In this week’s episode of Politics In Question Lee and Julia dive into the latest from their Substack newsletters, Undercurrent Events and Good Politics/Bad Politics . They delve into how negativity bias, nostalgia bias, identity, and messaging all shape the current state of our democracy. How do we think of the present and the past? How do emotion, identity, and community shape the way we perceive and engage with politics? In what ways does our collective memory influence the course of democrac...
Nov 19, 2024•36 min•Ep. 140
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question Lee talks with Jocelyn Kiley to discuss the Pew Report, Changing Partisan Coalitions in a Politically Divided Nation . Kiley is a Senior Associate Director of Research at Pew Research Center. What are the most important demographic groups within each party? What is the correlation between age and partisanship? How are partisan divisions reinforced by demographic differences? These are some of the questions Lee and Jocelyn ask in this week’s episode....
Nov 15, 2024•43 min•Ep. 139
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Lee and James explore the role of the Senate and the dysfunction we see today with Sean Theriault. Theriault is a Professor at the Department of Government at the University of Texas, Austin and the author of Disruption?: The Senate During the Trump Era (Oxford University Press, 2024). Do we need the Senate? What has caused gridlock in the Senate? What would the Senate look like during a second Trump term? These are some of the questions Sean, Lee...
Nov 04, 2024•48 min•Ep. 138
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Lee and James explore America’s reliance on direct primaries in federal elections with Nick Troiano. Troiano is the Executive Director of Unite America and the author of The Primary Solution: Rescuing Our Democracy from the Fringes (Simon & Schuster, 2024). What are direct primaries? Why do Americans rely on them? When did they first start using direct primaries in federal elections? And what are the consequences? These are some of the questio...
Sep 23, 2024•50 min•Ep. 137
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Lee discusses the history of primary elections and options for reform with Robert Boatright. Boatright is professor of political science at Clark University and the world’s leading expert on the American primary system. He is also the director of research for the National Institute of Civil Discourse at the University of Arizona. His most recent book is Reform and Retrenchment: A Century of Efforts to Fix Primary Elections (Oxford University Press...
Aug 12, 2024•44 min•Ep. 136
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Ari Berman joins Julia and Lee to discuss voting rights in the United States. Berman is Mother Jones’ national voting rights correspondent. He is the author of numerous books, including Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024). Why is American politics dysfunctional? Is it because the Constitution prevents a majority of Americans from enacting their preferred policies without compromising wit...
Jul 29, 2024•46 min•Ep. 135
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Rachel Porter joins Lee to consider the consequences of political amateurs in Congress. Porter is an Assistant Professor of Political Science. Her research interests include American political institutions and political methodology, with a particular focus on Congress, elite behavior, and methods for computational social science. Most recently, her work has sought to explore and explain the rising success of political amateurs in elections for the...
Jul 08, 2024•36 min•Ep. 134
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Jake Grumbach joins Lee and James to consider whether American democracy is in crisis. Grumbach is an associate professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. He studies the political economy of the United States, with interests in democratic institutions, labor, federalism, racial and economic inequality, and statistical methods. And he is the author of Laboratories Against Democracy: How National Parties Transformed State Polit...
Jul 01, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 133
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Congressman John Sarbanes, D-Md., joins Lee to talk about the health of American democracy. Sarbanes has represented Maryland’s third congressional district in the House of Representatives since 2007. He serves on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and is chair of the Democracy Reform Task Force. Sarbanes was born and raised in Baltimore and has experience working in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. What does it mean to live in a...
May 16, 2024•43 min•Ep. 132
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Thomas Schaller and Paul Waldman join Lee and James to discuss the urban-rural divide in American politics. Schaller is a professor of political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Waldman is a journalist and author whose writing has appeared in numerous publications, including MSNBC. Their new book is White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy (Random House, 2024). Why is Mingo County, West Virginia important? How has...
Apr 29, 2024•53 min•Ep. 131
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Matt Glassman joins Lee and James to discuss the right way to do politics. Glassman is a senior fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University. Before that, he worked on congressional operations, separation of powers, appropriations process, agency design, and congressional history at the Congressional Research Service. He also served as professional staff on the Legislative Branch Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Commi...
Mar 25, 2024•46 min•Ep. 130
In this week's episode of Politics In Question, Lee and James ask Representative Chip Roy, R-Texas, if the House of Representatives is broken. Roy is a devoted husband and father of two, serving his third term in Congress representing Texas's 21st Congressional District. He serves on the House Judiciary, Rules, and Budget Committees and is the House Freedom Caucus Policy Chair. Roy previously served as First Assistant Attorney General of Texas under Ken Paxton, Chief of Staff to Sen. Ted Cruz, s...
Feb 23, 2024•36 min•Ep. 129
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Jonathan Rauch joins Lee and James to consider why Americans can’t compromise. Rauch is a senior fellow in the Governance Studies program and the author of eight books and many articles on public policy, culture, and government. He is a contributing writer of The Atlantic and recipient of the 2005 National Magazine Award, the magazine industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. His many Brookings publications include the 2021 book “The Constituti...
Feb 12, 2024•47 min•Ep. 128
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Lee and James talk about Bonnie Tyler, Tina Turner, and Americans’ views of democracy. What is democracy? How do Americans view it? Do they think about democracy differently when it gets in their way? Does that make them “democracy hypocrites?” Why are Americans holding out for a hero in such moments? And does democratic self-government need another hero to make it work? These are some of the questions Lee and James ask in this week’s episode. Hos...
Feb 04, 2024•38 min•Ep. 127
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Julia, Lee, and James discuss what happened in 2023, and what could happen in 2024. What did we learn in 2023? Was American politics less fluid and surprising than it was in 2022? Will the 2024 presidential election be a rematch between President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump? What are the consequences of divided parties? Why is Congress such a hot mess? And why aren’t more people talking about the first-in-the-nation island primary?...
Jan 08, 2024•39 min•Ep. 126
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Jonathan Rodden joins Julia and Lee to discuss the challenges presented by urban-rural polarization in American politics. Rodden is a professor in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University. His work focuses on the comparative political economy of institutions. He has written on various topics, including federalism and fiscal decentralization, the geographic distribution of political preferences within countries, legislative bargai...
Dec 30, 2023•47 min•Ep. 125
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Lee takes a big picture look at political polling with Michael Podhorzer. Podhorzer is a senior fellow at the Center for American Process where he writes weekly on election data and political strategy. He is the former political director of the AFL-CIO. Podhorzer founded the Analyst Institute , the Independent Strategic Research Collaborative (ISRC), the Defend Democracy Project , and the Polling Consortium, and helped found America Votes , Workin...
Dec 04, 2023•52 min•Ep. 124
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , James discusses the importance of political leadership with Daniel Stid. Stid is the Executive Director of Lyceum Labs. He previously served as the founding director of the Hewlett Foundation’s U.S. Democracy Program. From 2013-22, Daniel led $180 million in grantmaking to shore up U.S. democracy in a time of polarization. Earlier in his career, he was a partner at The Bridgespan Group, where Daniel advised nonprofit, foundation, and government le...
Nov 27, 2023•47 min•Ep. 123
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Lee considers what American democracy will look like in the 21st century with Archon Fung. Fung is the Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government at Harvard Kennedy School and director of Harvard’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. His research explores policies, practices, and institutional designs that deepen the quality of democratic governance with a focus on public participation, deliberation, an...
Nov 20, 2023•59 min•Ep. 122
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Lee and James reflect on the House’s Speaker drama. Why did it take so long for the House to select a Speaker? What is the House for? Why does it need a Speaker - and other powerful leaders - to operate? And what can the House’s history teach us about alternative ways to manage the institution? These are some of the questions that Lee and Jams ask in this week’s episode. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information...
Oct 30, 2023•56 min•Ep. 121
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Julia considers social movements and political parties with Marcus Board Jr. Board is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Howard University. His research engages social movements, radical Black feminist theories of power, and public opinion. He is the author of Invisible Weapons: Infiltrating Resistance and Defeating Movements (Oxford University Press, 2022). Board most recently co-authored a chapter on social movement...
Oct 19, 2023•42 min•Ep. 120
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Lee and James assess what’s wrong with American self-government? Why is it dysfunctional? What will it take to change the status quo? And will Lee and James ever get a chance to open a vegetarian piano bar restaurant? These are some of the questions that they ask in this week’s episode. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising....
Oct 10, 2023•28 min•Ep. 119
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Steven Rogers joins Julia and Lee to discuss state legislatures. Rogers is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Saint Louis University, where he teaches and conducts research on elections, state legislatures, and public opinion. How many people can name their state representative? Does it matter if they have no idea who represents them in the state capital? What are the implications of low electoral accountability in st...
Sep 18, 2023•51 min•Ep. 118
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Miles Taylor joins Julia and Lee to talk about the resistance to Donald Trump when he was president. Taylor is the author of Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump . He served in the Trump administration as the Chief of Staff to the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Before that, Taylor worked in Congress and served in the George W. Bush administration. How did administration officials counter the threat to Americ...
Aug 22, 2023•29 min•Ep. 117
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Kevin Elliott joins Lee and James to talk about how busy people can make democracy work for them. Elliott is a political scientist and Lecturer in Ethics, Politics, and Economics (EP&E) at Yale University. His main research interests are in political theory, particularly democratic theory, and focus on the ethics of democratic citizenship, political epistemology, and the normative justification and design of political institutions. He is the a...
Jul 25, 2023•49 min•Ep. 116
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Jake Tapper joins Lee and James to talk about his latest novel, All the Demons Are Here (Little, Brown and Company, 2023) and how storytelling helps us understand politics. Tapper is CNN’s chief Washington correspondent and hosts its award-winning program, The Lead with Jake Tapper, and its Sunday morning show, State of the Union. He is also the author of five novels, including The Hellfire Club and The Devil May Dance . What does fiction allow wr...
Jul 14, 2023•43 min•Ep. 115
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question, Philip Wallach joins Lee and James to talk about Congress, how it’s broken, and how we can fix it. Philip is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies America’s separation of powers, with a focus on regulatory policy issues and the relationship between Congress and the administrative state. Philip’s latest book is Why Congress (Oxford University Press, 2023). How broken is today’s Congress? What is Congress’s job? How h...
Jul 10, 2023•44 min•Ep. 113
In this week’s episode, Julia, Lee, and James deconstruct the debt limit debate and the 2024 presidential election. What does the debt limit debate tell us about polarization in American politics? Why did the debt debate play out like it did? Does it tell us anything about the 2024 presidential election? Will it be a rematch between President Joe Biden and Donald Trump? Is Trump winning the Republican nomination inevitable? What is a Substack? And why is it so hard to pay for a latte with nickel...
Jun 30, 2023•45 min•Ep. 114
In this week’s episode, Lee speaks with Lisa Disch about the state of America’s representative democracy. Disch is a professor of political science at the University of Michigan. Her work focuses on contemporary continental political thought, especially feminist theory, political ecology, and theories of democracy in both the United States and France. She is the author of Making Constituencies: Representation as Mobilization in Mass Democracy (The University of Chicago Press, 2021), The Tyranny ...
Jun 20, 2023•41 min•Ep. 112
In this week’s episode, Mila Atmos joins Julia and James to discuss how podcasts can save American politics. Atmos is the producer and host of Future Hindsight , a weekly podcast that aims to spark civic engagement through in-depth conversations with citizen change-makers. She combines life experiences from living in multiple cultures ranging from Indonesia to Germany to the rural U.S., with her knowledge base in history, economics, and international affairs (B.A. & M.I.A. Columbia Universit...
Jun 08, 2023•33 min•Ep. 111
