Last season, I explored some basic principles on how American foreign policy gets made and applied those principles to interpreting America's relations with Iran. Since that episode aired, relations with Iran escalated sharply after a drone strike killed General Qasem Soleimani one of the highest ranking military leaders in Iran. In many respects it was a precedent setting move by the Trump administration, but it was a precedent built on a series of precedents stretching back at least as far as ...
Jan 30, 2020•29 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Happy 2020! It's going to be a busy and full year in American politics, which should provide plenty to talk about. However, this podcast is not beholden to the news cycle with its daily dramas of political personalities. Rather, this year I plan to take this podcast on a deep dive into American foreign policy, the Constitution, and American presidential elections. Yes, I'll refer to the news and current goings on, but the goal of this podcast is to help you become a more thoughtful and critical ...
Jan 16, 2020•12 min•Season 2Ep. 1
One of the things TTP works to do is to promote a deeper, richer conversation about politics and citizenship, and I think a big part of that is taking the political conversation out of the recognized grooves of political news and discourse to hear how everyday people engage in the American experiment in self-government. So, I'm excited to introduce you to Anastasia Halcomb who has launched an independent bid for the presidency. In this first interview on the Tim Talks Politics podcast, Anastasia...
Oct 31, 2019•35 min•Season 1Ep. 11
I introduce this week's topic of America in the Middle East by hewing a little more closely to the news cycle than usual in the podcast, and that's because the last couple of weeks have seen some pretty incredible developments in the Trump administrations approach to the MENA region. Of greatest focus in the US, is Turkey's invasion of northern Syria and the withdrawal of American forces in the contested space, opening up Kurdish fighters to Turkish aggression and causing a general realignment n...
Oct 17, 2019•25 min•Season 1Ep. 10
The last couple of episodes have focused on some of the big theories that shape our view of international politics. In addition to providing you with summaries of no less that 5 theoretical frames useful to interpreting foreign relations, specifically American foreign relations, I left off last time with applying rational actor theory to President Trump and his approach to foreign policy. In this episode, I’m going to continue on that line of thought but will be expanding the cast of characters ...
Oct 03, 2019•23 min•Season 1Ep. 9
I’m going to spend the next two episodes broadening the discussion on IR theories I introduced last episode – realism, liberalism, constructivism – by first introducing an additional theory this week: Rational Actor Theory. Next week, we’ll look at a particular story in the news and consider how these different theories inform our understanding of it. For both of these episodes, I’ll use President Trump and his foreign policy forays as a case study, which brings me to today’s main question: Is P...
Sep 19, 2019•16 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Today, I’m shifting the discussion to the world beyond America’s shores. That’s right, we’re talking about international relations and foreign policy. In my intro, I say that this podcast is about “government, citizenship, and America’s place in the world.” The first six episodes have largely focused on that “government citizenship” part and since we’re still in the early going/introductory phase of this podcast, I wanted to be sure to introduce this particular topic and provide you with some br...
Sep 12, 2019•50 min•Season 1Ep. 7
For all its stirring words affirming the powerful potential of the individual, the DOI recognizes that building a nation requires a unified, collective effort of free and equal individuals. But how do we hold free and equal individuals together? With the ancient practice of swearing an oath on something the individuals value, in this case, "their lives, fortunes and sacred honor." It’s more than soaring rhetoric at work here. It’s a concrete step of faith. Jefferson has framed an oath around the...
Sep 05, 2019•18 min•Season 1Ep. 6
Not going to lie, this is a very hard segment to research without pretty much paraphrasing or copying what others have said. So before we get started, let me read off a great resource to understand the list of abuses/facts that Jefferson is submitting to a “candid world” to justify America’s DOI. The National Humanities Center put together a fantastic annotated DOI . Get it, read it, use it in the classroom. It clarifies the context of the DOI quite a bit. I’ll be relying on this document a lot ...
Aug 29, 2019•23 min•Season 1Ep. 5
When it comes to political discussions we should be like Hawkeye and Black Widow facing off in Captain America: Civil War - it’d be good to ask one another, “We’re still friends, right?” We’re still playing on the same team with the same rule book, right? If so, then we can do some productive civic discourse. If not, then we need to work on identifying just what we believe and agree on as a political community, locally and nationally. There's no better place to start than by reading through the ...
Aug 22, 2019•29 min•Season 1Ep. 4
We defined politics in the previous episode as being a series of negotiated relationships. Critical to those relationships is information, which is why an independent and diverse media is so crucial to the health of democratic system. However, the Internet has broken down a lot of barriers and filters, and now we’re all members of the media. So we need to discuss how we, as citizens, engage in information and how that informs our politics. One of the big stories of the 2016 election was the role...
Aug 15, 2019•30 min•Season 1Ep. 3
In this episode, Tim briefly explores the differences between politics and government. Though the two terms are VERY closely related, there are some interesting distinctions. Where it gets really interesting, though, is when we consider how government structures enable and limit certain political processes, and how those processes adapt and respond. Crucial to effective citizenship is an understanding of one's role as an individual citizen within the community and awareness of ones relationship ...
Aug 08, 2019•25 min•Season 1Ep. 2
In this inaugural episode of the Tim Talks Politics podcast, I (Tim) outline the whys and wherefores driving this project. You might be wondering, "Why would someone start another political podcast?" I agree, there's a glut, and it's all starting to sound the same - talking head commentary held hostage by a 24-hour news cycle. So I want to recalibrate and rethink a podcast about politics. This one is focused on learning about our political world, how and why it works the way it does. It's an exp...
Aug 01, 2019•13 min•Season 1Ep. 1
