The Democracy Group

As a cross-interview with Sustainable Planet , Kimberly Weir, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Northern Kentucky University and co-host of  Sustainable Planet  talks with Akshat Rathi, award-winning senior reporter for  Bloomberg News  and the host of  Zero , a climate-solutions podcast for  Bloomberg Green  and author of  Climate Capitalism: Winning the Race to Zero Emissions and Solvin...

In this week’s episode of Politics In Question , Thomas Schaller and Paul Waldman join Lee and James to discuss the urban-rural divide in American politics. Schaller is a professor of political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Waldman is a journalist and author whose writing has appeared in numerous publications, including MSNBC. Their new book is White Rural Rage: The Thre...

CPF Co-Director Mike Murphy joins Albert Gore, Zero Emissions Transportation Association Executive Director, and David Schwietert, Alliance for Automotive Innovation Chief Policy Officer, for a conversation on the polarized politics of electric-powered vehicles and what polling around this big divide reveals about the future of transportation.   Featuring: Albert Gore: Executive Director, Zero Emi...

We were honored to hang out with our intellectural hero, Dr. Jonathan Haidt, a few weeks before the release of his recent book The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Unsurprisingly, since its release, it became an instant #1 New York Times bestseller. If you have kids, if you know kids —  heck, if you've ever seen a kid — you're just g...

Diversity equity and inclusion: Sounds like a good thing in an incredibly diverse country such as ours, especially when teaching young people at American colleges and universities. But the DEI industry - or DEI Inc. — has arguably gone off the rails. There’s a big difference between the intentions behind a lot of diversity training and the results. We learn about the crucial difference between tra...

Tom Lopach joins The Great Battlefield podcast to talk about his career in politics and his role as CEO at the Voter Participation Center, where they're dedicated to large scale voter registration work. Additional Information The Democracy Group listener survey The Great Battlefield Podcast More shows from The Democracy Group Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for inform...

Mike talks with historical anthropologist Nicholas Dirks, Chancellor of UC Berkeley from 2013-2017, about his book City of Intellect: The Uses and Abuses of the University . Topics Include: - the public’s decline of faith in higher education - if higher ed is focused on the right kind of diversity - free speech as privileging dominant views - what elite institutions are doing with their massive en...

Argentina’s new president is a libertarian populist and, by his own account, an anarcho-capitalist. To tackle his county’s deep economic troubles, Javier Milei wants to dismantle state institutions, implement severe austerity measures and strip protections for workers. He also wants to outlaw abortion. But in a country with a strong tradition of organized labor and women’s movements, so far he has...

Today we feature interviews with three religious organizations. These organizations share their current programs that promote civic duties and community engagement across the country.   Harbonim Dror Camp Galil is a summer camp in Ottsville, Pennsylvania. Executive Director David Weiss joins us to discuss their daily programs for campers aged 7-17. These programs include staging protests and holdi...

Braxton Brewington is the Press Secretary of the Debt Collective. We discuss the origins of the Debt Collective in the Rolling Jubilee and its history in canceling student debt. Their example is a powerful model for canceling student debt, which continues to be important for all Americans in this election cycle and beyond. Education is a public good, yet the cost of college over the past couple of...

CPF Director Bob Shrum joins education experts, Pedro Noguera, Macke Raymond, and Dr. Darline Robles, for a conversation on education reform and policy. They discuss the politics of public education, the role of parental rights, why some public schools are failing, what makes some charter schools successful when others struggle, whether or not taxpayer funds should be used to provide vouchers to p...

Trey talks with constitutional law professor Maxwell Stearns about his new book Parliamentary America which argues the U.S. needs to adapt the U.S. House to include proportional representation.  Topics Trey and Max Cover Include - how the median voter theory is inaccurate - why American parties are tending in extreme directions - proposals to double the size of the House of Representatives - propo...

This month, we're joined by Stephanie Gnoza, Boulder County's Elections Director, to discuss the first ever risk-limiting audit of a ranked choice voting election! Stephanie breaks down what a risk-limiting audit is, and the steps that Boulder took to pull off this landmark achievement in election security. Resources mentioned in this episode: - 2023 Election Results Page: https://bouldercounty.go...

How do we harness the power of communication in bridging societal divides? We spoke with Elliot Kirschner, an Emmy award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker, to help us “Through the Fog…”  Elliot shares his journey from CBS to his Substack “ Through the Fog ,” his dedication to science communication , and reflections on the role of journalism and science in democracy. We delve into his co...

Last year, there were 645 mass shootings in the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive. In the latest major tragedy, at the Kansas City Super Bowl parade, one person was killed and 22 others — half of them children — suffered gunshot wounds. But here’s something you may not know: since then, there have been another 26 mass shootings. Historian Andrew McKevitt and sociologist Jennifer...

Sasha Issenberg returns to The Great Battlefield podcast to talk about his new book "The Lie Detectives: In Search of a Playbook for Winning Elections in the Disinformation Age". Additional Information The Democracy Group listener survey The Great Battlefield Podcast More shows from The Democracy Group Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collecti...

News coverage of Super Tuesday and other party primaries focused mainly on base voters— Democrats and Republicans. But most Americans are actually on the political sidelines or somewhere in the middle. Many have a mix of conservative and liberal views. This episode is about them. Our guest is  Shannon Watson , the Founder and Executive Director of  Majority in the Middle . Her Minnesota-based non-...

Acclaimed musician and recording artist Daryl Davis has interviewed hundreds of KKK members and other White supremacists and influenced many of them to renounce their racist ideology. We hear his brave and remarkable story. Daryl's personal quest began many years ago, after a concert when he was in a country music band. A card-carrying member of the Ku Klux Klan praised his piano playing. Daryl re...

What if, at a pinnacle of our civilization’s technological achievement, everything just broke — the institutions we’ve come to rely upon in navigating a modern complex world, the shared stories that hold a large and diverse democratic republic together, and even a common language through which to navigate the rising tide of crisis.  According to renowned social psychologist and author Jonathan Hai...

We've talked about social media a lot on this show over the years — usually focusing on algorithms, echo chambers, polarization, and the other ways it's damaging to democracy. This week, however, we hear a different take from V Spehar , who has more than 3 million followers on the TikTok account Under the Desk News .  V built a reputation providing recaps of the daily news for an audience who migh...

In this week's episode of Politics In Question, Lee and James ask Representative Chip Roy, R-Texas, if the House of Representatives is broken.  Roy  is a devoted husband and father of two, serving his third term in Congress representing Texas's 21st Congressional District. He serves on the House Judiciary, Rules, and Budget Committees and is the House Freedom Caucus Policy Chair. Roy previously se...

Host Jenna Spinelle highlights the positive efforts of individuals and organizations working to build a healthier democracy in our short series, Democracy's Good News. Today we feature interviews with two civics teachers, Kimberly Huffman and Allison Sheridan, recipients of the 2023 American Civic Education Teacher Award. The teachers share their experiences and perspectives on teaching civics, ci...

Ken Harbaugh is the host of the Burn the Boats podcast, a former United States Navy pilot, and executive producer of Against All Enemies, a documentary film that explores the critical role of military veterans in domestic violent extremist groups. We discuss why veterans are equally sought out to work in Fortune 500 companies and to be in leadership positions of extremist groups. Most veterans mak...

Before the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949, Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists played a key role in fighting the Japanese during World War II. In the decades after, China’s role as an ally to the West was largely erased from its domestic politics — and all but forgotten everywhere else. Lately, Chinese leaders are revisiting “the Good War” and reframing that past to serve new interests....

Cynthia Miller-Idriss, one of America's leading experts on the far right, joins us this week to discuss what draws people to political extremism online and offline — and what we can do to combat it.  Miller-Idriss is the director of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University and author of the book Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right . As yo...