Start Making Sense Clips

Katrina vanden Heuvel talks about solidarity with the front-line workers fighting the virus—starting in New York, where people cheer hospital workers coming off their shifts at 7pm every night.  But it's not just cheering--there's also a wave of action, in New York and across the country.   Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 interview when Nickel and Dimed was published, in 2002. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Nation columnist Laila Lalami talk about her novel “The Other Americans”--it’s about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant in a small town in California.  It’s a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story. And it’s out now in paperback. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Jared Kusher has a new job on the White House coronavirus task force. His vast responsibilities include weighing requests from governors for aid and coordinating with private companies to obtain medical equipment.  Meanwhile Ivanka is at home, reading “The Odyssey” and playing the guitar.  Amy Wilentz comments – she’s our Chief Jared Correspondent. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/bran...

Rebecca Solnit talks about how she became a feminist, and a writer—in San Francisco in the eighties, “the queerest city in the world.”  She's the author, of course, of Men Explain Things to Me.  Her new book, a memoir of sorts, is Recollections of My Nonexistence. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 at Cal State LA. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Katha Pollitt has some recommendations about what to watch, and read, during those days at home: starting with the classics.  Katha of course is a poet, essayist, and award-winning columnist for The Nation. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Jared Kushner has been working—in unusual ways—on what to do about the Coronavirus. And there's virus news also news about Ivanka and Don Junior. Amy Wilentz, our Chief Jared Correspondent, reports. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

 Republican senator are saying paid sick leave for people with the coronavirus will “make workers lazy”—that’s what Ron Johnson says, he represents Wisconsin, and we’ll talk about that with our man in Madison, John Nichols. John also examines everything that went wrong with Tuesday’s elections, and talks about what we must do to ensure there’s no postponement of the November election. Advertising...

Steve Phillips talks about Big Data and what is says about how the Democrats can beat Trump in November. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Best-selling author Adam Hochschild tells the story of early-2th-century radical Rose Pastor Stokes in his new book "Rebel Cinderella." Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Joan Walsh analyzes what happened on Super Tuesday--and what Bernie needs to do now. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Nation has endorsed Bernie Sanders and his movement.  Editor D.D. Guttenplan explains why. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Cold War was fought in many ways: it was a traditional political and military confrontation, but it was also a cultural contest on a global scale – and one of the most important arenas in the cultural contest was sports. Historian Robert Edelman explains: he’s co-editor of the new book The Whole World Was Watching: Sport in the Cold War . Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Pri...

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 pudits are full of convictions and arguments.  Today we depart from that rule and talk to Rick Perlstein – he’s got some doubts of his own about Bernie, while he acknowledges all that Bernie has achieved. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/b...

Bernie has already won the ideas primary in the Democratic Party. That’s what Bob Borosage  argues —he sets the agenda for the race and the other candidates define themselves in relations to his positions. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

John Sayles has directed two dozen films, including Matewan and Lone Star . Here he talks about his new novel, Yellow Earth —it’s about what happens when shale oil is discovered underneath an Indian reservation in the North Dakota badlands—and outsiders descend. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It time for another episode of The Children’s Hour: stories about Ivanka, Jared, Don Junior, and little Eric.  Today: Don Junior writes a best-seller!  Just like his father, his mother, and his sister: a family of literati.  Amy Wilentz reports. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 Pipeline. She’s chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, and her new book is Harvest the Vote.   Advertising In...

Sunday is the Oscars–Hollywood’s own elections-- and the nominees for best director are all men.  is that because there are no good women directors?  John Powers thinks there are some other explanations--as he reviews the results of the BBC poll of the 100 best films directed by women.  John is Critic at Large for Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Priv...

There is the incompetence that led to the election meltdown in the Iowa caucuses; and there are many other ways elections can go wrong.  For example, we could have a cyberattack on the power grid on election day that could cause blackouts in big cities the Democrats need to win.  Rick Hasen explains that and other potential threats—his new book is “Election Meltdown: Dirty Tricks, Distrust, and th...

Plus: This Sunday is the Superbowl, the biggest sports event in America--a hundred million people watch the Superbowl these days. The Superbowl—and all of football—is sort of like Donald Trump: both of them provide mass entertainment that promotes tribalism and toxic masculinity while keeping violence in vogue.  Legendary sports writer Robert Lipsyte explains. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcir...

The Border Patrol, it turns out, has a youth group – ‘Border Patrol Explorers,’ an extension of the Boy Scouts.  Morley Musick went to the Arizona border to find out who signs up and what they do once they’re in the organization. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Historian Andrew Bacevitch argues that America has squandered its Cold War victory-- by embracing the promise of globalization as a source of unprecedented wealth while embarking on wide-ranging military campaigns to suppress disorder and enforce American values abroad.  Trump has been a bit-player in all of this, a consequence more than a cause of American decline.  Bacevich's new book is The...

Climate change –as seen from the perspective of the Pentagon: Trump may deny that the world is getting warmer, fast, but the Pentagon has been preparing for that for several years now—and is making disaster relief part of its mission.  Michael Klare reports—his new book is All Hell Breaking Loose . Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy