Start Making Sense with Jon Wiener

Understanding our power: “If you’re always consumed by the next outrage, you can’t look closely at the last one.” (Ezra Klein) Last week, Trump tried to stop payment of all federal grants and assistance. But people rose up in protest, and within a day Trump rescinded the entire effort. How did we do it? What does that tell us about him--and about our power? Rebecca Solnit comments – her new blog i...

Our attention is limited. That makes it valuable, Chis Hayes says– not just to us, but to those who’d like to exploit it. Chris’s new book is  The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource;  before he became host of “All in with Chris Hayes” on MSNBC, he was The Nation’s Washington Correspondent. Also: Your Minnesota Moment: officials in sanctuary cities and count...

How Trump ‘won’: In 2024, 244 million Americans were eligible to vote. 31.5% voted for Trump, 30.6 % voted for Harris, 38% did not vote. Trump won the same share of the eligible voters as he did four years ago (32%), But Harris’s share of eligible voters fell by 3.5 points compared to Biden. Why did 7 million Democratic voters stay home? Harold Meyerson has our analysis—he’s editor-at-large of The...

As we prepare for Trump to take office next week, we're getting ready to challenge him and his people in the upcoming elections later this year. But before that, we have an important election in the next few weeks: the Democratic National Committee will elect a new chair on February 1 to prepare for the battles and the campaigns to come. For our analysis we turn to John Nichols. Also: Trump pr...

On this episode of Start Making Sense : Trump’s ‘dictatorship on day one’ will feature executive orders to deport undocumented residents. Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law & Policy at UCLA Law School, will explain the legal strategy to be deployed by the sanctuary states and cities, Also: Not everything is about Donald Trump. The Geneva Freeport, for example –...

The endlessly elusive Bob Dylan seems an unlikely candidate for a Hollywood biopic. John Powers, Critic-at-Large on NPR’s “Fresh Air,” talks about how the new movie “A Complete Unknown” captures a defining moment in his career -- and in American culture . Also: Our holiday reading guide: Dozens of books about Trump were published at the end of his first term, some selling millions of copies. Now t...

Hotel and restaurant workers in Los Angeles won a $30 minimum wage last week, Disneyland workers are getting $233 million in back pay, and Wisconsin public employees regained collective bargaining rights. Harold Meyerson reports on some victories in the class struggle in America. Also: a special feature: novelist Rachel Kushner reports on the world of Nostalgia Drag Racing, where people make machi...

Kamala Harris lost not because Democratic voters switched to Trump, Steve Phillips shows, but because of a massive failure of the Democrats to turn out their base.  Also: In a new episode of “The Children’s Hour,” Amy Wilentz reports on “Lives of the In-Laws” – Ivanka’s and Tiffany’s – and comments also on the rise of Eric’s wife Lara, and about the latest schemes of Ivanka’s husband Jared Kushner...

“Our worst enemy right now is not Trump himself, but fatalism about our ability to stop him.” That’s what David Cole says – he recently stepped down as National Legal Director of the ACLU, after 8 years and hundreds of lawsuits against the first Trump administration. Also: Project 2025,the Heritage Foundation’s famous 900 page book, is partly “"too dumb to accomplish anything at all”--that’s w...

Matt Gaetz dropping out as Attorney General nominee was a major setback for Trump, which exposes his vulnerabilities and weaknesses. Harold Meyerson reports on the divide in the Senate, and then between the MAGA movement and Republicans on Wall Street and in the corporations. Also on this episode of  Start Making Sense : Trump’s plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants is terrible, but t...

A lot of people who voted for abortion rights referenda this year also voted for Trump. What were they thinking? How do they understand politics? Amy Littlefield spent election day in Amarillo, Texas, trying to find out. Also: John Lewis, who died in 2020, challenged injustice from the sit-ins of 1960 to the Age of Trump. Historian David Greenberg talks about what we can learn from his example. Gr...

Hope does not mean saying ‘this is not bad,’ Rebecca Solnit argues; it just means we will not give up—because we know that what we do matters, and we also know we’ve been surprised by good things we never expected. Also: The bromance between Elon Musk and Donald Trump cannot last – historian David Nasaw will explain why. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https:...

John Nichols looks at the elections results: how we got here, and what we do next. For starters: Trump got fewer votes than 4 years ago; 55% of voters in the CNN exit poll said he was "too extreme." Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

New research suggests what messages win working class votes in Pennsylvania – strong economic populism, and not Trump’s threat to democracy. Bhaskar Sunkara,  the Nation’s  president, is on the podcast to discuss. Also: The ACLU has been preparing for election day threats to voting and vote counting for years. Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU’s voting rights project, explains. Advertising In...

Latino and Black voters in swing states, we are told by the New York Times, are “drifting away from the Democrats.” But how good is the evidence here? Steve Phillips has our analysis. Also: Melania has published a memoir: “Melania,” where she revisits plagiarizing Michelle Obama for her 2016 RNC convention speech, and wearing that jacket that said “I don’t care, do U?” when she visited INS detenti...

One in six voters, pollsters say, are “still unsure of their choice.” What do people mean when they say they are “undecided”? Rick Perlstein says political writers have failed to understand the undecideds—and what Kamala might do to win their votes. Also: Pennsylvania is the state where this year’s election may well be decided—and where nearly two-thirds of voters don’t have college degrees. Eyal...

The polls have had disastrous failures for decades, but people continue to focus on them; Rick Perlstein has a better idea: ‘don’t follow polls—organize.’ Also: Democrat Marie Gleusenkamp Perez won a House seat in a Trump district, pointing the way for others. Marc Cooper analyzes her current reelection campaign in southwestern Washington State, starting from the fact that she’s a working class wo...

John Nichols has been driving to places in middle America where Trump has gotten big majorities in the past: Iowa and Nebraska, central and Western Illinois, and southwestern Wisconsin, asking Democrats there about politics in their towns right now. Also: Kamala’s campaign is challenging the Republican conception of “freedom” as freedom from government regulation, advancing instead a positive conc...

Trump has cancelled his plans to visit Springfield, Ohio, but his lie about Haitian immigrants there eating cats and dogs continues to riccochet around the American political world. Amy Wilentz comments. Plus: The presidential election is the main political battle in America today, but Trump’s followers have also been fighting, for years, to take over towns across the country. Sasha Abramsky repor...

Trump has made it clear he won't accept the results of the 2024 election if he loses, and Republicans are doing everything they can make it harder for Democrats to vote. But it will be harder for Trump to challenge this year's election, because of changes in the law--that's what Rick Hasen says. He's professor of law at UCLA, and his writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal,...

Tuesday night’s debate showed what Kamala can do – and what Trump can’t. John Nichols has our analysis. Also: homeless vets have been trying for years to get the VA to build housing for them in LA on land dedicated to that purpose. Now, a federal judge has finally ruled: the vets win, and the VA loses. Mark Rosenbaum, lead attorney in the vets’ class action suit, explain. Advertising Inquiries: ht...

Donald Trump announced Friday that he would be voting against a abortion rights ballot measure in his home state of Florida. Amy Littlefield reports on the crucial battle in the state that had been the South’s last refuge for abortion access. Plus: Rachel Kushner talks about the informant and provacateur who infiltrates an anarchist eco-commune in rural France – the central character in her new no...

We’ve had a series of surprises in the last several weeks, but none have been more surprising than Kamala emerging as a great candidate. Harold Meyerson explains: it’s not so much that she has changed, it’s that the Democratic Party has changed. Also: Democracy in America is being undermined by the Electoral College, the Senate filibuster, the gerrymandering of the House, and the corruption of the...

As the Democrats meet to celebrate Kamala, Trump seems disoriented and unsure what to do next. Nevertheless he’s holding on to 44% of the electorate. How come? Marc Cooper has our analysis. Also: Kamala may be rising in the polls, but the Number One nonfiction bestseller in America is still “Hillbilly Elegy” by J.D. Vance. Luckily for us, Becca Rothfeld has read it, so we don’t have to. She’s nonf...

What is happening with the Trump campaign? He seems to be losing his grip, while Kamala gets big crowds and dominates the news. Harold Meyerson comments. Also: Sherrod Brown is up for reelection to the Senate in Ohio, where Biden got only 45% four years ago. He explains is political philosophy, which has enabled him to win reelection twice before. (originally broadcast in 2020). Advertising Inquir...