What is going on in America right now, and what do we do next? We are dealing with an unfathomable reality with ICE escalating it’s violence and terror in Minnesota and the Trump Administration trying to intimidate and force people into compliance, or incite enough chaos and unrest to justify cracking down further. You aren’t going crazy if you feel overwhelmed right now, but that doesn't mean you can just shut down. We need you too much. As always, if you find worth in what we do, please consid...
Jan 20, 2026•41 min
What’s happening in America right now is horrifying but not surprising. That we are living through an extreme stress test for democracy, but all is not lost. Chief Political and Advocacy Officer at the ACLU, Deirdre Schifeling reminds us the best and most durable protectors of our rights are actually our own people. Yes, democratic backsliding is scary and dangerous, but not irreversible…especially if we all come together to defeat it. As always, if you find worth in what we do, please consider ...
Jan 13, 2026•45 min
Will we have elections in 2026? Yes. How free and fair will they be? Well, a lot of that is up to us… As always, if you find worth in what we do, please consider SUBSCRIBING to PoliticsGirl Premium. You’ll get this podcast ad free, along with a bunch of other perks, like the rants directly to your inbox and the knowledge that you’re making this kind of highly researched, factual information possible. If that interests you, please go to https://www.politicsgirl.com/premium and subscribe today!! T...
Jan 06, 2026•58 min
I If you’re feeling exhausted you aren’t alone. The time we’re living in is weird and distressing. And if you, like me, are feeling the weight of the world right now, please understand you’re not it makes sense. However time keeps marching on whether we’re ready for it or not, and those who seek to destroy everything we hold dear, are counting on our exhaustion. So go into this new year with grit and determination because it’s going to be hard. Curiosity and imagination, because we have to creat...
Dec 30, 2025•36 min
The Justice Department and the FBI are currently in complete violation of the law when it comes to the Epstein Transparency Act. They are clearly hoping we just embrace our nihilism and give up ever knowing what happened because deep down we accept the rich and powerful get to live under different rules and they’ll just get away with it. Well, that is unacceptable to me, to our guest, Epstein expert Tara Palmeri, and I hope it’s unacceptable to you. The American government is engaged in what is ...
Dec 23, 2025•52 min
I recently read a quote that said “I will never forgive him for making America a place people fear, a place people don’t like, don’t trust, don’t want to do business with, don’t want to visit, don’t want anything to do with. He has made America a place people laugh at, a place that is cruel and bigoted. America is no longer a destination. It is a place to be avoided.” And it resonated so deeply with me. I’m tired. You’re tired. We’re all exhausted and the hits just keep coming. So what do we do?...
Dec 16, 2025•44 min
The most consistent feeling people have in this country right now is that the system is broken and that makes us feel powerless when we’re not. The Trump administration might be impossible for us to reach right now, but voters are right there, and according to Swing Left’s Yasmin Radjy we should be talking directly to them. Hope is a muscle that we’ve allowed to atrophy, but there’s no progress without it. The Democrats have to do a better job at listening and building trust if we’re not only go...
Dec 09, 2025•59 min
Best selling author and comedian, John Fugelsang reminds us that the problem isn’t religion, it’s the fundamentalists and extremists who use religion as a way to power. As John says, “If your church isn’t telling you to love your enemy, but telling you who your enemies are, then it isn’t a church.” We have to stop using religion as an excuse to hate. There’s a reason the American constitution gave us a society where the church and state existed independent of each other and anyone who is suggest...
Dec 02, 2025•52 min
What has happened to us America? We have military in our streets, ICE murdering people in custody, we’re building concentration camps on our shores and shipping people to foreign prisons without evidence of a crime. We demolished one-third of the White House, our President is calling for Democratic leaders to be executed, and we might go to war with Venezuela for oil and minerals while American citizens can’t afford food or health care. It’s hard to be an empathetic, aware, patriotic American ri...
Nov 25, 2025•33 min
Watching Democrats capitulate on the government shutdown without getting anything in return was a real kick to the face to everyone who thought we might finally have an opposition up for the fight. As Indivisible’s Ezra Levin reminds us, once we move past anger this can be a real opportunity. If we want the Democratic party to be better, it’s up to all of us to do the work to change it, to challenge the status quo, and to build a fighting machine strong enough to take on this regime. With that i...
Nov 18, 2025•51 min
Today is Veteran’s Day and sadly we can’t just honor our soldiers, we have to wonder who they work for. As guest, combat veteran Kristopher Goldsmith reminds us, our president is trying to pit Americans against each other. The president wants the military in our streets fighting for him at the same time his administration is tearing the VA to shreds. The damage this administration is doing to our soldiers, our veterans, and our citizens is incalculable. Which is why Kris’s work with Veteran’s Ag...
Nov 11, 2025•51 min
Today is election day and as our guest Alex Zakaras, the author of the brilliant new book Freedom for All: What a Liberal Society Could Be reminds us, there are opportunities to be seized. It’s so easy to be depressed but as some institutions fall, better ones have the opportunity to rise. As Professor Zakaras argues, the profound inequality in power, wealth, and status in our nation has fundamentally undermined the American social contract and we discuss what it would mean to extend the liberal...
Nov 04, 2025•53 min
Former Ambassador to Russia and author of the new book Autocrats vs. Democrats Michael McFaul reminds us that the autocratic world is united while the democratic world is not, and quite frankly, we have to get it together. We’re not allowed to just ignore what’s happening, or simply give up because it’s too hard. If we do that, the consequences will be even worse. We must find our allies, both at home and abroad, and work with them to defeat that which would defeat us. Fantastic insight in this ...
Oct 28, 2025•57 min
The No Kings rallies were incredibly successful, peaceful and mobilizing, but as our guest, Indivisible’s Ezra Levin, says: “If that’s all we do, it won’t be enough.” To fight this lawless regime Americans must continue to grow and diversify our tactics. This is not about one day of protest, but one of many efforts needed to stop government overreach. If you’re interested in next steps I encourage you to join the No Kings call Tuesday October 21st at NoKings.org or, if you’re listening to this l...
Oct 21, 2025•47 min
We are at a divided and isolated place in America, and watching the rising authoritarianism of the Trump administration, enabled by the Republican Congress, green lit by the bought and paid for Supreme Court is enough to make people feel powerless, but we are NOT powerless. We are living through a propaganda nightmare, but if the Freedom Frog in Portland has taught us anything it’s that those who seek to destroy America do not own the American spirt. You can lie about us, threaten us, try and sc...
Oct 14, 2025•52 min
Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump met with 800 of the military’s top brass last week and it was difficult to process how demoralizing it felt. If you’re like me, you didn’t recognize your country as our president talked about bringing US cities “under control” and painting anyone who didn’t agree with him as the “enemy from within”. There was a lot to be outraged about in that meeting, and plenty that felt terrifying, but the event was also just humiliating. For our country, for the brave men and wo...
Oct 07, 2025•55 min
Right now we are dealing with a government who have captured all levels of federal power, and are working overtime to keep up their long standing plan to divide us so we don’t unite to fight back. Trump wants America to conform to the America he has in his head, but he can’t do it alone, so he defers to people like Russel Vought and Steven Miller who want to burn it all down to rebuild the country in their own image. This is something we simply can’t allow, but to stop it we’re going to have to ...
Sep 30, 2025•56 min
There are two separate realities in America right now. One we saw at the Charlie Kirk memorial, where God has picked a side and if you’re not with them you’re not on it, and one rooted in reality. However, the reality one…it’s not winning. As always, if you find worth in what we do, please consider SUBSCRIBING to PoliticsGirl Premium. You’ll get this podcast ad free, along with a bunch of other perks, like the rants directly to your inbox and the knowledge that you’re making this kind of highly ...
Sep 23, 2025•52 min
The Democrats are annoying, but the entire party including the voters are being painted with a pretty broad brush right now. The DNC and national leadership might make me furious, but the Democratic Party is still the alternative to the Republican Party in this broken two party system. So if you’re pro-democracy, pro-rule of law, pro-constitution, and you’re watching the country fall apart right now, then we can’t pretend it doesn’t matter how the Democrats are doing. We have to be supporting th...
Sep 16, 2025•52 min
The Trump regime wants us feel powerless, like their take over is inevitable, but it’s not. Part of the struggle is simply not giving up. To stay engaged and keep your people informed as to what they’re doing to our health care, our education, our voting rights, our civil rights and then responding with action. That is what Sky Perryman and her team at Democracy Forward is doing to great success. In a recent article in the Atlantic titled “The Anti-Trump Resistance That is Actually Working” Demo...
Sep 09, 2025•40 min
It’s back to school, and while school shootings are a given, actual education is not. It’s September 2025 and the Department of Education is being systematically dismantled while the policy impacts of the Trump administration are only set to make things worse. From food insecurity for children who get fed at school, to school closures, to policy decisions that tell us what we can and cannot teach. Nothing is as it should be. As today’s guest, Dr. Lester is the author of the upcoming book From Dr...
Sep 02, 2025•54 min
While international relationships are essential in a changing, increasingly dangerous world, under the Trump Administration America is doing major damage to both our safety and security by eroding trust with our allies being mercurial and untrustworthy to them while being generous and cozy with our “enemies". Our president clearly sees the world as a zero sum game of how things serve him, and while that particular kind of selfishness might work in the business world, when the only goal is financ...
Aug 26, 2025•1 hr
Things are not right. I’m doing my pod from the road today because something wasn’t right. In my particular case it was my son’s appendix, but the wrongness of what’s going on isn’t limited to my immediate family. It’s all around us. We’re drowning in it. So, this pod is about what’s going on this week. What we should be paying attention to. How we know when things aren’t right, and just like we just did with my son, how we take the information we’re given and act if things need to change. Let m...
Aug 19, 2025•31 min
Don’t feel bad if you don’t know how the government works. It’s by design. Today we talk to the Host of PBS’s Civics Made Easy about the importance of offering Americans the kind of knowledge we should have but don’t, on a network that the government should fund, but won’t. Ben wants us to, “Get caught up together” and Trump wants us as stupid as possible. As always, if you find worth in what we do, please consider SUBSCRIBING to PoliticsGirl Premium. You’ll get this podcast ad free and it, and ...
Aug 12, 2025•54 min
Things are getting so bad in America that many people are checking out, but we can’t keep pretending things are normal when we know they aren’t. We must collectively wake up to what’s happening, to how we got here, to the ugly and the scary that we’ve allowed to flourish to find the courage to stand against it. That while hope is important, we must also acknowledge change is not coming if we don’t stand up and work for it. People are not being rewarded for standing on the right side of history r...
Aug 05, 2025•1 hr 2 min
We can’t afford pediatric cancer research, healthcare for seniors, or testing to make sure our water is clean, but we have $200 billion dollars to spend on masked, secret police to terrorize us on our streets? Really? This isn’t about safety, it’s about control, and it should deeply concern anyone who believes in human rights, due process and American freedom. Not to mention anyone who cares about the budget. Join me and award winning historian and journalist, Garrett Graff, as we discuss why cr...
Jul 29, 2025•54 min
This year Supreme Court issued decisions on birthright citizenship, nationwide injunctions, religious freedom, transgender rights, gender affirming care, gun violence, and the executive branch’s apparent authority to do whatever it damn well pleases. These justices act like they’re all powerful but are they. Join me and Supreme Court expert Dahlia Lithwick as we discuss what comes next for court and country. As always, if you find worth in what we do, please consider SUBSCRIBING to PoliticsGirl ...
Jul 22, 2025•1 hr 4 min
America’s health is in danger. We’re not testing our food, water and drugs like we should. We’re limiting access to vaccines. We aren’t testing for covid or bird flu or any other communicable illness going around, and the people in charge of our health from the Administrator of the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid to the Surgeon General are on a spectrum from quack science to anti science. On top of it all we have the MAHA movement on the rise with the power and financial grift of non-doctor, no...
Jul 15, 2025•56 min
Historian and author, Rutger Bregman believes there’s an antidote to the sense of emptiness that so many people feel, and it’s the will to make the world a better place. To devote your career to the greater challenges of our time rather than just making money. That the time has come for a moral reawakening. That moral ambition not just financial ambition is what we need if we want to fix the world and actually like our place in it. As always, if you find worth in what we do, please consider SUBS...
Jul 08, 2025•52 min
The foundations of our democracy are being torn apart and organizations like the ACLU are showing up every day to hold us together. As their president Deborah Archer says, this might be the work the ACLU was built for but we know they can’t be left to fight alone. We have been divided on purpose, but the time has come to come together. We can’t just have justice by geography, or gender, or sexual orientation. We, the people means everyone. Everyone deserves due process and civil rights. Everyone...
Jul 01, 2025•55 min
