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

Pure individualism is not conservatism, much as though people who call themselves conservatives like to think it is. They’ll tell you the American Dream is individuals becoming super rich. But the more traditional definition is one of equal opportunity and

From the Covid stay-at-home greatest hits:  Patriotic Americans were shocked by the outcome of the 2016 election. As they were in 1920 when Republicans put up Warren Harding, a big business Republican who campaigned and won on an America First

Iowa and New Hampshire’s results are in. What’s the best way for Democrats to beat Trump? On this show former Oklahoma Senator DNC chair and presidential candidate Fred Harris, who embraced populism in the 1970s, talks about different approaches: going

As our guest author Rebecca Gordon explains the term “deep state” is from Turkey, where they have government by a criminal gang. And though Trump clearly enjoys accusing others of what he displays, the legitimate government, the one filled with

Hard to imagine but the mainstream media has it wrong. What has been pictured as a crushing blow was actually a victory for progressive politics in the UK. Across Europe and Britain, working people are standing up against what our

Why did so many Obama voters go for Trump in 2016? What happens when party elites don’t know how to react to changes of popular opinion at the ground level? While they may try to do both: keep the elite

The New Deal aspect of the Green New Deal often gets forgotten. The goal now as in the 1930s is to make the state the instrument of the popular will. Democratizing the economy, making it work for the common good,

Conventional Democratic Party wisdom is that McGovern lost to Nixon because he was too liberal, and as a result of that belief, ever since that loss party insiders have trended steadily to the right. But if today’s measuring tools had

No question: today’s biggest unsolved problems came at the hands of the so-called centrists of both parties. Historian and author Professor Andrew Bacevich argues that while of course Trump must be removed, the constant focus of impeachment is a way

Did Trump mean to be anti-Semitic with his insistence that Jewish Americans who vote Democratic are disloyal? According to our first guest, civil justice advocate and attorney Mark Bello, without question yes, Trump is anti-Semitic. And he says Trump is

What keeps Trump was his false version of “Roses.” An uplift from everyday dullness. Looking at the upcoming election, our guest today Professor Ed Simon argues that “those that will be the most successful will be those that speak of

When Nixon lied, it was an earthquake. Now Trump lies many times a day. Does it matter? Why is it that evangelicals remain solid with Trump? How is it that evangelicals no longer care about his personal immorality? Do Christian

It’s not perfect. Much as we’d prefer to see the 1787 Constitution as a rock solid always-dependable foundation, our guests argue there are fault lines that we can not see but are always there. In their new book Fault Lines

We’ve all seen it in recent years: the leadership of the DNC and the DCCC dictating policy and acceptable “centrist” positions for their chosen candidates. And how well has that worked out? Toward correcting that hierarchy’s grip on the party

With much of state and federal government in their pockets, the interface between the tech trusts and the infrastructure enables concentration and nearly unimaginable control by the tech giants. As a result they are able to over-charge customers between $40

(Please note: this is a corrected audio version) The force behind Trump, the real power in the Republican led senate is Mitch McConnell, who calls himself the grim reaper for killing good bills. Our guest in this discussion, Michael Winship,

What do the new anti-choice laws and the old Fugitive Slave Laws have in common? They both strengthen the power of the state and white male rule over people deemed less-than. In the 1850s, northerners who thought slavery was not