ballot: Is he right? – Midterm primer: Why the election is close (when maybe it shouldn’t be?) and what people are voting for; media coverage; Democratic messaging; and what worries us most going forward.
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