Claim OwnershipThe Politics Lab
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Politics isn’t always black and white. Dr. Bill Muck and Dr. Phil Barker, professors of political science and longtime friends, talk through the week’s news and discuss how political science might help make sense of things. In The Politics Lab, we put politics under the microscope.
248 Episodes
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This week, Bill and Phil explore the legality and political fallout from the Venezuelan boat strikes and then reflect on the state of Donald Trump’s agenda and what that means for the future of the Republican Party.
On this week’s episode, Bill and Phil celebrate Thanksgiving by handing out the highly coveted Turkey of the Year awards.
This week, Bill and Phil ponder whether political scandals matter anymore and then discuss George Orwell and whether Trump has created his own Orwellian version of 1984.
This week, Bill and Phil sort through the results of the 2025 midterms and discuss whether they tell us anything useful about American democracy, consider the legacy of Dick Cheney, and play another round of “What’s More Stupid?”.
This week, Bill and Phil ponder the metaphor of Trump tearing down part of the White House, return to the question propaganda and fascist politics in America, and then close with a new game we’re calling, “You’ve Got Hate Mail.”
This week, Bill and Phil share and reflect on their interview with Political Scientist and Author of How Democracies Die, Steven Levitsky.
This week, Bill and Phil reflect on the deployment of the National Guard to blue cities across the country and then explore the difference between war and crime as it relates to Trump’s campaign against Venezuela.
This week, Bill and Phil look at the indictment of James Comey, Trump‘s speech to gathered military leaders, and the government shut down, and breakdown the ways that each represents the erosion of democratic norms.
This week, Bill and Phil discuss the growing embrace of Christian nationalism in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s death and then introduce a new game we’re calling, The Elephant in the Newsroom.
This week, Bill and Phil talk through the aftermath and implications of the murder of Charlie Kirk.
This week, Bill and Phil explore the growing divide between the federal district courts, which have been ruling against Trump, and the Supreme Court, which has largely ruled in Trump‘s favor. Then we introduce a new game that we’re calling “What’s More Authoritarian?”
On this week’s episode, Bill and Phil discuss whether this was the week that the American democracy drifted over the line into authoritarianism.
This week, Bill and Phil reflect on Trump’s high-stakes diplomatic meetings with Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky, and European leaders, and then ponder the effectiveness of Gavin Newsom‘s new social media strategy of trolling Donald Trump by imitating Donald Trump.
This week, Bill and Phil dig into some of the bizarre and troubling actions of the Trump administration over the past week and then explore some of the deeper causal factors behind Trump’s success.
This week, Bill and Phil take a moment to reflect on one of the most bizarre political weeks in recent memory, consider the implications of Trump’s decision to fire the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and close with a look at the situation in Gaza and news that Canada, Britain, and France will soon recognize a Palestinian state.
This week, Bill and Phil wrestle with the fact that Trump seems to be winning his war to remake the world, then they play a game of “What’s More Stupid?: Corn Pop Mental Agility Standard Edition”
This week, Bill and Phil reflect on the 80th anniversary of the creation of nuclear weapons, then ponder what history and historical analogies can teach us about our modern world.
This week, Bill and Phil discuss the ways that the Epstein case is turning Trump’s supporters against him, then dig into the curious (and troubling) phenomenon of American political institutions ceding power to the Presidency.
This week, Bill and Phil break down the Supreme Courts ruling on birthright citizenship and then think through the future of the Democratic Party on the one year anniversary of Joe Biden’s disastrous debate.
This week, Bill and Phil discuss the significance and implications of the US bombing of Iran and then assess the results of the recent New York City mayoral race.
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