Over the last two seasons, Felicia and Michael have talked with politicians, superstar activists, and renowned academics—from Senator Elizabeth Warren to economist Thomas Piketty. In this final episode of How to Save a Country , they’re taking a look back, and hashing out debates they’ve had between themselves along the way: What’s the real difference between “progressive” and “liberal”? What big projects should the left set their sights on, and which are politically out of reach? And how well d...
Jun 29, 2023•35 min
What do people mean when they talk about freedom? Throughout history, that question has often had dark answers, as Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Jefferson Cowie explains in this episode. “Going all the way back to Athenian democracy is the freedom to enslave, the freedom to oppress, the freedom to dominate,” he tells Felicia and Michael. In his book, Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power —which won the 2023 Pulitzer for History—Jefferson argues that this kind of free...
Jun 22, 2023•48 min
Almost a decade ago, economist Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century changed the way many people understood capitalism and inequality. In the years since, his research and ideas have helped jolt our politics out of autopilot and elevate solutions like a wealth tax into the mainstream. This episode—recorded in Paris following a panel discussion Thomas and Felicia participated in with historian Gary Gerstle—is about what comes next. “I think it's important that progressives . . . st...
Jun 15, 2023•44 min
If you’ve never heard of OIRA, you aren’t alone. But while small, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is a mighty federal agency, with a vital role in reviewing and implementing executive branch regulations. It’s also a popular target for some on the right. When conservatives target the administrative state and paint executive powers or civil service as overreaching, agencies like OIRA are what they’re disparaging. What would the US look like without the administrative state? And wh...
Jun 08, 2023•49 min
This week, we’re sharing an episode from our friends over at The Politics of Everything , a biweekly podcast from The New Republic that explores the intersection of culture, media, and politics through interviews with scholars and journalists. In ways large and small, the changing climate affects how we live and, for a growing number of people, where we live. Many have already relocated because conditions have become too dangerous back home, whether due to sea level rise, wildfires, or drought. ...
Jun 01, 2023•32 min
What is feminist economics? How is the field changing what we want from policy? And what is the value of unpaid labor in our economy? In this episode, renowned economist Nancy Folbre answers those questions, and traces the much-needed rise of the care agenda. Nancy is director of the program on gender and care work at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She’s the editor of For Love and Mercy: Care Provision in the United States , and author of Gre...
May 25, 2023•48 min
One of the clearest ways to see how a political idea lands in the real world is to hit the campaign trail. These ideas go through the ultimate test in cafes and backyards, in conversations with people who want to share their own experiences. Last year, Harvard political philosophy professor Danielle Allen was able to experience this firsthand when she ran for governor of Massachusetts. This week, Danielle—who is also the founder and president of the organization Partners in Democracy—speaks with...
May 18, 2023•45 min
Political pundits often discuss the differences between red and blue states in the US. But political strategist Michael Podhorzer argues that this framework drastically understates the true nature of the divisions in our country. We have always been more like two separate nations —tenuously united under the Constitution. These “red and blue nations,” as he calls them, are divided by geography, by political economy, and by different views toward religion and even toward democracy itself. In this ...
May 11, 2023•45 min
The majority of people who participate in or follow US politics focus on four- and six-year election cycles. But certain political and economic developments take place over much longer time scales, as our guest this episode knows well. Historian Gary Gerstle, author of the recent book The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era , calls these longer stages in our political history “political orders”—a concept he created with Steve Fraser (co-editor of a...
May 04, 2023•50 min
Once the foot soldiers of the right-wing movement, social conservatives are increasingly setting the agenda, arguing for a state that takes an active role in shaping and preserving traditional institutions like the nuclear family. However, this vision of family offered by social conservatives is inextricably linked with a disturbingly retrograde view of gender, sexuality, reproductive rights, and American history. This week, Michael and Felicia talk to Julie Kohler—writer and host of the podcast...
Apr 27, 2023•50 min
In front of a live audience at the Hewlett Foundation’s New Common Sense Conference in March, Felicia and Michael talk to New York Times bestselling author Heather McGhee about her book The Sum of Us and how racism impacts the implementation and perception of public goods and services. Her research for the book, and for the audio documentary podcast that followed, took her across America and gave her unique insight into how racial resentment can be an obstacle to a better world—and how to overco...
Apr 20, 2023•42 min
To understand the challenges of this moment, we need to be clear-eyed about the emotional dynamics of partisanship and the dangerous tendencies they’ve fostered—people who care more about their group winning than the greater good, or about policies that would help us all. Today’s guest is the perfect person to explain this phenomenon. Dr. Lilliana Mason is an expert in political psychology and group psychology, and the co-author of Radical American Partisanship: Mapping Violent Hostility, Its Ca...
Apr 13, 2023•53 min
Whether you’re a canvasser knocking on doors or a member of Congress building coalitions on the House floor, persuasion is a fundamental part of politics. In recent years, deepening polarization has led to a renewed focus on voter turnout, but Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, argues that persuasion needs to be a bigger part of progressive strategy. Fresh off a tour on this topic with Anand Giridharadas, author of The Persuaders , Maurice stopped by How to Save a...
Apr 06, 2023•42 min
In season 1 of How to Save a Country, hosts Felicia Wong (Roosevelt Institute) and Michael Tomasky (The New Republic) spoke to progressive luminaries about democracy-saving ideas at the intersection of economics, law, and politics. Today, thanks to some surprising legislative successes, some of those big ideas are a lot more real. In Season 2, Felicia and Michael ask: what happens when ideas hit the real world? Where are they working? How can we do better? What ideas might work tomorrow? New epi...
Mar 30, 2023•2 min
In our last bonus episode before the launch of season 2, we bring you an unaired clip from a previous episode with economic historian Brad DeLong. Felicia, Michael, and Brad discuss a point from Brad’s book, Slouching Towards Utopia, about whether neoliberalism persisted as long as it did because of the perception that it won the Cold War for the US. They also discuss the tension between domestic and international economics, particularly in relation to the Inflation Reduction Act, and what liste...
Feb 16, 2023•11 min
Crypto has dominated headlines lately—and none of them have been good, to say the least. FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried is facing fraud charges. Another lending platform, Celsius, went bankrupt. The value of Bitcoin has fallen by half, with other digital coins tumbling along behind it. Amid this crypto winter, we’re revisiting the case for regulation in the crypto markets with this previously unaired clip from our fall conversation with Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Presented by the Roosevelt Institu...
Jan 19, 2023•11 min
To kick off a new year and a new congressional term, we’re bringing you a previously unaired clip from our conversation with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, now minority leader in the House. Leader Jeffries gives his take on divisions within the Democratic Party and its wide spectrum of beliefs. “We’re noisy,” he says, but we “get something over the finish line.” But first, Michael and Felicia discuss the Republican struggle to elect a House speaker, and talk about the long-term implications of that party...
Jan 05, 2023•13 min
For our first bonus episode, we’re bringing you a never-before-heard clip from our conversation with labor scholar Dorian Warren. Dorian talks through the sometimes strangely compatible relationship between inequality and democracy. We want to hear your thoughts on this episode! Tweet @FeliciaWongRI and @mtomasky to let them know what you think. Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic , and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Founda...
Dec 22, 2022•15 min
This week, we’re sharing an episode from our friends over at The Politics of Everything , a biweekly podcast from The New Republic that explores the intersection of culture, media, and politics through interviews with scholars and journalists. Are we headed back to the 1970s? Politicians and pundits from across the political spectrum insist we are. They also make clear that nothing could be worse. Why is the decade so feared? What kinds of policy do the grim warnings justify? On episode 56 of Th...
Dec 15, 2022•25 min
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is known as the plan-wielding policy wonk of the progressive movement. But underlying those plans is a simple idea: We are the government. “Government is the vehicle for letting us do together what none of us can do alone,” Sen. Warren tells Felicia and Michael. “We all contribute and it expands opportunity for all of us, and I feel like that's what's really been missing as we've become a post–New Deal nation.” In this episode, Sen. Warren discusses how we can recapture tha...
Dec 08, 2022•35 min
Fun fact: The US economy’s rebound from the COVID recession has been five times faster than its recovery after the Great Recession. You read that right. And to explain why that is—and how workers have benefited—we’ve got two people who’ve had front-row seats in the Obama and Biden administrations. Joelle Gamble is the current chief economist at the US Department of Labor; Heidi Shierholz (now the president of the Economic Policy Institute) was its chief economist between 2014 and 2017. Together,...
Dec 01, 2022•42 min
Brad DeLong knows a thing or two about the US economy. As one of the world’s leading macroeconomists, a former Treasury Department deputy assistant secretary, and author of the new book Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century , Brad is an expert on both the history and theory of neoliberalism. And he’s as surprised as anyone that it came to power so completely, and that it’s lasted this long. “In my heart of hearts, I still cannot believe that the New Deal order co...
Nov 17, 2022•39 min
The morning after Election Day, Michael and Felicia look at how progressive ideas—particularly economic ideas—fared throughout the country. They discuss why we might be in a new era of midterms, what the media got wrong about election narratives, what political ads can tell us about economic policy, and whether elected officials can connect the dots between rhetoric and reality. Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the...
Nov 10, 2022•28 min
Few have done more to change the climate paradigm than Rhiana Gunn-Wright. As an architect of the Green New Deal, Rhiana was instrumental in expanding the limits of climate policy, and telling a story far larger—and more inspiring—than curbing carbon emissions by taxing them. The Green New Deal’s vision: affirmative investment in green industries, decarbonization as an engine of economic growth, and racial equity and job creation at the center of the national project. “They wanted a World War II...
Nov 03, 2022•36 min
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries is a rising star in the Democratic Party and the likely front-runner to be the next House leader. He’s also quite the policy wonk, as Felicia and Michael learn in this episode. What drives the chair of the House Democratic Caucus, and what’s his vision for the next generation of leadership? Rep. Jeffries, who grew up in a union family in Crown Heights, traces his political journey back to the 1992 Rodney King trial. “There was a shock at the injustice of an acquittal. And I ...
Oct 27, 2022•34 min
Deepak Bhargava has a big idea: America should live up to the best parts of our national identity and become the most welcoming country on Earth for immigrants and refugees. His Statue of Liberty Plan proposes a target of welcoming 75 million people over the course of the next decade. To do that, and counter broader authoritarian appeals, we need a new narrative rooted in progressive values. Deepak is a CUNY distinguished lecturer in Urban Studies, a Roosevelt senior fellow, and former President...
Oct 20, 2022•36 min
Last term, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority showed that it was unafraid of flexing its muscle when it voted to overturn Roe v. Wade— a landmark ruling that had been in place for nearly half a century. Now that the Supreme Court has begun a new term, how can progressives prepare for a conservative majority that’s highly skeptical of government power? Yale Law professor Amy Kapczynski has unique insight into what the Supreme Court could do this term, and what it means for the current and ...
Oct 13, 2022•35 min
In the mid-1950s, nearly 3 in 10 employed workers belonged to a union. Now that figure is down to about 10 percent—or just 6 percent in the private sector alone. But labor organizing and pro-worker policymaking are on the rise. At more than 200 Starbucks outlets, an Amazon warehouse, and even an Apple store, workers are banding together to ask for higher wages, better benefits, and more control over their schedules and workplace conditions. Dorian Warren has been a leader in those efforts. Doria...
Oct 06, 2022•37 min
Heather Cox Richardson's wildly popular Substack newsletter, Letters from an American , achieves what historical studies do at their best: shed light on the politics of the moment by telling parallel stories from the past. As often as the word "unprecedented" comes up in modern political discussions, the comparisons it conjures are usually limited to living memory—which historians know to look beyond. The newsletter is drawn from Richardson's work as a professor of 19th century American history ...
Sep 29, 2022•32 min
Fresh off a legislative winning streak, the Biden administration is having a moment right now. But those unprecedented investments in driving clean energy innovation and rebuilding supply chains are poised to reshape the American economy for the next decade and beyond. Brian Deese, Director of the National Economic Council, had a lot to do with that. Brian joins the podcast to talk about the uniting principle behind the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation...
Sep 22, 2022•38 min
