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Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the week in news. Hosted by Jon Wiener and presented by The Nation Magazine.
88 Episodes
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A lot of people who voted for abortion rights referenda this year also voted for Trump. What were they thinking? How do they understand politics? Amy Littlefield spent election day in Amarillo, Texas, trying to find out.Also: John Lewis, who died in 2020, challenged injustice from the sit-ins of 1960 to the Age of Trump. Historian David Greenberg talks about what we can learn from his example. Greenberg’s new book is “John Lewis: A Life.”
Hope does not mean saying ‘this is not bad,’ Rebecca Solnit argues; it just means we will not give up—because we know that what we do matters, and we also know we’ve been surprised by good things we never expected.Also: The bromance between Elon Musk and Donald Trump cannot last – historian David Nasaw will explain why.
John Nichols looks at the elections results: how we got here, and what we do next. For starters: Trump got fewer votes than 4 years ago; 55% of voters in the CNN exit poll said he was "too extreme."
New research suggests what messages win working class votes in Pennsylvania – strong economic populism, and not Trump’s threat to democracy. Bhaskar Sunkara, the Nation’s president, is on the podcast to discuss.Also: The ACLU has been preparing for election day threats to voting and vote counting for years. Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU’s voting rights project, explains.
Latino and Black voters in swing states, we are told by the New York Times, are “drifting away from the Democrats.” But how good is the evidence here? Steve Phillips has our analysis.Also: Melania has published a memoir: “Melania,” where she revisits plagiarizing Michelle Obama for her 2016 RNC convention speech, and wearing that jacket that said “I don’t care, do U?” when she visited INS detention camps for children separated from their parents at the border. Amy Wilentz comments on her explanations—and on the rest of the book.
One in six voters, pollsters say, are “still unsure of their choice.” What do people mean when they say they are “undecided”? Rick Perlstein says political writers have failed to understand the undecideds—and what Kamala might do to win their votes.Also: Pennsylvania is the state where this year’s election may well be decided—and where nearly two-thirds of voters don’t have college degrees. Eyal Press went to Pennsylvania to find out what working class people there are thinking about and talking about in this election.
The polls have had disastrous failures for decades, but people continue to focus on them; Rick Perlstein has a better idea: ‘don’t follow polls—organize.’Also: Democrat Marie Gleusenkamp Perez won a House seat in a Trump district, pointing the way for others. Marc Cooper analyzes her current reelection campaign in southwestern Washington State, starting from the fact that she’s a working class woman in a rural area.
John Nichols has been driving to places in middle America where Trump has gotten big majorities in the past: Iowa and Nebraska, central and Western Illinois, and southwestern Wisconsin, asking Democrats there about politics in their towns right now.Also: Kamala’s campaign is challenging the Republican conception of “freedom” as freedom from government regulation, advancing instead a positive conception of the government’s ability to protect and expand freedom. Eric Foner explains the history, and significance, of this conflict.
Trump has cancelled his plans to visit Springfield, Ohio, but his lie about Haitian immigrants there eating cats and dogs continues to riccochet around the American political world. Amy Wilentz comments.Plus: The presidential election is the main political battle in America today, but Trump’s followers have also been fighting, for years, to take over towns across the country. Sasha Abramsky reports on two exemplary battles. His new book is ‘Chaos Comes Calling.’
Trump has made it clear he won't accept the results of the 2024 election if he loses, and Republicans are doing everything they can make it harder for Democrats to vote. But it will be harder for Trump to challenge this year's election, because of changes in the law--that's what Rick Hasen says. He's professor of law at UCLA, and his writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Slate and The New York Times.Also: Trump supporters in Appalachia: Arlie Hochschild has spent years talking with them about how they understand their lives, and how Donald Trump helps overcome their shame. Her new book is “Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right.”
Tuesday night’s debate showed what Kamala can do – and what Trump can’t. John Nichols has our analysis.Also: homeless vets have been trying for years to get the VA to build housing for them in LA on land dedicated to that purpose. Now, a federal judge has finally ruled: the vets win, and the VA loses. Mark Rosenbaum, lead attorney in the vets’ class action suit, explain.
Donald Trump announced Friday that he would be voting against a abortion rights ballot measure in his home state of Florida. Amy Littlefield reports on the crucial battle in the state that had been the South’s last refuge for abortion access.Plus: Rachel Kushner talks about the informant and provacateur who infiltrates an anarchist eco-commune in rural France – the central character in her new novel, “Creation Lake.”
We’ve had a series of surprises in the last several weeks, but none have been more surprising than Kamala emerging as a great candidate. Harold Meyerson explains: it’s not so much that she has changed, it’s that the Democratic Party has changed.Also: Democracy in America is being undermined by the Electoral College, the Senate filibuster, the gerrymandering of the House, and the corruption of the Supreme Court. It’s time to write, and ratify, a new constitution: that’s what Erwin Chemerinsky says. His new book is “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States.”
As the Democrats meet to celebrate Kamala, Trump seems disoriented and unsure what to do next. Nevertheless he’s holding on to 44% of the electorate. How come? Marc Cooper has our analysis.Also: Kamala may be rising in the polls, but the Number One nonfiction bestseller in America is still “Hillbilly Elegy” by J.D. Vance. Luckily for us, Becca Rothfeld has read it, so we don’t have to. She’s nonfiction book critic for the Washington Post.
What is happening with the Trump campaign? He seems to be losing his grip, while Kamala gets big crowds and dominates the news. Harold Meyerson comments.Also: Sherrod Brown is up for reelection to the Senate in Ohio, where Biden got only 45% four years ago. He explains is political philosophy, which has enabled him to win reelection twice before. (originally broadcast in 2020).
J.D. Vance’s remark about “childless cat ladies” who “want to make the rest of the country miserable” continues to reverberate in the news. Katha Pollitt has our analysis of Vance and his opponent Tim Walz, and takes up Vance’s argument that people who don’t have children don’t have a stake in the country’s future.Also: It’s August and that means it’s time for summer beach reading. We asked John Powers, critic at large for “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross, for suggestions. His pick is Antonio Scurati’s “M: Son of the Century,” a 750 page novel about the rise of Mussolini.
Kamala Harris is likely to be the next president of the United States—that’s what Steve Phillips says. He's on this episode of Start Making Sense analyzing changes in the electorate and suggests what the Democrats need to do to create majorities in the swing states.Also on this episode: Los Angeles has 4,000 homeless vets, living on the streets. Now, a class action suit demanding the VA fulfill its pledge to provide housing for them is going to trial in federal court. The lead attorney for the homeless vets, Mark Rosenbaum, explains the arguments and the evidence.
John Nichols examines the tasks facing Kamala Harris – the opportunities, and the obstacles to be overcome. Also: Democrats in Arizona are engaged in massive organizing to win an abortion rights referendum, elect a senator and flip a House Seat--and they are facing an Arizona Republican party that is pretty crazy. Sasha Abramsky has our report.
Will the assassination attempt change Trump’s campaign—make it more a call for unity and less a demand for retribution? Harold Meyerson reports on the evidence from the Republican National Convention.Also: The Nation’s Joan Walsh has been following Kamala Harris for months, as she campaigns for Biden -- but also provides evidence of her own potential as a presidential candidate.
Biden’s efforts to renew his candidacy are “risk-averse, uninspired, and dangerously misguided” – that’s what John Nichols says, as we review the efforts to persuade him to drop out of the race.Also: During the Supreme Court term that just ended, the conservative majority granted new constitutional rights to hedge fund managers, big business—and Donald Trump. David Cole explains the shocking decisions that have transformed our government.Finally, Jane McAlevey died Sunday--she was The Nation's strikes correspondent, and one of our best
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