When Hillary Clinton defeats Donald Trump in November, his millions of supporters will be told that their American birthright has once again been stolen from them. Rick Perlstein talks about the potential for violence in the streets after election day. Plus: What really happened to Sandra Bland? To understand that, you have to begin way before she died in a Texas jail. Debbie Nathan reports. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy...
May 04, 2016•33 min
Trump says he’ll fight for jobs against NAFTA-type trade deals, and he doesn’t take money from Wall Street. Is that enough to win some of Bernie Sanders’s supporters to his side? John Nichols weighs in on this week’s primary results. Plus: The Prince of Sex: Richard Kim explains why Prince is a gay icon today—despite the artist’s lack of support for the gay movement. Also: Challenging “Political Correctness” is a favorite theme of Donald Trump—but what exactly does that mean? Laila Lalami explai...
Apr 27, 2016•38 min
A Clinton vs. Trump campaign in the fall would be a battle of the negatives, Frank Rich says--and Hillary’s are dangerously high. Plus: Hillary and Haiti—a long relationship, and a revealing one. Amy Wilentz comments. And we speak with Viet Nguyen—his novel "The Sympathizer" just won the Pulitzer Prize. It begins in Saigon on the last day of the Vietnam war, and features a Viet Cong spy inside the Saigon army. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://red...
Apr 20, 2016•41 min
Naomi Klein argues that the problem with Hillary Clinton’s climate policy is not her corporate contributions; it’s her corporate ideology. The climate justice movement, she says, "requires the kind of boldness Bernie Sanders represents." Also: Military historian Andrew Bacevich says America can never win its twenty-year war for the Middle East. Plus: Amy Goodman talks about how she got arrested at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul in 2008—and other highlights from the 20-year histor...
Apr 13, 2016•42 min
John Nichols says that, after the Wisconsin primary, Bernie has momentum on his side. Also: David Cole argues that citizen activists are the real force behind changes in constitutional law—look at how the NRA changed the meaning of the Second Amendment; look at how the gay rights movement changed the meaning of “marriage.” His new book is Engines of Liberty. Plus, Obama’s legacy: Gary Younge contrasts the symbolic victory with the real defeats for the left, especially in the use of US military p...
Apr 06, 2016•38 min
Sasha Abramsky asks, if Donald Trump were president, would he be a familiar kind of New York deal-maker—or a deluded demagogue? Campaign contributions go mostly to TV ads that don’t work, and consultants who are even more useless, Andrew Cockburn reports—what counts is face-to-face canvassing to build voter turnout. Obama is a “folk hero” in black America, says Erin Aubrey Kaplan—her new book is "I Heart Obama.” And, for opening day of major league baseball, our Dave Zirin talks about the game w...
Mar 30, 2016•46 min
Bernie Sanders is the leading edge of the historical forces bringing the 40-year Reagan era to an end, says Richard Parker of Harvard’s Kennedy School. Plus: Obama’s legacy for black America is mostly symbolic, Gary Younge argues—the wealth gap between black and white Americans has grown over the last eight years, along with black poverty. Gary writes for The Guardian and The Nation. Also: the real politics of hope—Rebecca Solnit talks about untold histories and wild possibilities—her new book i...
Mar 23, 2016•40 min
John Nichols answers the question, what’s left for Bernie Sanders after Tuesday’s primaries? Quite a bit, he says—he’s The Nation’s National Affairs correspondent. Plus: North Carolina’s new voter ID requirements, the most restrictive in the country, went into effect on Tuesday—Ari Berman explains the problem. He's the author of 'Give Us the Ballot.' And Thomas Frank asks the question, whatever happened to the party of the people? His new book is 'Listen, Liberal.' Advertising Inquiries: https:/...
Mar 16, 2016•40 min
Harold Meyerson says Bernie’s victory in Michigan shows he'd be a stronger candidate than Hillary in big industrial states with diverse populations and big problems. Harold is executive editor of The American Prospect. Plus: Donald Trump: fascist, or clown? John Powers says there are clownish aspects to Trump’s performance at his rallies, but also an aura of violence against those who would challenge him. John is critic at large on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, where he has a listening audience of...
Mar 09, 2016•45 min
Joan Walsh on panic in the GOP establishment over Trump's triumphs on Super Tuesday; Joan is The Nation’s national affairs correspondent. Plus: What Trump supporters really think. Sasha Abramsky interviewed a bunch of them; he reports regularly on politics for The Nation. Also: Trump says he reviles Muslims and reveres veterans—but some vets have been speaking out in defense of the Muslims they know and work with. Laila Lalami has that story—she’s The Nation’s newest columnist. Advertising Inqui...
Mar 02, 2016•41 min
John Nichols says it’s hard to see how the Republican Party can stop Trump from winning the nomination—for starters, nobody is trying—and it’s not hard see how his appeal to working class white voters could make him president. Julianne Hing reports from Nevada on what it's like to go to a Trump rally and a Cruz rally—on the same day—and what voters who are not white are saying about the campaigns. And, for something completely different, A.O. Scott, film critic for The New York Times, talks abou...
Feb 24, 2016•42 min
Katha Pollitt asks, “Is it wrong for women Democrats to want to vote for a woman Democrat?” In 2008 she voted for Obama rather than Hillary; today she’s a Clinton supporter. Gary Younge looks back on Hillary’s 30-plus years in American politics and argues that “It is easy to forget what a mould-breaking, bad-ass figure Hillary cut when she first appeared on the national stage in 1992.” Award-winning filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer talks about The Look of Silence, his Oscar-nominated documentary on ...
Feb 17, 2016•37 min
Republican disarray deepens after New Hampshire: Rick Perlstein explains the dilemma of the GOP establishment, as their chosen candidates continue to slide. Also: The startling success of Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire. It’s not just that he’s from the state next door, says D. D. Guttenplan. And Hillary’s problem is bigger than “the messaging.” And Jane Mayer of The New Yorker examines the secret efforts of the Koch Brothers and their billionaire friends to move the Republican Party to the righ...
Feb 10, 2016•39 min
Gary Younge says Donald Trump is not a uniquely American phenomenon, but part of a broader Western European phenomenon of white, nativist responses to globalization, immigration and terrorism. Joan Walsh analyzes the Republicans after Trump’s second-place finish—as the party establishment has a chance to reassert itself, John Nichols explains how Bernie went from 50 points behind to tie Hillary in Iowa—and what she is doing to change course. And, as the Superbowl approaches, David Zirin has some...
Feb 03, 2016•40 min
The GOP establishment is moving toward accepting Donald Trump as their candidate, says Frank Rich—they think he will make deals with them, while Ted Cruz won’t. Also: Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, the global climate movement: he says the fight to end the fossil fuel era is happening almost in secret, as local activists battle on thousands of fronts around the world. Plus: Anna Deavere Smith, the actor and playwright, talks about her new work on the school-to-prison pipeline, and performing ...
Jan 27, 2016•44 min
The Nation magazine has endorsed Bernie Sanders for president; editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel explains why. Also: Dave Zirin, sports editor of The Nation, talks with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar about black politics, Ferguson, John Lewis, Donald Trump, and also Gil Scott-Heron. Plus: The Big Short is probably the best movie Hollywood has ever made about an economic crisis—it’s fun, but it’s also serious. Kenneth Turan explains—he’s film critic for the LA Times. Advertising Inquiries: https://...
Jan 20, 2016•38 min
Katha Pollitt says feminists should vote for Hillary Clinton, who will be good for women, and who is the only Democratic candidate who can win. But Liza Featherstone says feminists should not vote for Clinton—her record is full of attacks on poor women, starting with “welfare reform.” Also, Tavis Smiley talks about Martin Luther King’s last year—the year that began with his speech condemning the war in Vietnam, where he called the US “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” Advert...
Jan 13, 2016•40 min
Rick Perlstein on Chicago’s mayor; Adam Gopnik and Amy Wilentz on the Charlie Hebdo shooting, one year later; and Rebecca Solnit on climate change in the Himalayas. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Jan 06, 2016•44 min
The most valuable activist, the biggest ideological comeback, the best newspaper front page, and more: John Nichols presents The Nation’s Progressive Honor Roll for 2015. Also: guns in America. What is to be done? Amy Wilentz weighs in. Plus: The great Gore Vidal: Jay Parini wrote a great biography. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy...
Dec 22, 2015•39 min
On this week’s podcast, Barbara Ehrenreich talks about the alarming rise in the death rate of middle-aged white working class men, who are committing suicide and dying of drug overdoses and alcoholism. Also: Rebecca Solnit explains the achievements and limitations of the Paris climate agreement, and the tasks facing the environmental movement now. And John Powers reports on Canada’s popular new prime minister, Justin Trudeau, who has already welcomed Syrian refugees—and defended the Alberta tar ...
Dec 16, 2015•33 min
Laila Lalami talks about what ISIS wants from American Muslims; Joan Walsh explains the real reason we don’t have gun control; and we remember Chernobyl—Amy Wilentz and Tom Lutz talk about writer Svetlana Alexievich, the new winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Dec 09, 2015•45 min
Naomi Klein on the Shock Doctrine and the Paris climate protests, Katha Pollitt on Europe’s refugee crisis, Eric Foner on Woodrow Wilson’s racism, and Joan Walsh on the Republicans and the Planned Parenthood killings. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Dec 02, 2015•39 min
Eric Foner on how Bernie should talk about socialism, Dave Zirin on parents and football, Ari Berman on the battle for the vote, and Julianne Hing on Republicans and refugees. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Nov 24, 2015•41 min
Laila Lalami talks about the origins of ISIS, and what to do about it now. Laila grew up in Morocco; her novel 'The Moor's Account' was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Also: The New York Times coverage of Bernie Sanders has been condescending, and terrible: journalist Amy Wilentz comments on the recent page one story 'Bernie Sanders Won’t Kiss Your Baby.' Plus: Charles Blow, op-ed columnist for the New York Times, talks about growing up poor and black in rural Louisiana; his book 'Fire Shut Up i...
Nov 18, 2015•37 min
