The Context

We can’t have a full democracy without financial justice. Host Alex Lovit speaks with Arlo Washington, a banker creating access to loans, credit, and financial literacy training for his underbanked community in Little Rock, Arkansas. Arlo Washington is a barber, entrepreneur, and the founder and president of People Trust Community Federal Credit Union, a Community Development Financial Institution...

Americans are constantly arguing about politics—on the internet and at the family dinner table. But we rarely change one another’s minds, and we often emerge from those disagreements feeling frustrated and distrustful. Host Alex Lovit is joined by research psychologist Keith Payne to discuss the science behind the political divide and how the psychology of political disagreements can help us have...

Voting rights are the foundation of democratic governance. But recent changes in elections policies have disenfranchised millions of Americans, and the voting gap between White and minority voters is continuing to expand. Host Alex Lovit is joined by Sean Morales-Doyle. Morales-Doyle is the director of the Voting Rights and Elections Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. https://www.brennance...

Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed joins host Alex Lovit to discuss Juneteenth’s history and the transformative potential of reckoning with our country’s complex past. Annette Gordon-Reed is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard, where she teaches both history and law. She’s the author of The Hemingses of...

Who should make decisions about what kinds of health care American minors can receive: their parents and doctors, or their state governments? A growing number of states are claiming the right to ban gender-affirming health care for minors—but only if the person being treated is transgender. This month, the Supreme Court will decide if those power grabs are constitutional. Host Alex Lovit is joined...

Pro-democracy progressives are their own worst enemy when it comes to recruiting conservative Americans to their cause. In part two of our conversation, political strategist Sarah Longwell offers suggestions for how to connect with anti-Trump conservatives. Her ideas draw on what she hears from voters in her frequent focus groups, as well as on her experience as a gay conservative fighting for inc...

How did one of our major political parties abandon its principles? And what do voters make of that shift? Host Alex Lovit is joined by Sarah Longwell—a political strategist who broke from the Republican party when it acquiesced to Trump’s authoritarian tendencies. She went on to cofound a media outlet (The Bulwark) and an advocacy organization (Defending Democracy Together) to advance pro-conserva...

Public schools are essential for democracy—and they’re under attack. But the very policies that are being championed as their salvation may have a catastrophic impact on American education for generations. Public education advocate and historian Diane Ravitch unpacks how school choice policies like vouchers and charter schools are dangerous for democracy. Diane Ravitch is a former assistant secret...

US institutions are being pressured into compliance with the Trump administration’s capricious demands. Many law firms, philanthropic organizations, and higher education institutions are choosing the path of least resistance. But will it keep them safe? Sharon L. Davies is the president and chief executive officer of the Charles F. Kettering Foundation. Davies’ career experiences span both academi...

Life under an authoritarian regime can erode one’s faith in humanity. Today's guest says that’s why it’s more important than ever for Americans to lean into building human connection. Ece Temelkuran is a Turkish political thinker, writer, and award-winning journalist. Her two most recent books are How to Lose a Country: Seven Steps from Democracy to Fascism and Together: Ten Choices for a Better N...

A former member of the Hungarian Parliament tells us what interventions Americans need to take right now to avoid the authoritarian backsliding that has dismantled democracy in Hungary since Prime Minister Viktor Orbán came to power in 2010. Gábor Scheiring served in the Hungarian Parliament from 2010–2014. He is an assistant professor of comparative politics at Georgetown University, Qatar, and a...

Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign promised “the largest deportation operation in American history.” Will he be able to achieve this goal? What would this kind of mass deportation look like, and what would its human costs be? And what is the current “largest deportation operation in American history,” anyway? We get answers from Adam Goodman. Goodman is an associate professor in the Department of Latin...

The Constitution is under attack—and not just by Trump and the executive branch. For a long time, the conservative justices on the Supreme Court have been inconsistently interpreting the Constitution. But our guest, Madiba Dennie, says focusing on their decision-making processes is a trap. She says there’s a better way for concerned citizens to take action against the backsliding of social progres...

The United States is the wealthiest nation in the world, but millions of its citizens live in poverty. What prevents poor, low-wage, and low-wealth Americans from using democratic government to fight for a fairer distribution of resources? And how can they overcome the structures set against them? The answer is counterintuitive, but it's worked on other social issues in the past.  Rev. Dr. William...

Why do so many Americans think tax breaks for the uber-wealthy will help the average person? According to Jeffrey Winters, the answer is simple: oligarchy. Today Winters breaks down how massive wealth distorts politics, and what can be done to combat it. Winters is professor of political science and director of the Equality Development and Globalization Studies (EDGS) program at Northwestern Unive...

The separation of church and state is a foundational principle of American democracy, but that doesn’t mean that religion hasn’t played an important role in American politics. Throughout American history, varied political movements have claimed religious motivations and scriptural justifications, sometimes in contradictory ways (e.g. both to support and oppose systems of racial hierarchy). Today,...

This special episode of The Context includes voices from three previous guests on the show: James Comey, Stacey Abrams, and David Pepper. All three have had significant careers in public service, and all three have also written multiple novels. In these short excerpts, they all also argue that their creative writing is a method to communicate some of their knowledge and insights about democracy an...

“Administrative burdens” is a term for the frictions people experience when interacting with government—learning how a program works, taking the time to fill out paperwork, and experiencing the frustrations and shame that can come from the process. Sometimes this is accidental—just the result of a bureaucracy failing to think through how it interacts with citizens. But it can also be purposeful—a...

In 2015, Crossroads Church, a majority-White evangelical megachurch based in Cincinnati, Ohio, launched a new program to address racial division and racism. In this episode, Hahrie Han discusses her new book Undivided: The Quest for Racial Solidarity in an American Church, which tells the story of this program and its participants, many of whom changed their thinking, behavior, and relationships a...

Donald Trump has been elected the 47th president of the United States. He will enter the White House with his party in control of both the House and Senate and with a Supreme Court mostly composed of Republican appointments. This election will have real impacts on American policy, which will not only change the lives of Americans, but also reverberate around the world, from Ukraine to Israel to Ta...

Argentina’s constitution is among the oldest democratic constitutions in the world, and in significant respects it was modeled after the constitution of the United States. But Argentine democracy hasn’t always been stable. Between the 1930s and 1970s, the government was overturned by military coups six times. Even when there have been free and fair elections, some elected leaders have governed as...

Project 2025 is a transition plan for a second Trump administration created by the Heritage Foundation, along with other conservative organizations. Heritage has created similar documents for presidential transitions every four years since 1980. One aspect of Project 2025, which is distinct from these previous iterations, is a focus on personnel policy. Near the end of the first Trump administrati...

For 49 years, from 1973 until 2022, the Supreme Court declared that the US Constitution protected abortion rights. With this precedent overturned, decision making about reproductive rights now resides with state governments. But the court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization relied on a partial and inaccurate understanding of American history, and its claims to be a pro-...

Latinos are the fastest growing demographic group in the United States and are now the second-largest ethnic group in the country. Growing diversity shouldn’t be a challenge to democracy—no race or culture holds a monopoly on self-government. But Latinos are disproportionately young, and like other young voters, they often vote at lower rates and can benefit from being explicitly invited to partic...

For democracy to endure, democratic institutions and values must be passed from one generation to the next. And there’s plenty of good news about how Gen Z—the youngest and most diverse generation of voters—is engaging in politics. Young people are participating and voting at levels at least equal to previous generations. But there are reasons for concern too: Many Americans are growing up in civi...