It was either another civil war or ratify a backroom deal to choose the next president. In that deal, the rights of newly emancipated people were sacrificed. Moving on from abolition, white northerners figured locking in white supremacy and the

We barely pulled democracy back from the ledge. Now there’s work to be done to make democracy work even better. On this show Kristen Eberhard talks about steps described in her new book “Becoming a Democracy: How We Can Fix

It didn’t start with Trump and it won’t end when he leaves office. There is an historic pattern to strongmen and he fit the playbook perfectly.  In her new book, Strongmen From Mussolini to the Present, historian of authoritarian governments

The threat of deeply dedicated religious nationalists is not about to go away when Trump leaves office. An electoral defeat energizes them. The author of the important book “The Power Worshipers,” Katherine Stewart expounds on her recent NYTimes op-ed, titled

Ousting Trump is not enough. Getting back to the normalcy of tremendous economic injustice is not enough. With unprecedented wealth owned by a very few, close to 50% of Americans are at the edge of real poverty. Guest is Reverend

The parties have flipped: It used to be that Republicans were for Wall Street, Democrats were for Main Street. Now the Democrats are seen as the party of the elitists, Republicans are for the common people. On this show Thomas

The word treason has been thrown around a lot lately. By Trump against his detractors and also leveled at Trump for seeking to stage a coup against America. On this show one of the nations leading authorities on the law

It was a momentous election. In blue states and red, voters overwhelmingly passed measures legalizing cannabis and, in Oregon, decriminalizing all drugs. So many people have been hurt, families have been separated, and the drug war has failed miserably to

Former presidential candidate best selling author Marianne Williamson talks about why Trumpism arose, and what opportunities the Democratic Party now has. Will Biden be yet another neoliberal or will he listen to the very real causes of chronic despair which

Reagan kicked it off: the emotional manipulation of the word “freedom” obscures political realities. On this show, recorded the day after the vote, guest Ken Nanus analyses the data and concludes that, unlike actual conservatives, anything standing in the way

Even in a minority, fighting back carries a number of positives. On issues that matter to average Americans, Democrats have been pushed off course. Some thought the way to attract independents was timidity. As our guest Eleanor Eagan of the

It’s all about bragging. Trump said his “deal” between the UAE and Israel would create a half million new jobs. The true number is less than a tenth of that. On this show Pentagon arms expert William Hartung explains how

We know about voter suppression against African Americans but what about Indigenous Americans, Indians? The effort to disenfranchise the 2% of the national population is not a secret, yet nearly unknown. On this show author Jean Schroedel shares disturbing findings

The often successful tactics and techniques of America’s crime syndicate have not gone unnoticed by Trump and his gangs. In his new article: “The Mobster in Chief: Will the November Election be Decided in the Streets?” returning guest John Feffer

The right wing Republicans outsmarted Democrats. Starting in 2008, they understood the path to grabbing and holding power goes through state legislatures. They could see that their white older male base is eroding and that they don’t need to compete

He called our current history education in our schools “a form of child abuse.” Teaching critical thinking and the real history of America would be shut down in Trump’s “Patriotic Education.” The popular 1619 Project and Zinn’s Education Project which

Populism is a legitimate form of anger at perceived elites dismissing everyday people. There are indeed real reasons for today’s populist anger. On this show Rutgers Law School professor Dennis M.Patterson explains why we need to take populism seriously. It

In normal times, it’s the the military making war elsewhere in the world, allegedly to protect our peace at home. But with armed white gangs afraid their dominance of America may be slipping away, and with a president egging them

The president calls it a “previously unthinkable regional transformation.” But perhaps it both solidifies the power of medieval monarchies masquerading as modern states, as it ramps up sales of US weapons systems to them. Retired US Army Major Danny Sjursen

The standard picture we northerners have of The South may no longer be accurate. Average working people are starting to see that the anti-union governments there are really just serving the rich. The long-thought-dormant left populist tradition of people like

There’s a brand new Central Park monument of feminist leaders Stanton, Anthony, and Sojourner Truth. It was a hundred years ago that the 19th Amendment became law: women won the right to vote. But what kind of compromises did the

Blurring the lines between law enforcement and vigilantism, why are off duty police at the polling stations mainly in black and brown neighborhoods? New Jersey in 1981 is a case study in what has happened and most likely will happen

She is exactly what Trumpists hate: a strong woman who is both black and Indian. Both groups were the subjects of white male dominance and control. American slavery and British rule over India both had their peak at the same

Many of us were taught to be wary of “mob psychology.” But according to history professor Peter Stearns who has studied the effects of crowds on political change, emotion is not necessarily in conflict with rationality. The protests of the

Donald Trump IS the Republican Party of 2020. So what of the future of the party; is there one? According to David Smith, Washington Bureau chief for The Guardian, some party members quietly hope for a Democratic landslide so they

Trump’s experiment failed. His TV ads trying to gin up fear of protesters backfired. According to George Lakey, long time activist, retired Swarthmore professor, and author of many books, the center is now even more likely to defend against invasions

The Covid 19 crisis is being used to bolster authoritarianism around the world: Trump, Orban, Bolsonaro, the list goes on. John Feffer, director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies explains how the coronavirus is being

As John Kerry said: “To understand Donald Trump, you have to understand Joe McCarthy first.” Though his name is only mentioned at the start and end of his new book, Larry Tye says Trump is there on every page of

In 1980, candidate Ronald Reagan had the advisors and discipline to be subtle enough about racist messages. Southern white fundamentalists and the NAACP’s Ralph Abernathy all endorsed him for president. As our guest author Rick Perlstein says, Trump turned a

Sure the super rich and powerful want us to accept our powerlessness. But we are not! Since the rule of white male aristocrats, the struggle to tamp down voting has been consistent and largely successful. The are determined to hold