#1629 Hitting Where it Hurts in Our Era of Negative Partisanship: Messaging left-wing politics amid cultish politics
Air Date: 5-15-2024
In an age of cultish in-group/out-group politics and media, we seek to find messaging for progressive partisans to achieve electoral success
Read more#1379 Tell Stories, Not Myths: Democracy in America (Throwback)
Air Date: 11–10-2020
Today we take a look at the long and shifting history of the myth of democracy in America. We've never had it since the beginning but the reasons have shifted, ebbed and flowed over time. Now, in the midst of an attempted slow-motion coup, we look back at this most central American myth.
Read more#1620 Threatening the 2024 Election to Subvert Democracy, from Legal Maneuvers in Congress and Unconstitutional Congressional Maps to Violent Threats Against Election Workers
Air Date: 4-3-2024
As the country gears up for the election in November, we look at a variety of ways the GOP and their election-denialist supporters are preparing to subvert the democratic process to get the result they want.
Read more#1614 Deep-Fakery and Deep Consequences for Democracy: AI-generated fake news threatens elections around the world and makes people question the ability to know what is real.
Air Date: 2-28-2024
AI-generated deepfakes, entirely fabricated audio and video of recognizable people, are here. They have been on the horizon for years but they have finally arrived during the biggest global election year in history which may prove to be a make-or-break year for democracy itself as we struggle to separate fact from fiction and autocracy is on the rise around the world.
Read more#1606 Biden's Barriers and Boons to Reelection
Air Date: 1-26-2024
In an election year where, more than ever before, democracy itself is on the ballot, there is less democracy happening in the lead-up to the election than at any time in recent memory. And with two profoundly disliked candidates running, the supporters of democratic ideals have a hard uphill push ahead of them.
Read more#1519 International Fascist Movement on the Move
Original Air Date: 10–8-2022
Today, we take a look at the recent elections in Italy, Brazil and Sweden where far-right parties are either taking power or looking to maintain it as well as the parallels to our own politics including moderate conservatives helping to legitimize the far right while delegitimizing elections.
Read more#1507 Installing Loyalists: The Multi-Pronged Destruction of Our Democracy Already in Progress (Throwback)
Original Air Date: 8–16-2022
Today, we take a look at the strategies underway to systematically dismantle democracy in the United States including installing Big-Lie™ believers in elected and poll-working positions, preventing state-level Supreme Courts from holding GOP-dominated state legislators to the state constitutions, and wiping out tens of thousands of career civil servants from the federal government to be replaced by right-wing extremists loyal to the Republican Party.
Read more#1054 What Drives Trump Conservatives - "Strangers in Their Own Land"
Original Air Date: 11-1-16
Today we dive deeply into the world of conservatives as described in the new book “Strangers in their own Land” by Arlie Russel Hochschild in an attempt to understand how some non-deplorable people in the country could be supporting Donald Trump.
Read more#1569 Winning Progressive Policies with Better Messaging
Air Date: 7–4-2023
Today, we take a look at the difference between the kind of political messaging that feels like the right thing to say and the reframed messages that actually get political results that allow for progressive policies to get passed.
Read more#1550 Red States, Where Democracy Goes to Die and Terrible Legislation is Born
Air Date: 3–21-2023
Today, we take a look at how GOP-controlled states are subverting democracy with a form of "competitive autocracy" and some of the horrifying legislation these states then pass after they are no longer subject to the opinions of the general public.
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