Minnesota’s back-to-work plan is a lot better than Georgia’s, Mike Davis says – it requires employers to provide PPE and bans face-to-face activity—i.e. the restaurants, shopping malls, and tattoo parlors that Georgia and South Carolina have opened. Mike’s book The Monster at Our Door examined the avian flu. Also: John Powers, critic-at-large for Fresh Air with Terry Gross on NPR, recommends “The Good Fight” and “The Bureau” for virus-time TV watching. Subscribe to The Nation to support all of o...
Apr 29, 2020•39 min
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says the US has “one of the poorest systems of unemployment insurance in the world”—and that our number one priority should be to keep workers connected to their jobs. His book People, Power and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent is out now in paperback, with a new preface. Also: Katrina vanden Heuvel talks about solidarity with the front-line workers fighting the virus—starting in New York, where people cheer hospital workers c...
Apr 22, 2020•34 min
Mike Davis talks about the fragmentation of Europe, the marginalization of the WHO, the danger to Africa, and whether China will emerge less powerful in the world economy because of the rise of economic nationalism. Mike wrote about the avian flu in The Monster at Our Door. Also Barbara Ehrenreich reports on her experiment in trying to survive on low wage work. Her classic essay, “Nickel and Dimed,” is the lead piece in her new book, a collection of essays titled Had I Known. We recorded this in...
Apr 15, 2020•38 min
The Military Knew Years Ago That a Coronavirus Was Coming. The Pentagon warned the White House about a shortage of ventilators, face masks, and hospital beds in 2017, according to a document obtained by Ken Klippenstein, The Nation’s Washington Correspondent – but of course Trump ignored the warning. Also: Jared Kusher has a new job on the White House coronavirus task force—and Ivanka is at home, reading “The Odyssey” and playing the guitar. Amy Wilentz comments – she’s our Chief Jared Correspon...
Apr 08, 2020•41 min
Mike Davis talks about who gets forgotten in a pandemic—and about the political, and economic, obstacles to making faster progress on effective anti-viral medication and a vaccine. Mike is the author of many books, including City of Quartz and The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu. Also: Rebecca Solnit talks about how she became a feminist, and a writer—in San Francisco in the eighties, “the queerest city in the world.” Her new book, a memoir of sorts, is Recollections of My No...
Apr 01, 2020•36 min
What’s our strategy for beating Trump in November? Is the Coronavirus making that easier, or harder? E.J. Dionne analyzes the effect of the virus on politics – he’s a columnist for the Washington Post, and his new book is Code Red: How Progressives and Moderates can Unite to Save Our Country. Also: How the coronavirus is changing the issues, and the tactics, of Black Lives Matter – a conversation with Melina Abdullah, one of the founders of the LA chapter and a professor of Pan-African Studies a...
Mar 25, 2020•38 min
Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize winning economist, says we don’t have an easy way of responding to the economic threats posed by the coronavirus, and Trump’s preoccupation with the stock market is a big mistake. Krugman’s new book is Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future . Also: we’ll talk about the Republican senators who say paid sick leave for people with the coronavirus will “make workers lazy”—that’s what Ron Johnson says, he...
Mar 18, 2020•39 min
Despite Bernie's big losses in Michigan and elsewhere on Tuesday, he's staying in the race to challenge Biden on the issues which Democratic voters support. John Nichols assesses the situation, and talks about what we need to do now about the coronavirus and the elections. also: What Big Data says about beating Trump: Steve Phillips explains -- he wrote New York Times bestselling book Brown Is the New White and he’s the founder of Democracy in Color. Plus: the story of an immigrant sweatshop wor...
Mar 11, 2020•40 min
John Nichols analyzes the bad night for Bernie--and the tasks that remain if Biden is going to be defeated in the primaries. Plus: Joan Walsh covered the South Carolina primary and saw first-hand the results of Jim Clyburn's endorsement of Joe Biden. And D.D. Guttenplan presents the case for Bernie and his movement--The Nation endorsed them this week. Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe . Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Priva...
Mar 04, 2020•37 min
Bloomberg can’t win the primaries, but he might try to get the nomination if Bernie doesn’t go to the convention with a majority of delegates. Jeet Heer argues that nominating Bloomberg would destroy the Democratic Party and assure Trump’s reelection. Plus: political pundits are supposed to put forward strong opinions – that’s their job. The rest of us may be confused and uncertain and anxious, but the pundits are full of convictions and arguments. Today we depart from that rule and talk to Rick...
Feb 26, 2020•40 min
Pundits have declared that Elizabeth Warren is finished, but we’re not so sure. Joan Walsh points out that, while Warren came in third in Iowa and fourth in New Hampshire, only 64 delegates have been selected—there are more than 1,900 delegates still to be picked. The case for Warren at this point remains potent, especially given the success of progressive women in the 2018 midterms. Also: Bernie has already won the ideas primary in the Democratic Party. That’s what Bob Borosage argues —he sets ...
Feb 19, 2020•41 min
New Hampshire’s primary has reshaped the Democratic race: Progressives are coalescing around Bernie, and moderates are abandoning Biden in favor of Mayor Pete and Amy Klobuchar. John Nichols reports. Plus: How the Democrats can win in rural America: Jane Kleeb talks about strategies for winning in red states. She’s a grassroots organizer based in Hastings, Nebraska, and she put together the coalition of ranchers, farmers, Native Americans, and environmentalists that stopped the Keystone XL Pipel...
Feb 12, 2020•41 min
The problem in reporting the results in Iowa isn’t just a delay; it’s a disaster—that’s what John Nichols says—for the Democrats, and especially for Bernie, who so far appears to have won at least the popular vote. And if Biden did as badly as reports suggest, that’s a huge boost not just for Pete Buttigieg but also for Michael Bloomberg. But there is one excellent result: This may very well be the last of the Iowa caucuses. Also: there are many other ways elections can go wrong—for example, we ...
Feb 04, 2020•43 min
Republican Senators in swing states are falling in their approval ratings back home as the Senate impeachment trial unfolds. In Maine, Arizona, Colorado, and North Carolina, 63 percent of voters want the Senate to allow witnesses and subpoenas in the impeachment trial. Joan Walsh comments on the politics of impeachment, and on the losing arguments Trump’s attorneys have offered in his defense. Plus: This Sunday is the Superbowl, the biggest sports event in America- a hundred million people watch...
Jan 29, 2020•41 min
51 per cent of Americans now think Trump should be removed from office, according to the new CNN poll (and 45 per cent think he shouldn’t). That, John Nichols argues. shows impeachment has succeeded—and if Republicans in the Senate block Trump’s removal from office, voters can do it in November. Also historian Andrew Bacevitch argues that America has squandered its Cold War victory – and considers where Trump fits into the history of the US since the collapse of the USSR. His new book is The Age...
Jan 22, 2020•39 min
It’s been ten years since Haiti was devastated by the earthquake that killed more than a hundred thousand people. Amy Wilentz, who has been reporting on Haiti for three decades, returned to the island and found the country oddly calm, despite deepening poverty, violence, and corruption. She also found “little sprouts of possibility everywhere.” Also: We have a lot of experts on what to do about poverty -- academics and policy makers. Mia Birdsong has been working with a different sent of experts...
Jan 15, 2020•41 min
Trump’s Iran strike continues a long, failed history of American actions based on the idea that the U.S. military can shape the mideast in accord with our wishes. That’s what Andrew Bacevich argues—his new book is The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered its Cold War Victory. Plus: Henry Louis Gates discovers slave-owners – and also slaves—in the family histories of some surprising people--on the PBS series “Finding Your Roots.” On this season’s premiere, Anjelica Houston learned that one of...
Jan 08, 2020•41 min
The 2020 election will liberate us from Donald Trump and Republican hegemony. A sweeping Democratic victory will make it possible at last for us to address our most serious problems—because 2020 will bring the death of the Republican party as we’ve known it. That’s what Stan Greenberg says—he’s a longtime pollster and adviser to presidents from Clinton to Obama. He’s also a bestselling author, with a new book out—it has the wonderful title R.I.P. G.O.P.: How the New America is Dooming the Republ...
Dec 31, 2019•48 min
Capitalism is broken – that's why socialism is on the agenda for 2020. Katrina vanden Heuvel explains - she's publisher and editorial director of The Nation. We also look back at some of the big events of 2019, and some of our favorite interviews, starting with the terrorist attacks by white nationalists, in El Paso and elsewhere. Historian Kathleen Belew says they are NOT isolated events carried out by loners; in fact they are connected, the work of a movement, with tens of thousands of active ...
Dec 24, 2019•49 min
The British Labour Party suffered a historic defeat last week—working class people who voted Labour their entire lives have now switched sides. Centrists in the Democratic Party say this means that the socialist program doesn’t work as an alternative to racism and xenophobia--in other words, it’s bad news for Bernie. And for us at The Nation. They say Boris Johnson is a lot like Donald Trump, and that Boris’s victory suggests Trump will win in 2020—the way Brexit foretold the 2016 vote in the US...
Dec 18, 2019•40 min
Some analysts criticize progressives who urge Democrats to focus on turning out their core base—people of color, unmarried women, and younger voters—they say it’s a big mistake to give up on working class whites. And many progressives reply that it would be a disaster for the Democrats to try to “win back” working class white Trump voters by not talking about discriminatory policing, reproductive health care, and LGBTQ rights. Joshua Holland examines the actual evidence —and concludes that Democ...
Dec 11, 2019•43 min
Democrats need to learn the lessons of their historic victory last month, when Virginia became the first Southern state in the post–civil-rights-movement era to entirely flip back to Democratic control. Virgina Democrats now hold the governorship AND both houses of the state legislature. How did they do it? Joan Walsh says one key was that Republican attacks on abortion didn’t send Democrats running scared. Also: Trump’s pardons for war criminals: Jeet Heer says the military is right to stand up...
Dec 04, 2019•36 min
Bernie Sanders says it will take a movement to change America: “It can’t all be Bernie.” John Nichols comments on his interview with the candidate, who is now back in second place in the polls. And we play clips from the interview, originally broadcast on the Next Left podcast. Also: deporting the immigrants called “undesirable”--now, under Trump, and a hundred years ago. Historian Adam Hochschild notes that it’s the 100th anniversary of the Palmer Raids, where J Edgar Hoover got his start round...
Nov 27, 2019•40 min
The adventures of older women in America: Ruth Bader Ginsburg for example is 86,and Nancy Pelosi just turned 80. But where are the prominent Republican women in politics today who are older? Gail Collins has been thinking about that; of course she’s the New York Times op-ed columnist. Her new book is No Stopping Us Now . Also: Rick Perlstein says the Nixon impeachment limited the charges against the president in order to win a Republican majority in the Senate; since that’s not going to happen w...
Nov 20, 2019•42 min
Sherrod Brown, the senior senator from Ohio, was re-elected in 2018. He won by 7 points—in a state Hillary Clinton had lost—by 8 points—just 2 years earlier. What are the lessons for 2020? “You need to talk to workers,” he says, “and you need to fight for workers—all workers.” Now he has a new book out: Desk 88 – Eight progressive senators who changed America. Also: why Joe Biden is the wrong candidate to take on Donald Trump: D.D. Guttenplan, The Nation ’s editor, explains why the magazine has ...
Nov 13, 2019•43 min
Where do we stand one year out from the election? The best polls this week show Trump losing the popular vote by around 15 points—but also show that he’s still “highly competitive” in the swing states Democrats must carry in order to defeat him. John Nichols has our analysis. Also: Trump is trying to knock off Joe Biden because he wants to run against Elizabeth Warren—he thinks he can win by campaigning against “socialism.” And more young people have favorable views of socialism than they do of ...
Nov 06, 2019•41 min
Joe Biden may be the frontrunner, but he’s slipping, and it seems doubtful that he will get better at this. Big donors are pulling away from him. But do the “moderates” in the party–-the Wall Street Democrats--have a Plan B? A backup candidate? A viable alternative? Jeet Heer evaluates the possibilities—there are a lot of them, but none are very promising. Also: Republicans in the Senate--we will need 20 of them to vote to convict Trump if he’s going to be removed from office. Is that possible? ...
Oct 30, 2019•39 min
We all know Trump got famous on TV with The Apprentice – but how many of us ever watched The Apprentice? Reality TV was a key force in making Trump president. Tom Carson talks about “Audience of One” by James Poniewozik. Tom, a longtime writer on pop culture and politics, won two National Magazine Awards during his time as Esquire‘s “Screen” columnist; now he writes for BookForum. Also: Ilhan Omar has endorsed Bernie for president – how does she deal with Trump’s vicious attacks? David Perry has...
Oct 23, 2019•40 min
Trump’s increasingly reckless efforts at intimidation reveal the increasingly desperate situation he has created for himself, where even Fox News has become an inconsistent and unreliable defender of his actions. Sasha Abramsky separates Trump’s efforts at distraction from the political reality he now faces. Also: With the Supreme Court back in session, we turn our attention to the most right-wing and longest-serving Justice, Clarence Thomas. Is he a self-hating sell-out? Corey Robin says he’s s...
Oct 16, 2019•45 min
The Supreme Court term began its fall term this week--and even though Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed at the start of last year’s court term, this year the Supremes’ decisions will be worse – a lot worse. Elie Mystal explains why—he’s the executive editor of Above the Law and a contributing writer for The Nation. Also: a new episode of ‘The Children’s Hour’--stories about Ivanka, Jared, Don Junior, and little Eric. This week: who’s helping Dad fight impeachment? Amy Wilentz has our story. Plus: Re...
Oct 09, 2019•39 min
