The Cycle- On Substack

In this short, but spirited conversation, Tom Bonier of Target Smart and Simon Rosenberg of NDN and host of the With Democrats, Things Get Better series, joins me on the pod to laugh at the Republican Party’s red tinkle. Target Smart, it is the Democrat’s premier voter targeting firm and creator of the incredible Target Early tool , which allows users to easily and quickly access critical informat...

I’m excited to bring you this conversation with Francesca Tripodi , Assistant Professor at the School of Library Info and Library Science & senior researcher at the Center for Info, Tech, and Public Life at the venerable UNC-Chapel Hill . We discuss her new book, The Propagandists’ Playbook: How Conservative Elites Manipulate Search and Threaten Democrac y, which is a deep dive into how the Right...

Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow opened her now famous speech on the floor of the Michigan senate by calling out the reason her Republican senate colleague chose to target her in a fundraising email that is part of a party-wide effort to brand Democrats as child groomers (proof positive of QANON’s continued influence in the modern Republican Party). McMorrow knew why she was personally targ...

If “guilt by association” also works for “coolness by association” I have officially arrived! Its not every day that I get someone who has interviewed the President of the United States to come onto the pod (though I should probably note I’ve had at least 3 on here) but STILL! She’s an academic so it counts for more! When THE HCR (as some of her fans refer to her) agreed to come onto The Cycle I w...

Welcome to Political Behavior 454! Today I am going to expose you to one of several research books that have come out in the past few years that help explain modern political behavior, which is distinct from political behavior of previous decades in several measurable and important ways. Dr. Jonathan Weiler , Director of Undergraduate Global Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill and co-author of Pick Up or P...

I’ve had a lot of fascinating conversations with my Cycle guests, but this pod with David Pepper , former chair of the Ohio Democratic Party and author of what Politico Mag calls “the thriller that predicted the Russia Scandal,” is one for the record books. His new book, Laboratories of Democracy: A Wake Up Call From Behind The Lines takes you into the complex world of state politics- a strange ne...

Believe it or not, when George W. Bush ran for the Republican Party’s nomination in 2000, he was able to at least tacitly support reauthorizing the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, which was set to expire in 2004. Yep, you read that right. As radical as they might have seemed to you back then, as of 2000 most of the Republican Party was still quite sane, and intent on being a governing party....

Mary Trump has been very busy since she first emerged on the national stage after sacrificing much to share thousands of personal records documenting Trump family corruption with investigators from the New York Times . She doubled down on her gift to America by next releasing audio of Trump’s federal judge sister admitting his entire schtick is an immoral long con . In other words, Mary Trump is o...

When I first spotted the title of my friend Tom Nichols’ new book I knew it needed to serve as the opening pod cast for season 2. Why? Because Tom’s excellent thesis, that 80 years of peace, prosperity, improving life conditions, and tech have led us to what I call a “decadence" issue. Put simply, Americans are so comfortable, and so far removed from past tribulations, they have done what comforta...

Political scientists of the future will no doubt burn a lot of digital ink trying to identify where things went off the rails in 21st century America. Like the first shot of the Civil War, the near-collapse of our democracy in 2020 and 2021 stand out as pinnacle moments in what is, at least for now, a “cold” Civil War. With the rule of law under severe strain from the full-frontal assault against...

Friends, I’m sorry about the hiatus for the pod so many of you have graciously endured while I launched Strike Pac , prepped my house for my exodus back out West, and dealt with my appendix trying to murder me. That so many of you suffered in silence was not lost on me, and is massively appreciated. Y’all are some really good humans! Also, before I get into the summary of the pod, I am now at a pl...

When UC-San Diego political science Associate Professor Seth Hill and his co-authors dropped their latest article in the journal Science Advances , the title immediately caught my eye. That title was “Not by turnout alone: Measuring the sources of electoral change, 2012 to 2016.” Now, having spent the better part of 2 years arguing with people about the role of turnout on electoral outcomes, my im...

In his very first podcast, Professor Emeritus at University of California, San Diego and prolific political scientist Gary Jacobson previews the 2020 updates to his longitudinal research on key voting behaviors of the American electorate. If you’re wondering what it means to say America’s politics have “nationalized” Jacobson’s research has you covered. This is a public episode. If you'd like to d...

Greetings cool cats & kittens, Today I’m releasing my fascinating conversation with Chris Bail, who runs The Polarization Lab at Duke University. Chris has a new book out: Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing which presents analysis from a major study he and his colleagues in the lab conducted on polarization and social media. The study attempts to answer some...

Friends, I hope you’ll listen to my conversation with fellow political scientist and political behavior expert David Moscrop. In addition to his impressive scholarly research, Dr. Moscrop has also written a very accessible book that explains why humans are poorly-suited for democracy. Titled  Too Dumb For Democracy? Why we make bad political decisions and how we can better ones  documents the limi...

Friends, What happens when a political scientist with specific expertise in presidential nominations and general elections joins up with two of Washington’s best sourced “stump” reporters to talk about their tell-all “What Happened” book on the 2020 cycle? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecycle.substack.com/sub...

Like many of you, the realization that Democrats would have majority control of the Senate after the improbable victories of Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in Georgia’s runoff elections on January 5th was electrifying! I imagine that for one of my personal heroes, Stacey Abrams, it also came with a deeply satisfying “see! we told you this electoral strategy would work!” as we saw how mode...

If there is one other person out there more bullish than I am regarding Donald Trump’s capabilities for Mussolini-like behaviors, it’s his niece Mary Trump. Mary made a splash when her tell-all book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man released. The book was unique because it combined an autobiographical account of Mary’s family history as a Trump and he...

Wednesday the 6th will be Trump-driven shitshow in D.C. when Republicans in Congress will turn a mere formality with the Electoral College certification process into a clown show. Thanks to an initial “toe-in-the-water” by senator and 2024 hopeful Josh Hawle y, support for the circus in the senate, the chamber supposedly for grown-ups, quickly ballooned to a dozen ( now 13 ) Republican senators. T...

In the premiere episode of The Election Whisperer on The Cycle- On Substack the show’s first in audio-only format, Rachel recaps (as quickly as possible!) the months that have passed since the show went on hiatus. The post election period has been marked by the whole of the Republican Party enabling Trump’s democracy-destroying multiple coup attempts. Senator Josh Hawley has gone so far as to comm...

The live episode aired at 9 pm ET on The Cycle on November 3rd.  Rachel Bitecofer is joined by Jessica Post and Flip Pidot for a live look at the wild election results pouring in as polls finally closed across most of the country.  For more, check out https://thecycle.news .  All content and opinions presented herein, whether by hosts and guests, are for informational purposes only and should not...

Video version at electionwhisperer.com .  In the electoral home stretch, one question looms large for every party and candidate on the ballot: how do we get our voters to vote?  Turnout is always critical, but in this highly peculiar cycle, it stands to play an even larger role than usual.  Rachel Bitecofer has assembled a panel to reveal what progressives are doing in 2020 to convert supporters i...

Rachel Bitecofer answers your Election 2020 questions LIVE at http://TheCycle.news . This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Video version at electionwhisperer.com .  In the final installment, Rachel Bitecofer is reunited with two-time co-host Rep. Joaquin Castro (TX-20) along with Wendy Davis (candidate in the 21st District), Mike Siegel (10th) and Julie Oliver (25th). The incumbents in these three red districts all won by single digits in 2018, so this episode may be jam packed with soon-to-be representatives-elect! ...

Video version at electionwhisperer.com .  In this installment, Rachel Bitecofer is joined by 3 of Texas' grassroots political leaders - the get s*** done club!  Guests: - Carrie Collier-Brown, founder of Blue Action Dems. - Sherrie Matula, founderof Sisters United Alliance. - Diana Patiño, lead strategist of Sisters United Alliance.  Subscribe to the show and submit your questions for Rachel at El...