Start Making Sense Clips

Kate Aronoff and Michael Kazin talk about socialism in America today—they are co-editors with Peter Drier of the new book We Own the Future , which includes chapters on sports, banks, work, health care, campaign finance, immigration, and families.     Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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: poor people themselves.  She’s a Senior Fellow of the Economic Security Project, and her TED talk “The Story We Tell About Poverty Isn’t True” has been viewed almost two million times.  Now she has a new 4-part podcast at The Nation – it’s called “ M...

Joe McCarthy as a predecessor of Donald Trump: the connections and similarities (“McCarthy was willing to assert things that he knew weren’t true, and did it with aplomb”) are traced by Jelani Cobb of The New Yorker and the Columbia University faculty.  He’s a contributor to the new McCarthy episode of the PBS series “American Experience.” Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privac...

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 her ancestors, who died in Maryland in 1811, was a slaveowner, and that in his will he acknowledged fathering four slave children.  Gates, the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at...

Naomi Klein says that, to create a Green New Deal, we need to follow the example of the New Deal era of the 1930s,  when nothing would have happened without “massive pressure from social movements”  that “changed the calculus of what was possible.”   Naomi is the author of several number one bestsellers,  including “This Changes Everything.” Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Priv...

This week India is on fire--with massive protests, and massive repression, of Muslim students saying “no” to the government’s move toward making India a Hindu nation – the great Indian novelist and activist Arundhati Roy explains.   Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The end of the year brings The Nation’s progressive honor roll for 2019 - honoring those who’ve done the steady work of advancing economic, social and racial justice.  John Nichols names the elected officials and also activists, organizations, and ideas that are shaping our future--including Ayanna Presley and the Sunrise Movement. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-...

What happens to pregnant women when anti-abortion state legislatures grant legal personhood to fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses?  What happens when pregnant women’s behavior is criminalized?  Katha Pollitt reports. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Brett Kavanaugh was not on the list of candidates for the Supreme Court that Trump released during the campaign – how did Kavanaugh end up ahead of everybody else?  Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post has that story --her new book is “Supreme Ambition: Brett Kavanaugh and the Conservative Takeover.”  Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privac...

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 Bryce Covert has been examining strikes in America over the last couple of years.  More workers went on strike last year than at any time since 1986 – more than 20 years ago.  They include public sector workers, like teachers and nurses, and corporate employees, like auto and hotel workers – and even low-paid, part-time and temporary people who don’t have unions—like fast food workers and Uber dr...

Martin Scorcese’s new film “The Irishman” opens on Netflix this week; it claims to tell the true story of the murder of Jimmy Hoffa, the head of the Teamsters Union, who disappeared in 1974.  But nobody who’s studied that history thinks the movie is right about what happened to Hoffa.  Does that fact change our judgement about the film?  John Powers comments; he’s critic at large for Fresh Air wit...

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, rounding up and trying to deport radical immigrants—and when one heroic Labor Department official blocked thousands of deportations. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands...

Historian Eric Foner talks about the New York Times’s “1619 Project,” which argues that the legacy of slavery is central to all of the American past and present—including the White House today. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Rick Perlstein says the Nixon impeachment committees limited the charges against the president in order to win a Republican majority in the Senate; since that’s not going to happen with Trump, the Democrats might as well include all his high crimes in their articles of impeachment. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week the Supreme Court heard arguments about the fate of DACA residents--whether those young people brought here as small children should be deported.  But why should that be decided by the nine justices on the Supreme Court?  In a democracy, shouldn’t that be decided democratically?  That’s Thom Hartmann’s argument--not just about DACA, but about all of judicial review.  His new book is The...

Why Joe Biden is the wrong candidate to take on Donald Trump: D.D. Guttenplan, The Nation ’s editor, explains why the magazine has published an “anti-endorsement.” Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

One of our favorite writers, John le Carré, has a new book out: Agent Running in the Field-- they're calling it his "Brexit book."  It’s number five on the best seller list.  He’s now 88 years old, he’s written twenty-six books, which have been published in over 50 countries and 40 languages.  The books are about loyalty and betrayal, and many are about the ambiguities of the Cold War....

More young people have favorable views of socialism than they do of capitalism these days--but what IS socialism'?  Paul Adler explains; his new book is The 99 Percent Economy: How Democratic Socialism Can Overcome the Crises of Capitalism . Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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?  Elie Mystal runs the numbers--those up for reelection, and those who might have a conscience--and concludes, “maybe—if we the people work really hard.”   Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Haiti is at the brink of collapse—Amy Wilentz reports on the fruits of "pure capitalism" in one of Trump’s “shithole countries.” Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Ilhan Omar has endorsed Bernie for president – how does she deal with Trump’s vicious attacks?  David Perry has spent the last few months with her in her Minneapolis district—he says he’s never seen a politician talk as little about themselves as she does in her town halls. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Pico Iyer has lived in Japan part-time for the last 30 years – he says it’s hard to imagine how different that country is from our own.  His new book is “A Beginner’s Guide to Japan.”  Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 something else: a conservative black nationalist.  His new book is The Enigma of Clarence Thomas. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Despite the fact that more than 75% of Americans favor Roe v. Wade, abortion rights face increasing jeopardy at the Supreme Court, and the right finally succeed at defunding Planned Parenthood.  But there’s one immensely promising factor at work: abortion drugs, especially misoprostol, which is easily obtained on the Internet, despite the FDA’s attempts to prevent online pharmacies from selling th...