Newsrooms are shrinking, hedge funds are buying up local papers and clickbait is shaping more and more what you know about the world. What the heck is happening to the news business — and what does this spell for the future of democracy? Journalism professors Jay Rosen and Nikki Usher say the internet isn’t all to blame: Journalists, they argue, need to get more creative about who they reach, what they cover and how they fund their work.
After a surprising leak, Americans have seen a draft Supreme Court opinion that would undo the right of women to terminate their pregnancies. At issue in this case out of Mississippi: a near-total ban on abortion that ignores Roe v. Wade . A final ruling is expected next month before the end of the court’s term. This week, we replay a conversation with journalist Rebecca Traister. She says establishment Democrats failed to ensure the healthcare needs of poor and marginalized people — and to defe...
Entering the United States without permission is a crime. But should it be? This time on the show, we hear from a couple of lawyers who have been fighting to decriminalize unauthorized immigration. They say federal law unfairly targets Latin Americans — locking up hundreds of thousands of migrants who cross America’s southern border, costing billions of dollars each year. Plus, Will speaks with a University of Virginia historian who has helped make the case that those laws have patently racist o...
Education is our subject this week. You’ve heard all about attacks on the teaching of racism and slavery, about the banning of books on the Holocaust and gender identity, about Florida’s “don’t say gay” bill. Public schools are ground zero in the battle over American civic life. But this is nothing new, historian Natalia Petrzela says. She locates the roots of such controversies in the cultural upheavals of the 1960s that continue to play out today, in a climate of discontent muddled by pandemic...
A critical Supreme Court decision in the early 1970s galvanized white evangelicals and set them on a path to outsized political influence in America. Roe v. Wade? Nope: Green v. Connally. This more obscure ruling two years before, in 1971, really got the religious right fired up, says historian Anthea Butler. That case stripped segregated academies — often religious schools — of their tax-exempt status. This week, Butler examines the racism, money and power behind a movement’s claims to moral au...
When Evan Mawarire draped himself in his country’s flag six years ago, he didn’t know the video he was about to make would put his life in danger — and help topple a dictator. His forefathers had fought for Zimbabwe and for that flag. But now, Mawarire says, it “felt like a fraud.” Over four decades, Zimbabweans had suffered crushing economic woes and political oppression under President Robert Mugabe’s rule. Mawarire recalls that tumultuous time and its fallout with Siva and guest-host Emily Bu...
Besides all but banning abortions, GOP leaders in Texas are limiting what students may learn about slavery, they’re sidelining transgender athletes, they’re allowing citizens to carry guns unlicensed, and they’re making voting harder rather than easier. This week we replay for you the story of a teacher in Dallas who says those education reforms hurt classrooms and democracy. Plus, two historians speak Texan with Siva and guest-host Allison Wright of VQR, as they cover all those other divisive m...
During the Cold War, U.S. taxpayers funded the huge investments that gave Big Tech its jump-start. And so Silicon Valley was born amid a peculiar blend of hypermasculine, militaristic libertarianism and 1960s countercultural values. Now the titans of the tech industry seem enthralled with visions of a post-democratic society driven by algorithms more than actual human connection. Historian Margaret O’Mara joins Will and Siva to ponder what it will take to tame the beast Americans created half a ...
The United States is “backsliding,” says Kevin Casas-Zamora, head of a Sweden-based think tank that assesses the health of democracies around the world. And it’s the first of two key warning signs that, political scientist Barbara F. Walter argues, could lead America unexpectedly into a second civil war. The other sign: the coalescing of a powerful political party around identity rather than ideology. Walter spells out her case for why Americans should be very worried and what they should do abo...
Last December, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a Mississippi case that could hurt women across the country. At issue is a near-total ban on abortion that flies in the face of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision a half-century ago. Conservative justices could overturn abortion rights in America by the end of the court’s term. This week, journalist Rebecca Traister argues that establishment Democrats have failed to protect the healthcare needs of poor and marginalized people — and to defen...
The post-9/11 “forever wars” — in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere — claimed a million lives and cost the United States $8 trillion over two decades. But what about the costs you can’t count? As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rages on, we flash back to an episode we did with Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Spencer Ackerman, about the fallout on the home front from the war on terror. Ackerman says the enterprise was built on lies and has disfigured America’s political culture.
Just as FDR and his allies were crafting the New Deal, a retired Marine named Smedley Butler came forward with a shocking revelation. Powerful business interests, Butler alleged, were plotting to overthrow the U.S. government. Inspired by the rise of fascism in Europe, the conspirators had sought Butler’s aid. Little did they know, decades of fighting for American imperialism had left him disillusioned. So Butler blew the top on “the Business Plot.” Journalist Jonathan Katz helps unearth this bi...
Jane Lytvynenko hasn’t slept much in two weeks. From her home in Toronto, she is watching Russian troops invade and bombard her native Ukraine, threatening loved ones and friends. And it’s rattling her nerves. But through all that, Lytvynenko, a freelance journalist, remains hopeful. Siva speaks with her about the failures of world leaders to stand up to Vladimir Putin. Plus, we revisit a couple of interviews from last year that help add context to the conflict.
There are more firearms — nearly 400 million — in the United States than people. Hundreds of them were on full display at a pro-gun rally in Virginia, in 2020, where a group of strange bedfellows met in praise of the Second Amendment. Also on the show, historian Carol Anderson breaks down the sordid history of the right to bear arms in America. If you thought it was about the “individual right” to carry weapons, or even about militias defending a free state against foreign invasion, think again.
Virginia recently adopted progressive new voting measures championed by Democrats. Then the people rewarded Republicans, putting the levers of state government back in GOP hands. Now a new chief executive, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, is railing against the discussion of systemic racism in public schools and rolling back covid restrictions. Still, Del. Sally Hudson is focused on the positive: an increasingly diverse legislature, plans to weaken corporate influence in politics, and new checks on gerryman...
As many as 120 million Americans lack consistent, high-speed internet access — a problem that remote working and learning during the pandemic has made painfully clear. Media scholar Christopher Ali says it isn’t just an economic problem but a threat to democracy itself. And while the rural-urban divide is well known, Ali tells Will and Siva, poor, densely populated areas are also drastically under-served. Do Americans have the will to treat internet access as a public service rather than a consu...
We launch Season Four this week on familiar turf: autocratic shenanigans right here in the United States. Join Will and Siva for a conversation with Ohio writer and politician David Pepper. His new book tells the sordid tale of how state legislatures across the country get slammed with unpopular bills. On everything from voter suppression efforts to “Stand Your Ground” laws, right-wing lobbying groups are flooding the policy pipeline so hard and so fast, the opposition can’t keep up.
Given a real choice, people everywhere would take a shorter work week over bigger salaries, consume less to live more and seek mutual flourishing rather than plunder their natural resources, says economic anthropologist Jason Hickel. In our final replay of the winter break, we revisit his idea of “degrowth.” Hickel says the core tenet of capitalism — insatiable expansion — is holding humanity hostage. And if we don’t fix that, he argues, we won’t save the planet, never mind democracy.
The Democrats have come up short on President Biden’s spending package, failing to deliver $555 billion for renewable energy that climate advocates say was direly needed. This week we dust off an episode on the relationship between good government and climate policy. Science journalist Kendra Pierre-Louis says better individual choices won’t really address the looming ecological crisis. She argues instead for international reparations and a wholesale shift in social norms, including a healthy do...
This isn’t and never has been a podcast about “Democrats” in danger. But in the United States, one political party epitomizes the antidemocratic moment: Republicans remain devoted to a corrupt leader, intent on suppressing the vote and hostile to racial justice. This week, after GOP politicians simply ghosted the Jan. 6 commemoration in Congress, we’re replaying a show that takes a hard look at their party — with help from a former Republican congresswoman who has dared to call out former Presid...
Jamelle Bouie and Nicole Hemmer return to the show this week for a special conversation looking back on the siege of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — and looking forward at the prospects for democracy in the post-Trump era. Both the country’s political leaders and the media, our guests say, have been reluctant to embrace a rhetoric of emergency to define the moment. And as lawmakers investigate the attack, the window is closing on enacting genuine reforms to ensure voting rights and fair elect...
As the first anniversary of the assault on the U.S. Capitol approaches, we recall the media misuses that presaged that moment. Internet giants like Facebook, Google and Twitter aren’t just part of the disinformation problem — they are the problem, author Nina Jankowicz told us back in Season One. She examines Russian efforts to meddle in other countries, turning the tools of democracy against itself. While the stakes are high, Jankowicz says, stronger regulation and better education are within o...
When Narendra Modi became India’s prime minister in 2014, he promised economic growth and relief from the corrupt and calcified Congress Party. Instead, Modi has stifled dissent, championed Hindu nationalism, undermined democratic institutions and assailed India’s Muslim minority. Last spring and summer, on his watch, the coronavirus delta variant took a devastating toll. Now omicron is rearing its head. Will Modi oversee yet another catastrophe? With that in mind, we revisit this episode from S...
The drumbeat of war is sounding at the doorstep of eastern Ukraine. In Poland, desperate migrants from the Middle East and Afghanistan had to flee from tear gas and water cannons. And Hungary’s right-wing dictator is cracking down on any hint of dissent. Liberated from the grip of authoritarian rule 30 years ago, Eastern Europe has become a tinderbox — and a headache for U.S. diplomats. Two seasoned experts on the region discuss the latest on these dilemmas, and what America’s role in solving th...
Myo Yan Naung Thein had to be smuggled out of his country last spring or face certain torture and death. A leader in Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement, Naung Thein worked in the National League for Democracy, the party of deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Now in exile in the United States, Naung Thein shares his gripping tale, and explains why he thinks the Burmese military regime is losing.
A wave of extraordinary protest came to Cuba in July. Thousands hit the streets to call for more civil liberties, cheaper food and better health care, in a nation whose leaders for decades have defended socialism, at least in words. This week, NYU scholar Ada Ferrer brings some historical perspective to the circumstances in her native country, and our producer considers the island’s uncertain prospects for homegrown activism unafraid of repression and political transformation free of American in...
Mexico’s murder rate has tripled in 15 years, even as the country enjoys a robust multiparty electoral system, a growing economy and a vibrant civil society. That mixed fate is common across Latin America, as the region struggles to overcome its colonial past and face the problems of the present: violence, inequality and agonizing migrations. Sociologist Gema Kloppe-Santamaría says there is common ground on which the Americas, together, can build a better future. Listen back to this episode from...
Four years after far-right demonstrators came to Charlottesville, Va., victims of the mayhem are suing the rally’s organizers. At the core of their federal lawsuit is the 19th-century KKK Act — and thousands of texts and social media posts shared on the dark web. This month two media experts joined us for a conversation about the trial, taped live just a mile from the courthouse where jurors are weighing the facts. Here’s an edited version of that show, the first in our series on democracy “hot ...
So many of the wedge issues covered in our series on “some fine states” were on full display in Virginia’s nail-biter of a governor’s race: education, abortion and the election system itself, to name a few. Missing from both campaigns, say Will and Siva, was much substance. Join our intrepid hosts as they wrap up this miniseries with a conversation on what Republican Glenn Youngkin’s victory in the Old Dominion means for democracy in America. And more — a brief national history and the tale of t...
This week our “Florida” show features the inspiring story of Desmond Meade’s struggle to right the ship of his life — and his fight to sail the Sunshine State into a future where ex-felons get another shot at political engagement. A MacArthur genius and the director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, Meade is working to get citizens who have served out their sentences their civil rights back. He just got his last month. Listen to a full version of his interview with our producer, Rober...
