The Andrea Mitchell Center Podcast

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN . Ever since Marx himself, Marxists have anticipated the day of capitalism's comeuppance, when its crisis-inducing shortcomings would be laid squarely at its door and people would reject it for a system with more humane tradeoffs. Political economist and social theorist MARTIJN KONINGS cautions that that day has not yet arrived. Even "neoliberalism" – a general rub...

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN . For many on the Left, elections have come to represent a minimal baseline for political engagement – and not a route in themselves for personal or social transformation. In his work, democratic theorist KEVIN DUONG looks back to a time when this was not the case, when the movement for universal suffrage envisioned itself as giving voice to "the people" in a way t...

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. It has long been argued, in support of the case that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, that the Kennedy administration was not threatening enough to powered interests to trigger such a drastic act. In his books, Brothers and The Devil's Chessboard , longtime journalist and Salon founder DAVID TALBOT argues, to the contrary, that Ke...

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. In 2021, Wharton professor ERIC ORTS took a leave of absence to run as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. He was driven in part by his desire to reform the Senate itself, as he discussed in episode 2.3 of our podcast. The more urgent motivation, however, was his assessment of climate change as a global emergency requiring national mobilization...

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN.   For two years, LORETTA LYNCH held one of the most powerful and most complicated jobs in the United State government. As Attorney General under Barack Obama, she managed an agency that comprises a network of U.S. Attorneys, the FBI, The Federal Bureau of Prisons, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and...

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN.   In her new book, A Right to Lie? Presidents, Other Liars, and the First Amendment , constitutional scholar CATHERINE J. ROSS examines the tension between the First Amendment's protections for free speech and the need to combat the spread of lies that endanger democracy. Verifiable factual falsehoods are rife throughout the public square today, but former President D...

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. There are some countries which, by dint of geography or incompatible national interests, seem destined for perpetual conflict and antagonism. This is not true, however, in the case of Iran and the United States, insists Iranian-American journalist and historian JOHN GHAZVINIAN . His book, America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present , outlines the series of bad ch...

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN . As citizens and politicians in many countries argue passionately about how – or whether – national borders should be secured, they often share a similar set of assumptions: that borders are sharp boundaries enclosing distinct political communities, and that the choice of whether they are open or closed is largely binary. PAULINA OCHOA ESPEJO , author of the recen...

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN . Recent movements to reform society and address interpersonal behavior have placed eliminating violence at their center. As political theorist MATT SHAFER points out, however, the concept of "violence" has never had a stable meaning. In his discussion with Rafael Khachaturian, he describes how it has increasingly been torn between the competing poles of the social...

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN . As envisioned by philosopher OLÚFẸ́MI O. TÁÍWÒ , a coming age of climate apartheid will create a new kind of social division within countries and communities between those who can pay to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and those who cannot. On the global scale, climate colonialism will likewise exclude local populations from control over resources as those...

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN. The approach to free speech embodied by the First Amendment of the American Constitution is often considered, by Americans at least, to be a model for the rest of the world. Historian FARA DABHOIWALA argues that it is actually an outlier best ignored by other countries. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Dabhoiwala locates what he calls the "p...

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN . In an era when "free speech on campus" has become a slogan weaponized by conservative groups, historian JOAN WALLACH SCOTT insists on treating academic freedom not as an individual right of untrammeled speech, but as a collective right to carry out the work of universities: teaching, researching, and learning. In her discussion with political theorist Rafael Khac...

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN . It is widely known that social media increases political polarization among its users, creating an environment in which mis- and disinformation can spread easily. JAIME SETTLE , author of Frenemies: How Social Media Polarizes America , argues that what is not so well understood is exactly how social media drives polarization. In her discussion with political scientis...

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN . The concept of hurt sentiments first became ensconced in the Indian legal code almost two-hundred years ago, under the influence of the British government official T.B. Macauley. As historian NEETI NAIR explores in a book progress currently in progress, the concept has expanded its reach in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh in recent years to allow for extra-judicial f...

Interviewer: KATIE RADER . For decades, University of Pennsylvania student activists have demanded that Penn pay PILOTs (Payments in Lieu of Taxes) to help fund Philadelphia public schools. The movement intensified in 2020, with over 1,100 faculty and staff joining a pro-PILOTs petition. Among them was Social Policy and Practice Professor DENNIS CULHANE , who in September joined a panel discussion...

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN . As an African-American Republican, political commentator TARA SETMAYER had long embraced the compassionate conservativism and optimistic individualism of the Jack Kemp wing of the party, along with a broader commitment to fiscal responsibility and small government. A senior advisor to the Lincoln Project, she has now formally left the Republican Party out of the sens...

Interviewer: RAFAEL KHACHATURIAN . Conceptual artist and political activist NADYA TOLOKONNIKOVA is a founding member of the art collective Pussy Riot, which since 2011 has focused attention on feminism, LGBT rights and human rights violations at home and abroad. In August 2012, she was sentenced to 2 years' imprisonment following an anti-Putin performance by Pussy Riot in Moscow's Cathedral of Chr...

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN . Growing up within the white nationalist movement as the son of one its leaders, Don Black, and the godson of its most famous political figure, David Duke, DEREK BLACK was a true believer – until he wasn't. He very publicly renounced his beliefs in an open letter to the Southern Poverty Law Center. In his discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, Black draw...

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN . As the political climate and the prevalence of social media have combined to raise the incidents and visibility of hateful speech, there have been growing calls to enact bans on such expression. NADINE STROSSEN , author of the new book, HATE: Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship , argues against such policies as counterproductive and ultimately ha...

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN . Nationalist populist movements, fueled by resentment against ruling elites, typically attack the norms and procedures of liberal democracy, viewing them as rigged, corrupted, or under the control of nefarious minorities. In his new book, That Is Not Who We Are! , distinguished political scientist ROGERS SMITH cautions that followers of these movements should not be d...

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN . As the Democratic Party seeks to regain the Presidency and retain the House of Representatives in November, it well recognizes that the chief stumbling block to consolidating government control is the U.S. Senate. Wharton Guardsmark Professor ERIC ORTS argues that this short-term predicament is due, in no small part, to the many ways that the Senate was designed from...

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN . Amid our current partisan rancor, Retired Army General WESLEY CLARK has chosen to focus instead on the common ground among Americans that could provide the basis for productive policymaking. The founder of Renew America Together, Clark has sought out leaders from both parties, including former governors Tom Ridge (R-PA) and Jennifer Granholm (D-MI), to help make the...

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN . In her discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, documentarian IVY MEEROPOL describes the stories she was obliged to cut from her 2019 HBO film, Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn , for lack of definitive proof. This included a quickly buried investigation in the 1980s into Cohn's involvement in the Jeffrey-Epstein style trafficking of minors. Me...

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN . Bernie Sanders has twice failed to win the nomination for President, but in the process has transformed the policies and politics of the Democratic party. WINNIE WONG , a founding organizer of Occupy Wall Street, a co-founder of People for Bernie 2016, and a senior adviser to the Sanders 2020 campaign, urges that these transformations should be pushed further, even a...

Interviewer: MATTHEW BERKMAN . American Jewish philanthropy has long been celebrated for its virtues, extending from the local to the global, the Jewish to the non-Jewish, and modest donations to vast endowments. In her book, The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex , and in her discussion with political scientist Matthew Berkman, LILA CORWIN BERMAN argues that the history of American Jewish phil...