The Nation Podcasts

The 2020 election will liberate us from Donald Trump and Republican hegemony.  A sweeping Democratic victory will make it possible at last for us to address our most serious problems. That’s what Stan Greenberg says – he’s a longtime pollster and adviser to Democratic presidents from Clinton to Obama.  He’s also a bestselling author, with a new book out – it has the wonderful title R.I.P. G.O.P.:...

Last week Tory rebels in parliament staged a dramatic insurrection against their own Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, blocking his plans for a “no-deal Brexit.”  But virtually no Republicans in Congress have resisted Trump.  Why is that?  D.D. Guttenplan compares and contrasts the two parties and political systems – he’s editor of The Nation, and he’s lived in Britain for the last 25 years. Also: It...

How the Koch brothers transformed an obscure oil company based in Wichita into a $110 billion colossus, and reshaped the Republican Party—but failed to prevent Trump from becoming president: Christopher Leonard on Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America . Also: Indivisible, the big network of local Democratic Party activists that sprang up after Trump’s victo...

We’re still thinking about the terrorist attack in El Paso, where 22 people were killed at a Walmart and two dozen more were injured.  Like almost all of these attacks, the El Paso killings have been treated as an isolated event carried out by a loner.  But the attacks in Charleston, Charlottesville, Christchurch, El Paso and elsewhere are connected; they are all part of the White Power movement,...

The latest polls—including the highly respected Fox poll—show Trump in terrible shape at this point: Among registered voters he trails Biden 50-38, Bernie 48-39, Elizabeth Warren 46-39, and even Kamala Harris 45-39. He’s losing crucial segments of his 2016 base. And in many of the states he carried last time, he’s deep into negative territory on the approval polls. Jeet Heer comments—and takes up...

If Bernie does NOT get the nomination, the Democratic Socialists of America will not endorse the Democrat who does.  “Bernie or Bust” was what they decided at their recent convention – but is that a good idea? Harold Meyerson comments--he’s editor-at-large of The American Prospect and a regular contributor to the LA Times op-ed page. Also: Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted pedophile and accused sex t...

After Trump’s tweets about the El Paso killings, Beto’s response was the one of the best: “He’s not tolerating violence, he’s inciting racism and violence in this country.”  Joan Walsh, National Affairs Correspondent for The Nation, examines the mainstream media’s failures in covering Trump. Also: Trump gets worse every week.  Two years ago we had massive nationwide protest demonstrations--so why...

Are Trump’s recent racist tweets part of a political strategy, or an uncontrollable personal impulse?  Harold Meyerson comments – and also proposes ways to end the potentially devastating divide among Democrats over a Green New Deal.  Harold is editor-at-large of The American Prospect. Also: Was Al Franken railroaded, when he was forced to resign from the Senate in the face of #MeToo complaints ab...

Amy Wilentz comments on the mental and emotional status of the president, as analyzed by 27 psychiatrists in ‘The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,’ a book edited by Bandy X. Lee. The book was number four on the New York Times bestseller list. Also: Would Pence be worse? Jane Mayer of The New Yorker reports—she interviewed more than 60 people in search of answers, including Pence’s mother. Several s...

Democracy is not doing well these days – we have Trump, and Brexit, and a host of other examples.  Astra Taylor has been thinking about that: she talks about the paradoxes of rule by the people, the many ways it’s being frustrated, and why it remains at the center of our hopes for the future.  Her new book is “Democracy may not exist, but we’ll miss it when it’s gone.” Also: travel to Mars--now th...

Racial anxiety was more important than economic anxiety in motivating Trump’s voters, Joy Reid of MSNBC argues.  A key factor in Trump’s victory was nostalgia for a white, Christian America where men were still in charge.  And of course Hillary fell short not only with male voters but with voters of color overall.  Joy’s new book is The Man Who Sold America: Trump and the Unraveling of the America...

It’s an extraordinary victory: the first round of Democratic debates shows that all the major candidates are working within a progressive framework.  Robert Borosage says Bernie gets the credit—and that, although Biden currently is far ahead in the polls of Democratic voters, he has nowhere to go except down, once he is challenged on his record: Iraq, mass incarceration, NAFTA, and Clarence Thomas...

Campaigning in Iowa, Elizabeth Warren has made her story an American story, Joan Walsh says, and thereby found a good way to connect her policy proposals to her own life, and thereby to other people’s lives--and also to refute critics who say she’s an out-of-touch policy wonk.  Also: Joe Biden and his friends: he says some of them were segregationist senators – and he thinks that was a good thing,...

Elizabeth Warren may be running third in the Democratic polls, after Biden and Bernie, but she seems to be the clear leader in what we call “the ideas primary.”  Katrina vanden Heuvel comments—and suggests that foreign policy, where Warren has said little, should be a focus for the upcoming Democratic candidate debates. Also: Trump declared in his State of the Union speech “America will never beco...

For most Americans, the question “Which is worse: Trump or Brexit?” has an easy answer: of course it’s Trump!  But D. D. Guttenplan, The Nation’s new Editor, says it’s more complicated than that: for starters, Americans can get rid of Trump in next November’s elections, but it’s almost impossible now for the Brits to get rid of Brexit. Also: Rashida Tlaib is one of the two the Muslim woman elected...

Joe Biden was the only leading Democratic candidate who did NOT come to the California state Democratic convention last weekend in San Francisco – David Dayen reports on the biggest of the Super Tuesday primaries; he’s the new executive editor of The American Prospect. Also: The British should extradite Julian Assange to Sweden for the investigation of rape charges against him, but neither the Swe...

The indictment of Julian Assange on espionage charges is an attack on freedom of the press—that’s what Daniel Ellsberg argues.  Ellsberg too was indicted under the Espionage Act – and put on trial by the Nixon Administration in 1972, because he leaked a top secret history of American involvement in Viet Nam to the New York Times and other publications. They called it the Pentagon Papers.  Also: Me...

Bernie is back on Page One of the New York Times , but their report last weekend was not about his new plan to save public schools–the most progressive education program in modern American history–or his proposal to end all subsidies for oil and gas companies.  Instead, it was about a trip he made to Nicaragua in 1985, more than 30 years ago.  They didn’t like it.   How do we explain the New York...

Joe Biden has one thing in common with Donald Trump: a campaign promising “restoration” of a lost past, rather than the kind of transformation we need to deal with our current problems--  That’s what Harold Meyerson says.  Of course the past Biden wants to restore is not the white man’s 1950s, but rather the pre-Trump America of the Clintons and Obama.  Harold is Executive Editor of The American P...

For the 2020 election, we’ve been focusing mostly on the candidates who want to challenge Trump – but we also need to consider the voters, and the changes in the electorate since 2016.  Especially significant: young people of color.  Steve Phillips explains – he’s the author of the  best-seller "Brown Is the New White: How a Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority." Also...

When Joe Biden finally declared his candidacy, he immediately pulled way out in front in the polls of Democratic candidates. The polls also show him the one most likely to beat Trump. Joan Walsh points to some of the problems with Biden, and considers the alternatives. Also: should the House Democrats open impeachment hearings? The politics may be debatable, but congress’s duty is clear. Joshua Ho...

What can we do to reduce the speed of climate change?  Bill McKibben argues that we're at a bleak moment in human history -- and we'll either confront that bleakness, or watch the civilization our forebears built slip away.  Bill was one of the first people to warn of the dangers of global warming, 30 years ago with his book The End of Nature.  Then he founded the environmental organizatio...

The chair of the House Ways and Means Committee formally requested six years of Trump’s personal & business tax returns earlier this month. Trump has said he won’t do it—and that the law is “100 per cent” on his side.  He’s 100 per cent wrong about that. David Cay Johnston explains why the IRS Director is required to hand over the returns—or face 5 years in jail—and also what we’re likely to f...

Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, and Elizabeth Warren are the women in the Senate who have announced campaigns for the Democratic nomination—and Gillibrand is running on Medicare for All and a Green New Deal.  She started out in Congress as more of a centrist Democrat—how authentic has her transformation been?  Joan Walsh reports. Also: ‘Reconstruction: America After The Civil War...

* When Stacey Abrams ran for governor of Georgia last November as the first African-American and the first woman candidate, she got more votes than any Democrat in Georgia history, including Obama and Hillary Clinton.  She tripled Latino turnout; she increased the youth turnout by 139 per cent and black turnout by 40 per cent.  But because of Republican vote suppression she was not elected.  In 20...