The PoliticsGirl Podcast

What’s happening in America right now is horrifying but not surprising. That we are living through an extreme stress test for democracy, but all is not lost. Chief Political and Advocacy Officer at the ACLU, Deirdre Schifeling reminds us the best and most durable protectors of our rights are actually our own people. Yes, democratic backsliding is scary and dangerous, but not irreversible…especiall...

Will we have elections in 2026? Yes.  How free and fair will they be? Well, a lot of that is up to us… As always, if you find worth in what we do, please consider SUBSCRIBING to PoliticsGirl Premium. You’ll get this podcast ad free, along with a bunch of other perks, like the rants directly to your inbox and the knowledge that you’re making this kind of highly researched, factual information possi...

I If you’re feeling exhausted you aren’t alone. The time we’re living in is weird and distressing. And if you, like me, are feeling the weight of the world right now, please understand you’re not it makes sense. However time keeps marching on whether we’re ready for it or not, and those who seek to destroy everything we hold dear, are counting on our exhaustion. So go into this new year with grit...

The Justice Department and the FBI are currently in complete violation of the law when it comes to the Epstein Transparency Act. They are clearly hoping we just embrace our nihilism and give up ever knowing what happened because deep down we accept the rich and powerful get to live under different rules and they’ll just get away with it. Well, that is unacceptable to me, to our guest, Epstein expe...

I recently read a quote that said “I will never forgive him for making America a place people fear, a place people don’t like, don’t trust, don’t want to do business with, don’t want to visit, don’t want anything to do with. He has made America a place people laugh at, a place that is cruel and bigoted. America is no longer a destination. It is a place to be avoided.” And it resonated so deeply wi...

The most consistent feeling people have in this country right now is that the system is broken and that makes us feel powerless when we’re not. The Trump administration might be impossible for us to reach right now, but voters are right there, and according to Swing Left’s Yasmin Radjy we should be talking directly to them. Hope is a muscle that we’ve allowed to atrophy, but there’s no progress wi...

Best selling author and comedian, John Fugelsang reminds us that the problem isn’t religion, it’s the fundamentalists and extremists who use religion as a way to power. As John says, “If your church isn’t telling you to love your enemy, but telling you who your enemies are, then it isn’t a church.” We have to stop using religion as an excuse to hate. There’s a reason the American constitution gave...

What has happened to us America? We have military in our streets, ICE murdering people in custody, we’re building concentration camps on our shores and shipping people to foreign prisons without evidence of a crime. We demolished one-third of the White House, our President is calling for Democratic leaders to be executed, and we might go to war with Venezuela for oil and minerals while American ci...

Watching Democrats capitulate on the government shutdown without getting anything in return was a real kick to the face to everyone who thought we might finally have an opposition up for the fight. As Indivisible’s Ezra Levin reminds us, once we move past anger this can be a real opportunity. If we want the Democratic party to be better, it’s up to all of us to do the work to change it, to challen...

Today is Veteran’s Day and sadly we can’t just honor our soldiers, we have to wonder who they work for. As guest, combat veteran Kristopher Goldsmith reminds us, our president is trying to pit Americans against each other. The president wants the military in our streets fighting for him at the same time his administration is tearing the VA to shreds. The damage this administration is doing to our...

Today is election day and as our guest Alex Zakaras, the author of the brilliant new book Freedom for All: What a Liberal Society Could Be reminds us, there are opportunities to be seized. It’s so easy to be depressed but as some institutions fall, better ones have the opportunity to rise. As Professor Zakaras argues, the profound inequality in power, wealth, and status in our nation has fundament...

Former Ambassador to Russia and author of the new book Autocrats vs. Democrats Michael McFaul reminds us that the autocratic world is united while the democratic world is not, and quite frankly, we have to get it together. We’re not allowed to just ignore what’s happening, or simply give up because it’s too hard. If we do that, the consequences will be even worse. We must find our allies, both at...

The No Kings rallies were incredibly successful, peaceful and mobilizing, but as our guest, Indivisible’s Ezra Levin, says: “If that’s all we do, it won’t be enough.” To fight this lawless regime Americans must continue to grow and diversify our tactics. This is not about one day of protest, but one of many efforts needed to stop government overreach. If you’re interested in next steps I encourage...

We are at a divided and isolated place in America, and watching the rising authoritarianism of the Trump administration, enabled by the Republican Congress, green lit by the bought and paid for Supreme Court is enough to make people feel powerless, but we are NOT powerless. We are living through a propaganda nightmare, but if the Freedom Frog in Portland has taught us anything it’s that those who...

Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump met with 800 of the military’s top brass last week and it was difficult to process how demoralizing it felt. If you’re like me, you didn’t recognize your country as our president talked about bringing US cities “under control” and painting anyone who didn’t agree with him as the “enemy from within”. There was a lot to be outraged about in that meeting, and plenty that...

Right now we are dealing with a government who have captured all levels of federal power, and are working overtime to keep up their long standing plan to divide us so we don’t unite to fight back. Trump wants America to conform to the America he has in his head, but he can’t do it alone, so he defers to people like Russel Vought and Steven Miller who want to burn it all down to rebuild the country...

There are two separate realities in America right now. One we saw at the Charlie Kirk memorial, where God has picked a side and if you’re not with them you’re not on it, and one rooted in reality. However, the reality one…it’s not winning. As always, if you find worth in what we do, please consider SUBSCRIBING to PoliticsGirl Premium. You’ll get this podcast ad free, along with a bunch of other pe...

The Democrats are annoying, but the entire party including the voters are being painted with a pretty broad brush right now. The DNC and national leadership might make me furious, but the Democratic Party is still the alternative to the Republican Party in this broken two party system. So if you’re pro-democracy, pro-rule of law, pro-constitution, and you’re watching the country fall apart right n...

The Trump regime wants us feel powerless, like their take over is inevitable, but it’s not. Part of the struggle is simply not giving up. To stay engaged and keep your people informed as to what they’re doing to our health care, our education, our voting rights, our civil rights and then responding with action. That is what Sky Perryman and her team at Democracy Forward is doing to great success....

It’s back to school, and while school shootings are a given, actual education is not. It’s September 2025 and the Department of Education is being systematically dismantled while the policy impacts of the Trump administration are only set to make things worse. From food insecurity for children who get fed at school, to school closures, to policy decisions that tell us what we can and cannot teach....

While international relationships are essential in a changing, increasingly dangerous world, under the Trump Administration America is doing major damage to both our safety and security by eroding trust with our allies being mercurial and untrustworthy to them while being generous and cozy with our “enemies". Our president clearly sees the world as a zero sum game of how things serve him, and whil...

Things are not right. I’m doing my pod from the road today because something wasn’t right. In my particular case it was my son’s appendix, but the wrongness of what’s going on isn’t limited to my immediate family. It’s all around us. We’re drowning in it. So, this pod is about what’s going on this week. What we should be paying attention to. How we know when things aren’t right, and just like we j...

Don’t feel bad if you don’t know how the government works. It’s by design. Today we talk to the Host of PBS’s Civics Made Easy about the importance of offering Americans the kind of knowledge we should have but don’t, on a network that the government should fund, but won’t. Ben wants us to, “Get caught up together” and Trump wants us as stupid as possible. As always, if you find worth in what we d...

Things are getting so bad in America that many people are checking out, but we can’t keep pretending things are normal when we know they aren’t. We must collectively wake up to what’s happening, to how we got here, to the ugly and the scary that we’ve allowed to flourish to find the courage to stand against it. That while hope is important, we must also acknowledge change is not coming if we don’t...

We can’t afford pediatric cancer research, healthcare for seniors, or testing to make sure our water is clean, but we have $200 billion dollars to spend on masked, secret police to terrorize us on our streets? Really? This isn’t about safety, it’s about control, and it should deeply concern anyone who believes in human rights, due process and American freedom. Not to mention anyone who cares about...