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We announce two new lawsuits this week that FFRF is taking with a coalition of state/church groups. The first challenges the placement of statues of Catholic saints at the entrance of the public safety building in Quincy, Massachusetts. The second challenges a new Texas measure that mandates the placement of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom. Then, we speak with Pulitzer Prize finalist Rollo Romig, author of the book I Am on the Hit List: A Journalist's Murder and the Rise of Autocracy in India.
We unpack SCOTUS's decision to continue to prohibit the Trump administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged gang members.On Today's Show:Emily Bazelon, staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, co-host of Slate's "Political Gabfest" podcast, Truman Capote fellow for creative writing and law at Yale Law School and author of Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration (Random House, 2019), offers legal analysis on how the courts are limiting executive power (or not).
Hundreds of U.S.-based scholars say the United States is swiftly heading away from liberal democracy and towards some form of authoritarianism. In this episode of The Sunday Story, NPR's Frank Langfitt speaks to people who have fled authoritarian regimes for America. They say some of the Trump administration's tactics remind them of home.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
5/16/25: MTA Pres Max Page: federal cuts v our commonwealth. Rep Lindsay Sabadosa: education & health care. Amherst Prof Austin Sarat: SCOTUS, birthright citizenship & autocracy. Happy Valley Guitar Orchestra's Joe Ricker, Bob Fishman, & Rich Buckman: the Bombyx show. DNA's Kevin McAllister: tomorrow's BIG clean-up
Among the many factors credited for Donald Trump's victory over Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race was one that, naturally, the hosts of Know Your Enemy took an interest in: podcasts. More specifically, "bro" podcasts—think Joe Rogan or Theo Von—seemed to be one reason why Trump continued, as he did in 2016 and 2020, to perform so well with male voters, especially gaining ground with younger, Black, and Latino men. An episode of one of these podcasts might stretch to three hours long or more, and typically features meandering, casual conversations that put a premium on apparent authenticity, as well as a knack for hanging with the boys. Trump and other Republican candidates and figures on the right (such as Elon Musk, a regular on Rogan's show) made appearing on these podcasts part of their campaign strategy, which allowed them to reach men who tend not to "follow politics" or even vote in every election. To try to understand what's happening with bros, podcasts, Trump, and beyond, there was no better guest than New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz, author of an early—and quite perceptive—piece on KYE and, more importantly for this conversation, a recent investigation into the world of bro podcasts and streamers, and what they might mean for both the left and the right at the start of Trump's second term.Sources:Andrew Marantz, "The Battle for the Bros," The New Yorker, Mar 17, 2025— "Is the U.S. Becoming and Autocracy," The New Yorker, April 28, 2025-- "Why We Can't Stop Arguing About Whether Trump Is a Fascist," The New Yorker, March 27, 2024— "The Post-Dirtbag Left," The New Yorker, July 26, 2021 Jonathan Allen & Amie Parnes, "The inside story of Harris' lost gamble on Joe Rogan, Beyoncé and a late Texas rally," NBC News, Jan 29, 2025Jack Crosbie, "Hasan Piker: A Progressive Mind in a MAGA Body," New York Times, April 27, 2025...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!
Russia's Victory Day public holiday, celebrated on May 9, has undergone a major transformation in Putin's Russia. Historically, it was a day of somber commemoration, and its main leitmotif was “Never again.” Under Putin, the holiday has become increasingly militaristic, with the memorial aspect now overshadowed by the far more belligerent slogan “We can do it again.” How did this happen, and what role does Victory Day play in the Putin regime today?
Synopsis: Is Authoritarianism Here?: Gessen and Stanley discuss the shift in America's self-understanding, from democratic ideals to a self-identity based on loving the US for its past greatness, and warn that this is not a democratic project, but rather a fascist one, similar to what Putin is doing in Russia. ARE YOU AUDACIOUS? SUPPORT OUR RESISTANCE REPORTING FUND! Help us continue fighting against the rise of authoritarianism in these times. Please support our Resistance Reporting Fund. Our goal is to raise $100K. We're at $35K! Become a sustaining member starting at $5 a month! Or make a one time donation at LauraFlanders.org/Donate Description: What will it take to reject fascism, before it's too late? Masha Gessen and Jason Stanley are two leading experts on autocracy, and they're sounding the alarm. They and their families have escaped totalitarian regimes and oppressive governments; today Gessen and Stanley are pulling back the curtain on the attacks against DEI, trans bodies, civil rights, higher education and more. Is authoritarianism here? Masha Gessen is an acclaimed Russian-American journalist, a Polk Award winning opinion writer for the New York Times and the author of "Surviving Autocracy" and “The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia.” Forced to leave Russia twice, in 2024, a Moscow court convicted them, in absentia to eight years in prison for their reporting on the war in Ukraine. Jason Stanley is a best-selling author and professor whose books include “Erasing History” and "How Fascism Works". He recently left his teaching position at Yale University to relocate to Canada with his family; noting that he is a child of Jewish refugees who fled Nazi Germany. In this historic conversation — the first interview between Gessen and Stanley — the two explore how to be bold in our movements and envision a multi-ethnic democracy. Plus, a commentary from Laura.“Trump has proposed a revived empire, a return to an imaginary past. The Democrats have proposed the way things are now, which are deeply unsatisfying and horribly anxiety provoking for a very large number of people. So we need a vision of a future that is more appealing than the imaginary past.” - Masha Gessen“What I see now is this regime shifting the self understanding of America, from having these democratic ideals . . . God knows they've been imperfect, to a self identity as loving the United States because we've had these great men in our past, and we've conquered the West, and we can punch you in the nose. And that's not a democratic project. That's like what Putin is doing in Russia.” - Jason Stanley• Masha Gessen: Opinion Columnist, The New York Times; Author, Surviving Autocracy; Distinguished Professor, Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, CUNY• Jason Stanley: Author, Erasing History & How Fascism Works; Professor, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto Music Credit: “America” by Sylvan Paul, courtesy of Wolf+Lamb Records. "Steppin" by Podington Bear. And original sound production and design by Jeannie Hopper. RESOURCES:Watch the special report released on YouTube May 2nd 5pm ET; PBS World Channel May 4th, and on over 300 public stations across the country (check your listings, or search here via zipcode). Listen: Episode airing on community radio (check here to see if your station airs the show) & available as a podcast May 7th. The full uncut conversation releases May 2nd in this podcast feed.Full Episode Notes are located HERE. RESOURCES:Watch the broadcast episode cut for time at our YouTube channel and airing on PBS stations across the country Full Episode Notes are located HERE. Related Laura Flanders Show Episodes:•. Special Report- Decades After Bloody Sunday, Is Trump Taking Civil Rights Back to Before Selma in ‘65?: Watch, Audio Podcast: Episode, and Uncut Conversation with Kimberlé Crenshaw, AAPF and Clifford Albright, Black Voters Matter•. Journalists Maria Hinojosa & Chenjerai Kumanyika: Forced Removals, Foreign Detention, the War on Education & Free Speech: Watch, Audio Podcast: Episode, and Uncut Conversation• The People v. DOGE: Jamie Raskin's Strategy to Combat the Musk & Trump Power Grab: Watch, Audio Podcast: Episode, and Uncut Conversation Related Articles and Resources:• This Is What a Digital Coup Looks Like, by Carole Callwalladr, Ted Talk, April 9, 2025 WATCH• The Fascism Expert at Yale Who's Fleeing America, by Keziah Weir, March 31, 2025, Vanity Fair• The Shape of Power in American Art, a new exhibition explores how the history of race in the United States is entwined with the history of American sculpture, November 8, 2024, Exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum• Celebrate Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Riverside Church in the City of New York, Various , Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom• American journalist Masha Gessen convicted in absentia by Russia for criticizing its military, by Anna Chernova, Lauren Kent and Rob Picket, July 16, 2024, CNN•. Tyrants Use Racism and Patriarchy to Split Civil Society Apart and Dismantle Democracy, Excerpt of speech by Jason Stanley, Jacob Urowsky professor of philosophy at Yale University, recorded & produced by Melinda Tuhus, April 16, 2025, Between the Lines• The Hidden Motive Behind Trump's Attacks on Trans People, by M. Gessen, March 17, 2025, The New York Times• The 10 tactics of fascism by Jason Stanley, 2022, Big Think - Watch• Welcome to Trump's Mafia State: “Nice university you got there. Shame if something happened to it.” By M. Gessen, Produce by Vishakha Darbha, April 21, 2025, The New York Times Laura Flanders and Friends Crew: Laura Flanders, along with Sabrina Artel, Jeremiah Cothren, Veronica Delgado, Janet Hernandez, Jeannie Hopper, Gina Kim, Sarah Miller, Nat Needham, David Neuman, and Rory O'Conner. FOLLOW Laura Flanders and FriendsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraflandersandfriends/Blueky: https://bsky.app/profile/lfandfriends.bsky.socialFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/LauraFlandersAndFriends/Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lauraflandersandfriendsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFLRxVeYcB1H7DbuYZQG-lgLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lauraflandersandfriendsPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/lauraflandersandfriendsACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel
Depressing news Tax Day, Education Secretary Linda McMahon confuses AI with A1, Autocracy is defying the Court Then FUNNY FUNNY MEMES!https://www.youtube.com/c/FacebookfortheBlindFB4tB► COME to a LIVE recording every Tuesday at 7:30p CST (♫@7:00p)Follow the link below - RSVP by email, then we send a Zoom link about an hour before the show!https://linktr.ee/fb4tb #FB4tB► Like & Subscribe! FB4tB YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/FacebookfortheBlindFB4tB► Subscribe to the FB4tB podcast HERE: https://bit.ly/3mINXct► Like FB4tB on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FB4TB► Follow FB4tB on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FB4tB_WasTaken► Check out another nifty visualizered FB4tB podcast episode here: https://youtu.be/9O9KVHScswUThank you for listening!#Listenable, #FB4tB, #Comedy, #memes, #TuesdayNight, #LIVE, #podcast, filmed before a Live audience
Kissing Dear Leader's ass is mandatory as Trump's firehose strategy continues to 'flood the zone' with his autocratic agenda. Plus - Progressive Leader Ro Khanna takes listener calls.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Sound the Alarm on Rising Fascism: Masha Gessen and Jason Stanley, leading experts on authoritarianism, warn of attacks on DEI, trans bodies, civil rights, and higher education, and discuss the need for a bold vision of a multi-ethnic democracy. ARE YOU AUDACIOUS? SUPPORT OUR RESISTANCE REPORTING FUND! Help us continue fighting against the rise of authoritarianism in these times. Please support our Resistance Reporting Fund. Our goal is to raise $100K. We're at $35K! Become a sustaining member starting at $5 a month! Or make a one time donation at LauraFlanders.org/Donate Description: What will it take to reject fascism, before it's too late? Masha Gessen and Jason Stanley are two leading experts on autocracy, and they're sounding the alarm. They and their families have escaped totalitarian regimes and oppressive governments; today Gessen and Stanley are pulling back the curtain on the attacks against DEI, trans bodies, civil rights, higher education and more. Is authoritarianism here? Masha Gessen is an acclaimed Russian-American journalist, a Polk Award winning opinion writer for the New York Times and the author of "Surviving Autocracy" and “The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia.” Forced to leave Russia twice, in 2024, a Moscow court convicted them, in absentia to eight years in prison for their reporting on the war in Ukraine. Jason Stanley is a best-selling author and professor whose books include “Erasing History” and "How Fascism Works". He recently left his teaching position at Yale University to relocate to Canada with his family; noting that he is a child of Jewish refugees who fled Nazi Germany. In this historic conversation — the first interview between Gessen and Stanley — the two explore how to be bold in our movements and envision a multi-ethnic democracy. Plus, a commentary from Laura.“What I see now is this regime shifting the self understanding of America, from having these democratic ideals . . . God knows they've been imperfect, to a self identity as loving the United States because we've had these great men in our past, and we've conquered the West, and we can punch you in the nose. And that's not a democratic project. That's like what Putin is doing in Russia.” - Jason StanleyGuests:• Masha Gessen: Opinion Columnist, The New York Times; Author, Surviving Autocracy; Distinguished Professor, Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, CUNY• Jason Stanley: Author, Erasing History & How Fascism Works; Professor, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto Watch the special report released on YouTube May 2nd 5pm ET; PBS World Channel May 4th, and on over 300 public stations across the country (check your listings, or search here via zipcode). Listen: Episode airing on community radio (check here to see if your station airs the show) & available as a podcast May 7th.Full Conversation Release: While our weekly shows are edited to time for broadcast on Public TV and community radio, we offer to our members and podcast subscribers the full uncut conversation. These audio exclusives are made possible thanks to our member supporters. RESOURCES:Watch the broadcast episode cut for time at our YouTube channel and airing on PBS stations across the country Full Episode Notes are located HERE.Related Laura Flanders Show Episodes:•. Special Report- Decades After Bloody Sunday, Is Trump Taking Civil Rights Back to Before Selma in ‘65?: Watch, Audio Podcast: Episode, and Uncut Conversation with Kimberlé Crenshaw, AAPF and Clifford Albright, Black Voters Matter•. Journalists Maria Hinojosa & Chenjerai Kumanyika: Forced Removals, Foreign Detention, the War on Education & Free Speech: Watch, Audio Podcast: Episode, and Uncut Conversation• The People v. DOGE: Jamie Raskin's Strategy to Combat the Musk & Trump Power Grab: Watch, Audio Podcast: Episode, and Uncut Conversation Related Articles and Resources:• The Fascism Expert at Yale Who's Fleeing America, by Keziah Weir, March 31, 2025, Vanity Fair• American journalist Masha Gessen convicted in absentia by Russia for criticizing its military, by Anna Chernova, Lauren Kent and Rob Picket, July 16, 2024, CNN•. Tyrants Use Racism and Patriarchy to Split Civil Society Apart and Dismantle Democracy, Excerpt of speech by Jason Stanley, Jacob Urowsky professor of philosophy at Yale University, recorded & produced by Melinda Tuhus, April 16, 2025, Between the Lines• The Hidden Motive Behind Trump's Attacks on Trans People, by M. Gessen, March 17, 2025, The New York Times• The 10 tactics of fascism by Jason Stanley, 2022, Big Think - Watch• Welcome to Trump's Mafia State: “Nice university you got there. Shame if something happened to it.” By M. Gessen, Produce by Vishakha Darbha, April 21, 2025, The New York Times Laura Flanders and Friends Crew: Laura Flanders, along with Sabrina Artel, Jeremiah Cothren, Veronica Delgado, Janet Hernandez, Jeannie Hopper, Gina Kim, Sarah Miller, Nat Needham, David Neuman, and Rory O'Conner. FOLLOW Laura Flanders and FriendsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraflandersandfriends/Blueky: https://bsky.app/profile/lfandfriends.bsky.socialFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/LauraFlandersAndFriends/Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lauraflandersandfriendsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFLRxVeYcB1H7DbuYZQG-lgLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lauraflandersandfriendsPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/lauraflandersandfriendsACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel
The first 100 days of Trump's second term have come to an end… so, what comes next? Overseas, Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has transformed his country into electoral autocracy using tactics that bear a striking resemblance to those currently playing out in Trump's America. To close out the Trumpland series, MSNBC's Alex Wagner travels to Hungary and speaks with lawyers, journalists, politicians, and advocates on the ground who offer important lessons for America while they continue to fight for democracy in their own country. Sign up for MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts to listen to this episode ad-free, plus get an upcoming exclusive bonus episode of Trumpland!
South Korea has long relied on the United States for deterrence against its nuclear-armed neighbor, North Korea. But since his reelection, U.S. President Donald Trump has raised questions about Washington's core commitments around the world. He and members of his cabinet have suggested Washington might withdraw from the Korean Peninsula altogether, or make Seoul pay billions for the defense the U.S. provides, including a nuclear umbrella against Pyongyang. As a result, a majority of Koreans now want the country to develop its own nuclear arsenal. This week on Counterpoint, we tackle the question: Should South Korea develop nuclear weapons? Arguing in favor is Jennifer Lind, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth College and the author of the forthcoming book, Autocracy 2.0: How China's Rise Reinvented Tyranny. Making the case against Seoul developing its own nuclear weapons is Lami Kim, a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu and the former director of the Asian studies program at the U.S. Army War College. Counterpoint is a production of Foreign Policy, in partnership with the Doha Forum. The show is hosted by Sasha Polakow-Suransky. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today, our Long Story Short podcast is taking you outside of Europe, to the Mediterranean, to Tunisia. This may not be a strictly European story, but what happens in our neighborhood can have major implications for us too. Especially considering that just last year, Tunisia signed a 255-million-euro deal with the European Union to tackle irregular migration.The birthplace of the Arab Spring, is once again caught in a judicial farce, because last week, a Tunisian court sentenced 40 people up to 66 years of prison. But who are these people, and why is the EU turning a blind eye in its transactional relationship with Tunisia?Join us on our journey through the events that shape the European continent and the European Union.Production: By Europod, in co production with Sphera Network.Follow us on:LinkedInInstagram Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Every day we see this country inch closer to authoritarianism under Donald Trump. We're joined by Robert Reich, political economist, professor, author, and former Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton. We cover how Reich thinks Democrats should fight back against this era of oligarchy in America. He explains the power of protest and lays out the messaging that Democrats need to embrace to show solidarity for the coming midterms and beyond.Plus, Reich tells the story of being classmates with Clarence Thomas, Hillary Rodham, and Bill Clinton and how he introduced Bill and Hillary at law school. Listen to Reich's podcast, The Coffee Klatch: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-coffee-klatch-with-robert-reich/id1635446643Watch Reich's videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RBReichSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
What constitutes an "authoritarian" government, and what causes them to fail?On Today's Show:Anne Applebaum, staff writer at The Atlantic, historian and author of Autocracy Inc. (Penguin, 2024), argues the checks on presidential power, put in place by the founders, have so far failed in the second Trump administration.
Hosts Nina dos Santos and Owen Bennett-Jones analyze the global fallout after Donald Trump plunged America and the world into a trade war with China. David Rennie, The Economist's geopolitics editor and former Beijing and Washington D.C. bureau chief, joins the podcast to unpack how Xi Jinping is playing the long game and playing to win. In this episode, we explore Xi's high-stakes strategy in the global trade war. From embracing economic pain to fostering innovation under autocracy, China is challenging Western dominance on every front. However, as the controversy over British Steel demonstrates, Beijing's drive to exert control often at the expense of freedoms abroad—risks alienating future partners. In the second half, activist Chloe Chung shares her personal story of falling afoul of the Chinese authorities. A pro-democracy campaigner, Chloe awoke in December to news that police in Hong Kong had issued a HK$1 million ($128,000; £102,000) bounty for information leading to her capture abroad. With democracy under pressure, this is more than just a trade war—it's a battle for the future of the global order. Producer: Pearse Lynch Executive Producer: Lucinda Knight Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science
Hosts Nina dos Santos and Owen Bennett-Jones analyze the global fallout after Donald Trump plunged America and the world into a trade war with China. David Rennie, The Economist's geopolitics editor and former Beijing and Washington D.C. bureau chief, joins the podcast to unpack how Xi Jinping is playing the long game and playing to win. In this episode, we explore Xi's high-stakes strategy in the global trade war. From embracing economic pain to fostering innovation under autocracy, China is challenging Western dominance on every front. However, as the controversy over British Steel demonstrates, Beijing's drive to exert control often at the expense of freedoms abroad—risks alienating future partners. In the second half, activist Chloe Chung shares her personal story of falling afoul of the Chinese authorities. A pro-democracy campaigner, Chloe awoke in December to news that police in Hong Kong had issued a HK$1 million ($128,000; £102,000) bounty for information leading to her capture abroad. With democracy under pressure, this is more than just a trade war—it's a battle for the future of the global order. Producer: Pearse Lynch Executive Producer: Lucinda Knight Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Hosts Nina dos Santos and Owen Bennett-Jones analyze the global fallout after Donald Trump plunged America and the world into a trade war with China. David Rennie, The Economist's geopolitics editor and former Beijing and Washington D.C. bureau chief, joins the podcast to unpack how Xi Jinping is playing the long game and playing to win. In this episode, we explore Xi's high-stakes strategy in the global trade war. From embracing economic pain to fostering innovation under autocracy, China is challenging Western dominance on every front. However, as the controversy over British Steel demonstrates, Beijing's drive to exert control often at the expense of freedoms abroad—risks alienating future partners. In the second half, activist Chloe Chung shares her personal story of falling afoul of the Chinese authorities. A pro-democracy campaigner, Chloe awoke in December to news that police in Hong Kong had issued a HK$1 million ($128,000; £102,000) bounty for information leading to her capture abroad. With democracy under pressure, this is more than just a trade war—it's a battle for the future of the global order. Producer: Pearse Lynch Executive Producer: Lucinda Knight Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies
Autocracy might not be as bad as you think if you know which galleries to visit.
Hosts Nina dos Santos and Owen Bennett-Jones analyze the global fallout after Donald Trump plunged America and the world into a trade war with China. David Rennie, The Economist's geopolitics editor and former Beijing and Washington D.C. bureau chief, joins the podcast to unpack how Xi Jinping is playing the long game and playing to win. In this episode, we explore Xi's high-stakes strategy in the global trade war. From embracing economic pain to fostering innovation under autocracy, China is challenging Western dominance on every front. However, as the controversy over British Steel demonstrates, Beijing's drive to exert control often at the expense of freedoms abroad—risks alienating future partners. In the second half, activist Chloe Chung shares her personal story of falling afoul of the Chinese authorities. A pro-democracy campaigner, Chloe awoke in December to news that police in Hong Kong had issued a HK$1 million ($128,000; £102,000) bounty for information leading to her capture abroad. With democracy under pressure, this is more than just a trade war—it's a battle for the future of the global order. Producer: Pearse Lynch Executive Producer: Lucinda Knight Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs
Autocracy might not be as bad as you think if you know which galleries to visit.
Hosts Nina dos Santos and Owen Bennett-Jones analyze the global fallout after Donald Trump plunged America and the world into a trade war with China. David Rennie, The Economist's geopolitics editor and former Beijing and Washington D.C. bureau chief, joins the podcast to unpack how Xi Jinping is playing the long game and playing to win. In this episode, we explore Xi's high-stakes strategy in the global trade war. From embracing economic pain to fostering innovation under autocracy, China is challenging Western dominance on every front. However, as the controversy over British Steel demonstrates, Beijing's drive to exert control often at the expense of freedoms abroad—risks alienating future partners. In the second half, activist Chloe Chung shares her personal story of falling afoul of the Chinese authorities. A pro-democracy campaigner, Chloe awoke in December to news that police in Hong Kong had issued a HK$1 million ($128,000; £102,000) bounty for information leading to her capture abroad. With democracy under pressure, this is more than just a trade war—it's a battle for the future of the global order. Producer: Pearse Lynch Executive Producer: Lucinda Knight Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics
A new Gilded Age has arrived — but will Americans fight back like they did in 1899, or are we doomed to follow Russia's descent into billionaire rule?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Since taking office, President Trump has taken aim at the constitutional order. By conducting mass firings of civil servants, investigating and prosecuting rivals and critics and pardoning insurrectionists, Trump has plunged the country into what political scientist Steven Levitsky argues is an authoritarianism that, unlike a full dictatorship, allows for opposition but deploys “the machinery of government to punish, harass, co-opt, or sideline their opponents—disadvantaging them in every contest, and, in so doing, entrenching themselves in power.” And this playbook has been used in countries like Hungary, El Salvador, India, Turkey and others. We talk to Levitsky and historian Anne Applebaum about the lessons other countries can teach us about recognizing authoritarianism at home. Guests: Anne Applebaum, author, "Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World"; staff writer for The Atlantic and a Pulitzer-prize winning historian. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the SNF Agora Institute. Steven Levitsky, professor of government, Harvard; co-author of "Why Democracies Die" and "Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Berk Esen on whether Ekrem Imamoglu's arrest heralds Turkey's shift from competitive authoritarianism to autocracy, dynamics driving the government's crackdown, the international context, and critical choices facing the country's opposition. Support Turkey Book Talk on Patreon or Substack. Supporters get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, and links to articles related to each episode.
Edition No118 | 27-03-2025 - Surkov is a useful path to understanding the perverse and contradictory heart of contemporary Russia. Exploring a recent interview Vladislav Surkov conducted with L'Express reveals a secretive, complicated and controversial man. He is known as Putin's Rasputin, the Grey Cardinal of the Kremlin or the Puppet Master. Sourkov is the shadowy adviser who inspired novelist Giuliano da Empoli to write The Wizard of the Kremlin. He can be considered the 'architect' of the Russian political system but who has distanced himself from the man he served for two decades, Vladimir Putin. No one knows what Sourkov is doing today. In the L'Express interview he avoided the question. 1. He is one of the architects of the post-truth worldLong before Donald Trump weaponized the term ‘fake news', Surkov was honing his art. Today, Moscow is using Surkov's techniques to sow political confusion in democracies throughout the western world. A former associate said: “That's a fashion created and nourished by Surkov: this flavour of post-modernism. Nothing is true. There is no truth. There are alternative truths.”2. He rose from nowhere to become the power behind the throne in Putin's RussiaHe invented 'Sovereign Democracy', a system in which the illusion of democratic choice only had one outcome: the continuation of Putin's rule. One former colleague said of him: Vladimir Putin owes much of his success to Surkov's machinations.“At the ends of his fingers he controlled the threads of so many political structures. Those structures were so complicated that only Surkov knew where everything was: the opposition, the political parties, MPs, the governors, the creation or closing of political movements or NGOs, the church, the media, civil society...” ----------LINKS:https://www.lexpress.fr/monde/europe/exclusive-vladislav-sourkov-the-kremlins-wizard-russia-will-expand-in-all-directions-as-far-as-god-WWIE5OJMPVHJ5KTTAHNLE4WPME/?cmp_redirect?cmp_redirect=truehttps://www.ft.com/content/1324acbb-f475-47ab-a914-4a96a9d14bachttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39342784-almost-zero----------Easter Pysanky: Silicon Curtain - https://car4ukraine.com/campaigns/easter-pysanky-silicon-curtainCar for Ukraine has joined forces with a group of influencers, creators, and news observers during this special Easter season. In peaceful times, we might gift a basket of pysanky (hand-painted eggs), but now, we aim to deliver a basket of trucks to our warriors.This time, our main focus is on the Seraphims of the 104th Brigade and Chimera of HUR (Main Directorate of Intelligence), highly effective units that: - disrupt enemy logistics - detect and strike command centers - carry out precision operations against high-value enemy targetshttps://car4ukraine.com/campaigns/easter-pysanky-silicon-curtain----------SILICON CURTAIN FILM FUNDRAISERA project to make a documentary film in Ukraine, to raise awareness of Ukraine's struggle and in supporting a team running aid convoys to Ukraine's front-line towns.https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras----------SILICON CURTAIN LIVE EVENTS - FUNDRAISER CAMPAIGN Events in 2025 - Advocacy for a Ukrainian victory with Silicon Curtainhttps://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extrasOur first live events this year in Lviv and Kyiv were a huge success. Now we need to maintain this momentum, and change the tide towards a Ukrainian victory. The Silicon Curtain Roadshow is an ambitious campaign to run a minimum of 12 events in 2025, and potentially many more. We may add more venues to the program, depending on the success of the fundraising campaign. https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras----------
Edition No117 | 26-03-2025 - Vladislav Sourkov has been called the inventor of Putinism, and the wizard of the Kremlin. L'Express, a French magazine has published a rare interview, and his first since the start of Russia's war against Ukraine. He has made no public comments on the war ravaging state that neighbors the dictatorships in Russia and Belarus. L'Express anticipates the storm of controversy of interviewing such a controversial figure, and one who can also be said to be the architecture of Russia's genocidal plans towards Ukraine. They justify it by saying this is a unique way to get inside Vladimir Putin's head. Perhaps they are not wrong. Sourkov is the shadowy adviser who inspired novelist Giuliano da Empoli to write The Wizard of the Kremlin. And he can be considered the 'architect' of the Russian political system but who has distanced himself from the man he served for two decades, Vladimir Putin. No one knows what Sourkov is doing today. In the L'Express interview he avoided the question. This interview has merit as a rare document that shows us how Russian power pursues its agenda and thinks long term. The antithesis it seems of the Trump regime. ----------LINKS:https://www.lexpress.fr/monde/europe/exclusive-vladislav-sourkov-the-kremlins-wizard-russia-will-expand-in-all-directions-as-far-as-god-WWIE5OJMPVHJ5KTTAHNLE4WPME/?cmp_redirect?cmp_redirect=true----------Easter Pysanky: Silicon Curtain - https://car4ukraine.com/campaigns/easter-pysanky-silicon-curtainCar for Ukraine has joined forces with a group of influencers, creators, and news observers during this special Easter season. In peaceful times, we might gift a basket of pysanky (hand-painted eggs), but now, we aim to deliver a basket of trucks to our warriors.This time, our main focus is on the Seraphims of the 104th Brigade and Chimera of HUR (Main Directorate of Intelligence), highly effective units that: - disrupt enemy logistics - detect and strike command centers - carry out precision operations against high-value enemy targetshttps://car4ukraine.com/campaigns/easter-pysanky-silicon-curtain----------SILICON CURTAIN FILM FUNDRAISERA project to make a documentary film in Ukraine, to raise awareness of Ukraine's struggle and in supporting a team running aid convoys to Ukraine's front-line towns.https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras----------SILICON CURTAIN LIVE EVENTS - FUNDRAISER CAMPAIGN Events in 2025 - Advocacy for a Ukrainian victory with Silicon Curtainhttps://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extrasOur first live events this year in Lviv and Kyiv were a huge success. Now we need to maintain this momentum, and change the tide towards a Ukrainian victory. The Silicon Curtain Roadshow is an ambitious campaign to run a minimum of 12 events in 2025, and potentially many more. We may add more venues to the program, depending on the success of the fundraising campaign. https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extrasWe need to scale up our support for Ukraine, and these events are designed to have a major impact. Your support in making it happen is greatly appreciated. All events will be recorded professionally and published for free on the Silicon Curtain channel. Where possible, we will also live-stream events.https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras----------SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain----------
Since 2001, Ron Deibert and his team at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab have uncovered dozens of covert spy operations around the world, including the creators of the phone hacking spyware, Pegasus, created by the Israeli company, NSO group, whose clients include Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman, and Rwanda's Paul Kagame. In a wide-ranging discussion, Deibert tells host Steve Paikin about his recent trip to the White House, the impact that the Trump administration's policies will have on cyber security worldwide, and why Canadians ought to be concerned by a bilateral agreement with the U.S. called the Cloud Act. His new book is called, "Chasing Shadows: Cyber Espionage, Subversion, and the Global Fight for Democracy." See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The U.S. political stage has long been primed for an American nightmare. Faction loyalists can argue over who'll end up pulling the constitutional trigger, but the metaphorical gun has been loaded for decades.
The Trump administration has cut funding for Voice of America, the 80-year-old state media network. On this week's On the Media, how pulling federal funds from VOA's parent organization will imperil press freedom abroad. Plus, a Radio Free Europe journalist describes being detained for nine months in Russia until she was released alongside Evan Gershkovich.[01:00] Host Micah Loewinger speaks with Nicole Hemmer, political historian and co-host of the podcast “This Day.” They discuss the complicated history of Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda. Plus, what the funding cuts to VOA and its parent organization tell us about how the Trump administration wants the U.S. to be perceived.[15:57] Host Micah Loewinger sits down with Alsu Kurmasheva, press freedom advocate and veteran journalist of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Tatar-Bashkir service, on what the network provides in countries lacking a free press and her own nine month detention in Russia. Plus, Bay Fang, president of Radio Free Asia, or RFA, on why authoritarians are celebrating Trump's shutdown and how RFA's closure will further diminish press freedom in Asia. [33:35] Host Brooke Gladstone chats with Dorian Lynskey, cultural journalist and author of the recent book, Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World, to examine our centuries-long obsession with telling end-of-the-world stories and what they reveal about our shifting fears through history. Plus, the evolution of the apocalyptic story, from the Book of Revelation to On the Beach to Station Eleven. Further reading:Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World, by Dorian Lynksey On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.
Ontario's reactionary re-elected Premier, Doug Ford, aims to rip out Toronto's bike lanes despite his own experts' testimony that they work. Our correspondent Madeleine Bonsma-Fisher on the view from Toronto (2:31). The US DOT halts all active transportation funding that might reduce emissions or improve accessibility. James Pocrass, Los Angeles Bike Lawyer, gives his view (9:31). News: "Congestion Pricing is Dead...Long Live the King," declared trump's X post, referring to himself... But congestion pricing lives. Honolulu's speed cams work-too well? (14:03) Why Buying a Bike Helmet Online Could Be Dangerous, with Consumer Reports writer Kevin Loria (16:57). Global Tesla Takedown and Trump's Tesla commercial at the White House (23:28). Our favorite study finds "shifting from a long commute to a short walk would make a single person as happy as if he or she had found a new love” (25:08). Omaha's bike share is accessible by library card, among other great features in this talk with Benny Foltz, Executive Director of the Roam Share bike share systems in Nebraska (26:20). How We Can Build a Rapid Transit Network Overnight Everywhere-Taylor and Lindsay talk with "Transit Guy" Hayden Clarkin (40:07).
The Democratic Party has its work cut out. Meanwhile, there's a fundamental issue: the party doesn't currently have formal power. It doesn't have a majority in either House of Congress, it doesn't control the executive branch, and the Supreme Court has a 6-3 Trump majority. And all of this is creating a kind of impotent rage, frustration and feeling that Democratic leadership hasn't really risen to the moment. But how might Democrats stand up in this moment? Rep. Robert Garcia, is a representative from California's 42nd congressional district. Before that, he was the mayor of Long Beach. He joins WITHpod to discuss his thoughts on whether or not we've lost the American republic, the unlawful nature of so many Trump 2.0 actions, ways Democrats can adjust messaging and more.
The New Abnormal hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie are alarmed by the arrest of Columbia student and pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil by ICE agents over the weekend. Then, Madiba Dennie, deputy editor and senior contributor at Balls and Strikes, joins the show to talk about Trump's recent weaponization of the Justice Department. Plus, author and podcast host Jared Yates Sexton stops by to discuss the alarming authoritarian power grab unfolding before us. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Last week, the Democratic Party’s top congressional leaders finally took a bold stand against Trump’s assault on our democracy when he came to Congress to tout his autocratic agenda.
Here are the 4 KEEN ON AMERICA take-aways in our conversation about the dysfunctional American immigration system with Felipe Torres Medina1) Background & Immigration Journey* Felipe Torres Medina is a comic writer for "The Stephen Colbert Show" and author of the new book America Let Me In about the US immigration system* Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Medina moved to the US at 21 on a student visa to pursue a master's in screenwriting at Boston University* Medina received an "alien of extraordinary ability" visa (talent visa for artists) after graduation, and eventually got a green card after marrying2) On the US Immigration System* Medina describes the immigration process as expensive (costing "tens of thousands of dollars" in legal fees) and filled with bureaucratic challenges* He emphasizes that legal immigration requires "tremendous privilege and money" that most people don't have* The book takes an interactive "choose your own path" format to highlight the maze-like nature of the immigration system* He points out that there hasn't been comprehensive immigration reform since the Clinton administration (nearly 30 years ago)3) Comedy as Commentary* Medina uses humor to process his experiences and create community around shared frustrations* He was inspired by writers like Julio Cortazar, George Saunders, Tina Fey, and Carrie Fisher* The book aims to educate Americans who "have so many opinions about immigration" but "don't know what it entails"* He mentions that making the book interactive and game-like adds "levity" to a tense topic4) How to Fix the System* While critical of Trump's immigration policies, Medina says the book isn't specifically about Trump but about a "flawed and messy" system created by multiple administrations* He suggests moving US Citizenship and Immigration Services out of the Department of Homeland Security to change the narrative that immigration is a security threat* His proposed reforms include creating better pathways for educated immigrants and hiring more USCIS staff to reduce backlogs FULL TRANSCRIPT* Andrew Keen: Hello everybody. It is Sunday, March the 9th, 2025. Interesting piece in the times. A couple of days ago, The New York Times, that is about the so-called British flame thrower who is a comic best suited to taking on Trump. They're talking about a man called Kumar. Nish Kumar looks very funny, and apparently he's very angry too. I have to admit, I haven't seen him. It's an interesting subject. It suggests that at the moment, even in spite of Trump and outraging many Americans, the state of American humor could be amped up a bit. My guest today is a writer on The Stephen Colbert Show and a comic, or certainly a comic writer in his own right, Philippe Torres Medina. He has a new book out on Tuesday. It's called America Let Me In, and I'm thrilled that he's joining us from Harlem in Manhattan today. Congratulations, Phillip, on the new job. What do you the new book? I was going to say job. That's a Freudian error here. What do you make of the Times's observation that American humor isn't in its best state when it comes to Trump?Felipe Torres Medina: Oh, wow. That's that's an interesting question. First of all, I love Nish Kumar. I think he's a wonderful, wonderful comedian. He's very funny. He has a level of wit and his observations are just wonderful. I hadn't seen this article, but I really appreciate that the times recognized him because he's been working very hard for a lot of years. I think more than American humor not being fit for the moment. I think at least personally for me, a little bit of addressing Trump again began. And addressing Trump in general is, you know, jokes have to be new. And after basically ten years of Donald Trump every day, all the time, it's certainly hard to continue to find new angles. Now, the dysfunction of the administration and perhaps sometimes the cruelty and whatever they're doing does provide you with material. But I think it can cause you as a writer to be like, oh God, here we go again. More Trump stuff. You know, because that's what we're talking about.Andrew Keen: Do you see your book, Philippe, as a Trump book? America? Let me in. It's about immigration. I mean, obviously touches on in many ways on Trump and certainly his hostility to immigration and immigrants. But is it a Trump book, or is it a broader kind of critique or observation about contemporary America?Felipe Torres Medina: Yeah, I never set out to write a book about Trump or a Trump book. My goal is to write a book about the immigration system, because I went through it, and as a comedian, I encountered in it many contradictions and absurdities that just kind of became fodder to me for comedy. So I try to write this book about the system, but the system was caused by many administrations in many parties, you know, now, the current hostility or the current everythingness of immigration, you know, immigration being kind of in the forefront of the national discourse certainly has been aided by Republican policy in the past ten years and by Donald Trump's rhetoric. But that doesn't mean that this is a book about Trump or as a response to Trump. It's actually a book responding to a system that is flawed and messy, but it's the one we have.Andrew Keen: Yeah. You described the book as a love letter to immigrants, but it's not a love letter to the system. Tell me your story. As you say. You went through it so you have firsthand experience. Where were you born?Felipe Torres Medina: So I was born in Colombia. I was born in Bogota, Colombia, which is the capital of Colombia. I lived there most of my life. I moved to United States when I was 21 on a student visa, because I came here to do my masters. I did my master's in screenwriting at Boston University. And after that, you know, I started working here as a comedian, but also as a writer. And I was able to get an alien of extraordinary ability visa, which is a very pretentiously named visa, kind of makes you sound like you're in the X-Men, but it it's just what they call talent visas for artists, athletes, entrepreneurs, educators, whatever. And so I got one of those and then several renewals of those. And then, you know, thanks to my work as a writer, as a comedian, initially as a copywriter in advertising, I was able to I bought I met the love of my life, got married, and then I have a green card and that's why I'm here.Andrew Keen: Yeah. As and quoting here, it sounds rather funny. An alien of extraordinary ability. Do you think your experience is typical? I mean, the even the fact that you came for grad school to to Boston puts you in a, in a kind of intellectual or professional elite. So is your experience in any way typical, do you think?Felipe Torres Medina: I wouldn't say typical. I would say my experience is the experience of many people who come here. And I think it's the experience of the people who are, quote unquote, the immigrants we want. Right. And, you know, if we're going to dive into the rhetoric of the of immigration these days, I came the right way and did everything, quote unquote, the right way. You know, but what this book and also this journey that I took to immigrate here proves is that it's it's only possible with tremendous amount of privilege and tremendous, tremendous amount of money. You know, it's a very expensive process for the majority of people.Andrew Keen: How much did it cost you?Felipe Torres Medina: Oh, I think in total since I started. I mean, when you count the fact that for most, like master's programs, you don't get any sort of financial aid unless you get, like a scholarship from your own country or a sort of like Fulbright or something like that. There's already the cost of a full master's program.Andrew Keen: But then you weren't coming. I mean, you didn't pay for your master's program in order to get immigration papers, you know.Felipe Torres Medina: Of course, that, but I, I had to pay for my master's program to be able to study here. You know, I didn't have I didn't have my any sort of aid. But, you know, discounting that in terms of immigration paperwork, I've spent tens of thousands of dollars because you have to hire immigration lawyers to make sure that everything's fine. And those are quite expensive.Andrew Keen: Was it worth it?Felipe Torres Medina: Well, yeah. You know, I met the love of my life. I live a.Andrew Keen: Very. I mean, there are lots of loves of. You could have met someone else, and that's true. Or you might have even you might have even met her or him at an airport somewhere else while they were on vacation.Felipe Torres Medina: That's that's possible. But yeah, I mean, I live a I live a good life. I do what I wanted to do, you know, I, I took got my master's because I wanted to write comedy professionally and I get to do that. And I do think when I set out to do this, I was like, well, the place with the best film and television industry in the world is and was then and still is the United States. So I was like, well, I have to go there, you know, and I was able to become a part of this industry and to work in this art form.Andrew Keen: You didn't get any job. You You got the combat job? Yes. I believe you drew the the short straw, right? I bet nobody else was right. Just Stephen Colbert.Felipe Torres Medina: Yeah, I'm very lucky. And but again, it's a mix of luck and hard work and all those things. So yeah, I don't I don't regret moving.Andrew Keen: So some people might be watching this maybe some some MAGA people. I'm not sure if MAGA people really watch this, but if they were they might be thinking, well, Philippe Torres Medina, he's a good example. He's the type of person we want. He jumped through many hoops. He's really smart. He's really successful. He brings value to this country. Is now a full time writer on the Colbert's show he came from it came from Latin America. And he's exactly the kind of person we want. And we want a system that's hard, because only guys like him have the intellectual and financial resources to actually get through it. Well, how would you respond to them?Felipe Torres Medina: I would say that I appreciate the compliment, but I wouldn't necessarily say that that's the best way to move forward on immigration now. I will say this book is a humorous take on the whole immigration journey. And so what? Like I tell different stories of different people coming here made up or inspired by real life. And one of the paths that you can take in this book, because this is kind of an interactive choose your own path book, is mine. But I think what this book tries to prove is that even if you do everything right, even if you, you know, have the money, sometimes it's very, very hard. And that, I think, does put us at a disadvantage when it comes to having a workforce that could be productive for the country, especially as birthrates are declining. You know, we are headed toward a but, you know, people have described as a barrel economy. If we don't simply up the population and the people who are upping the population and actually having children are immigrants.Andrew Keen: One other piece of news today, there's obviously a huge amount of news on the immigration front is apparently there's a freeze on funding to help green card holders. You've been through the process. You write about it in the new book. But how much more difficult is it now?Felipe Torres Medina: You mean under the current administration? Yeah. I wouldn't know. I you know, I think that.Andrew Keen: This idea of even freezing green card. Yeah. That holidays, even if you have a green card, you get frozen.Felipe Torres Medina: Yeah, exactly. And I think that that, you know, I think that that's what Trump did in his first term, more or less with legal immigration, was to create roadblocks and freezes and these kinds of things to kind of just like stymie the process and make it slower, make it harder, even for people who, again, are doing everything right to be able to remain in the country.Andrew Keen: And I'm guessing also some of the DOJ's stuff about laying off immigration judges and court stuff, they're taking office to leave. Apparently 100 immigration court staff are retiring. This adds to it as well.Felipe Torres Medina: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, Citizenship and Immigration Services, USCIS is a very particular part of the government because it is one of the few parts of the federal government that funds itself. Again, going back to cost the fees that they make are so big, they make so much money that if there's a government shut down, actually, USCIS does not shut down. It's one of the few parts of the government that didn't need to shut down, because they make so much money out of the immigrants trying to come here. So it's a really, really strange part of the government. It kind of doesn't know where it belongs. So seeing like the the DOJ's cuts that arrive into the and that may be implemented into USCIS. Kind I'm not familiar with any Dodge cuts recently on USCIS, but I suspect that they would be strange because it's a it's a very strange division of the federal government. It's not like the Department of Education or the like the Forestry Service. It's it's it's own kind of like little fiefdom.Andrew Keen: Are you wrote an interesting thing or you were featured recently on Lit Hub, where this show actually used to get distributed about how to write a funny book about American immigration. Of course, it's it's a good question. I mean, it's such a frustrating bureaucratic mess at the best of times. I do write anything funny, Philippe, about it.Felipe Torres Medina: Well, I think the, the to me, the, the finding a format to be able to explore this, this chaotic system. It's so, so complicated. It's like a maze. So to me, having this kind of interactive format allowed me to have some freedom to be like, okay, well, you know, one of the things that they taught me in my comedy education, when I was training at a theater here in New York, the Upright Citizens Brigade is the premise of if this is true, then what else is true? You know, so if this absurd thing is reality, then what? How can you heighten that reality? And for me, you know, the immigration system is so absurd. It's it's so Byzantine and chaotic that I was like, okay, well, I can heighten this to an extra level. And so when I keyed in on, on this format of like allowing the person who's reading it to be the many characters to inhabit the, the immigrants and also to be playing with the book, you know, going out and going to one page, making their own choices. It allowed me to change the tone immediately of the conversation because you say immigration and everyone's like, oh, you know, it gets tense. But if you're saying like, no, no, this is a game, you know, we're playing this game. It's about immigration, but it's a game. All of a sudden there's a levity to it, and then you take the real absurdities and the real chaos of the system and just heighten it, which is basically what you do with comedy at all times.Andrew Keen: Who are the the fathers or perhaps the mothers of this kind of comedy? The person who comes to my mind is is Kafka, who found his own writing very funny. Not, and I'm not sure everyone necessarily agrees. He, of course, wrote extensively about central mid European bureaucracy and its darkness and absurdity. Who's inspired you both as a comic writer and particularly in terms of this book?Felipe Torres Medina: Well, actually, Kafka also has a great book called America.Andrew Keen: Yeah. Which is a wonderful first paragraph about seeing this. Seeing the Statue of Liberty.Felipe Torres Medina: Yes. Which is also kind of about this. But I would say my inspirations comedically are, you know, I don't think I would have written this book without, like, the work of Tina Fey. I think Bossy Pants was a book where I was like, oh, you can be funny in writing. And Carrie Fisher is a big Star Wars nerd, you know, to like great, funny writer writers who are just, like, writing funny things about their lives. But I think the playfulness of it all, actually, I was inspired by this Argentine writer, Julio Cortazar, who wrote a novel that in English just translated as hopscotch. And this novel is a huge, like, structural disrupter, you know, in the like, what we call the Latin American boom of writing in the 60s, 70s and 80s. And he wrote this novel that is like a game of hopscotch. You're jumping from chapter two chapter. He's directing you back and forth. So I read a lot of that. And I, you know, I read that in my youth, and then I read it. I reread it as I was older. And then there are writers like George Saunders, who can be very funny while talking about very sad or very poignant things. And so that was also a big inspiration to me. But, you know, I am a late night writer, so I was interested in actually making it like, ha ha, funny. Not just, you know, sensible chuckle funny, you know, kind of like a very, like, intellectual kind of funny. So I was also inspired by, you know, my job and like Colbert's original character in Colbert's book, America, I am American. So can you the writing of The Onion and, you know, the book, The Daily Show Book America, which is just kind of like an explanation of what the federal government is and what the country is written in the tone of the correspondents or the the writers for The Daily Show back in the original Jon Stewart iteration. So those books kind of like informed me and made me like, realize, oh, I can you can make like a humorous guy that's jokey and funny, but also is actually saying something isn't just like or teaching you something. Because the biggest reason I started writing this book is that Americans don't know their own immigration system, and they have so many opinions about immigration, particularly now, but no one knows what what it entails. You know? And I don't just mean like conservatives, you know, I don't just mean like, oh, MAGA people. Like, I was living in New York in the Obama years or like the late Obama years, and none of my liberal Brooklyn, you know, IPA and iced matcha drinking friends had any idea what I was going through, you know, when I was trying to get my visas.Andrew Keen: The liberals drink IPA. I didn't know that I drink IPA, I mean, I have to change my. Yeah. It's interesting you bring up in the first part of that response, the, the the Argentine novelist. There's something so surreal now about America. An interesting piece in the times about not being able to pin Trump down because he says one thing one day, the next thing the next day, and everyone accepts that these are contradictions. Now, the times describes these contradictions as this ultimate cover. I'm not quite sure why they're a cover. If you say one thing one day, in the next something the opposite the next day. But is there a Latin American quality to this? I mean, there's a whole tradition of Latin American writing observing the, the cruel absurdities of of dictators and wannabe dictators.Felipe Torres Medina: Yeah. I mean, it's it's part of our literary tradition. You know, the dictator novel you have. But again, just as the feast of the goat, and you have Garcia marquez, my my compatriot, you know, like that.Andrew Keen: Was one of my favorite magnificent writing.Felipe Torres Medina: It's it's possibly, I hesitate to say, my favorite writer because it creates ranking, but.Andrew Keen: Well amongst your.Felipe Torres Medina: Favorite, among my favorite writers, 100 Years of Solitude. Obviously that is possibly my favorite novel, but he has also, I believe it's the Autumn of the Patriarch, which is his novel about. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, there is a there is. I wouldn't say it's a South American or Latin American quality to it. I think it's just once you encounter it, it is so absurd that art does have to come out and talk about it, you know, and, you know, you see the in a book like the Autumn of the Patriarch. That is a character full of contradictions. That is a character who, in chapter one, hates a particular figure because they he they think that they're against him and then is becomes friends with them and then hires him to be his personal bodyguard. You know, that is what dictators are, and that is what authoritarians do. It is the cult of the person. It is the whims of the person, and the opinion of the person are the be all and the end all to the point where the nation is. It is at the whims of, of of a a person, of those of those persons contradictions. So I wouldn't say it's necessarily a Latin American nature to this, but I think Latin America, because we experience dictatorship in many times supported or boosted by the United States. Latin Americans were able to find a way to turn this into art. And quite good art is what I would say.Andrew Keen: Yeah, and of course, it's the artists who are best able to respond to this. As you know, it's not just a Latin American thing. The Central Europeans, the Czechs in particular. Yes.Felipe Torres Medina: Milan Kundera.Andrew Keen: Yeah. Written a series of wonderful books about this. But the only way to respond to someone like Trump, for example, who says one thing one day, the next thing the next day when he talks about tariffs, he says, well, I'm going to have 25%. And the next day, oh, I've decided I'm not going to have 25%. Then the following day he's going to change his mind again. The policy people, I'm not very helpful here. We need artists, satirists of one kind or another humorist like yourself to actually respond to this, don't we?Felipe Torres Medina: I think so. I think that that that is what. Helps you? I mean, it's the emperor has no clothes, right? That's how you talk. And it's about all kinds of government, obviously. Autocracy or dictatorship is one thing, but at all in all systems of government, these are powerful people who think they have they know better and who think that they are invincible. And you know what? What satire or humor and art does is just point out and say like, wait, that's weird. That thing they just did is weird. And being able to point that out is, is a talent. But also that's why people respond to it so well. People say like, yeah, that is weird. I also notice that. And so you create community, you create partnership in there. And so all of a sudden you're punching up, which is something you want to do in comedy. You want to make fun of the people who have more power, and you're all punching up and laughing at the same thing, and you're all kind of reminding each other. You're not crazy. This is weird.Andrew Keen: Yeah. I mean, the thing that worries me. I was on Kolber on the Colbert Show a few years ago in the original show. I mean, it's brilliant comic, very funny. But him and Jon Stewart and the others, they've been going so long, and they. I'm not saying they haven't changed their shtick. I mean, writers like you produce very high quality work for them, but it's one of the problems that these guys have been going for a while and America has changed, but perhaps they haven't.Felipe Torres Medina: I mean, it's an interesting thing to bring up, particularly with with Stephen, because his show was completely different. Ten years ago, it was a completely different show. He was doing a character. Yeah, right. And now he's doing a more traditional late night show. I think I think the format of late night is a very interesting beast that somehow has become A political genre. You know, it didn't used to be with Letterman. Didn't you see with Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno? You know, they would dabble in politics. They would talk about politics because it's what people are talking about. But now it's become kind of like this world. It all has to be satire. And there's some there's some great work. And I do think people keep innovating and making, like, new things, even though the shows are about ten years old. You know, you have Last Week Tonight, which my wife writes for, but it's a show that does more like deep dive investigations and stuff like that. So it's more like end of the week, 60 minutes, but with jokes kind of format. But I do think, yeah, maybe like the shows, can the shows in the genre in general, like there's genre I could do with some change and some mixing it up and.Andrew Keen: Well, maybe your friend Kumar could.Felipe Torres Medina: Yeah. Well, what? Let us get.Andrew Keen: A slot to his own late night show. And I wonder also, when it comes to I don't want to obsess over Trump or that course it's hard not to these days, but because he himself is a media star who most people know through his reality television appearance and he still behaves like a reality television star. Does that add another dimension of challenges to the satirical writers like yourself, and comics like or satirical comics like Colbert and Jon Stewart?Felipe Torres Medina: I think it's just a layer of how to interpret him as a person. At least for me, it's like, okay, well, you have to remember that he is a show man, and that's what he's doing.Andrew Keen: Yeah. So they're coming back to your your metaphor of the air and power and not having any clothes on. He kind of, in his own nodding wink way, acknowledges that he's not pretending to wear any clothes.Felipe Torres Medina: Yeah, and, well, sometimes he is and sometimes he isn't. And that is. That's the challenge. And that's why writing jokes about him every day is hard. But, you know, we we.Andrew Keen: And the more I know I watched Saturday Night Live last week that Zelensky thing and it was brilliant. Zelensky and Musk and Trump. But I'm very doubtful it actually impacts in any way on anything. Well, and I.Felipe Torres Medina: Think that that's also a misconception people have about comedy. You know, comedy is there to be funny. You know, comedy isn't there to change your mind if it does that, great. But the number one impetus for For Comedy should be to make you laugh. And so the idea that, like, a sketch show is going to change the nation. I don't know. Those are things that I think are applied on to comedy. They're kind of glob down to comedy. I don't necessarily think that that's what it the, the people making the comedy set out to do so. I think if if it made you laugh and if it works. The comedy has done its job. Comedy, unfortunately, can't change the world, you know. Otherwise, you know, I'm sure there would have been a very. There are many good Romanian comedians who could have done something about it has.Andrew Keen: You know, time to time. I mean, Hava became Czech president for a while. You, you, you know, that you sometimes see laugh, laughter and comedy as a kind of therapy when it comes to some of the stuff you do with Kovat. Are you in in America? Let me in. Are you presenting the experience, the heartbreaking experience? So certainly an enormously frustrating experience of the American immigration system as a kind of therapy, both for people who are experiencing it And outsiders, Americans in general.Felipe Torres Medina: And for myself, I think.Andrew Keen: And of course, yes. So self therapy, so to speak.Felipe Torres Medina: I think so, I mean, it is for me a way to like comedy is a way to process things for me. It comes naturally to me, and it is inopportune at times when dealing with things like grief and things like that. But I mean event, anyone who's gone through grief, I think, can tell you there's one moment when things are going really bad and one of the people grieving with you makes one joke and you all laugh and you're like, this. This somehow fixed for one second. It was great. And then we're back to sadness. So I think comedy, you know, as much as again, I go back to what I said a second ago, it's about making you laugh and that making you laugh can create that partnership, can create that empathy and that that that community therapy, I guess, of people saying like, oh wait, yeah, this is weird, this is strange. And I feel better that someone else recognized it, that someone else saw this.Andrew Keen: It certainly makes you saying, hey, you wrote an interesting piece for The New Yorker this week. In times like these, where you, you write perhaps satirically about what you call good Americans. Is the book written for good or bad Americans or all Americans or no Americans? Who do you want to read this book?Felipe Torres Medina: Oh my God. I want everyone to read it and everyone to buy a copy so that I've got a lot of money. All right. No, I think it's written for most Americans and and immigrants as well. People living here. But I do think, yeah, it's written for everyone. I don't think I wrote it with particular like, kind of group in mind. I think to me, Obviously with my background and my political affiliations, I think liberals will enjoy the book. But I also think, you know, people who are conservative, people who are MAGA, people who don't necessarily agree on my vision of immigration, can learn a lot from the book. And I purposely wrote it so that these people wouldn't necessarily be alienated or dismissed in any way. You know, it's a huge topic, and I think it was more of a like, I know you have an opinion. I'm just showing you some evidence. Make with it what you will, but I'm just showing you some evidence that it might not be as you believe it is, both for liberals and conservatives. You know, wherever you are on the spectrum, liberals think it's super easy. Conservatives that think it's super easy but in a bad way to move here. And I'm here kind of saying like, hey, it's actually this super complicated thing that maybe we should talk about and we should try to reform in some way.Andrew Keen: Yeah. And I think even when it comes to immigration, often people are talking about different things. Conservatives tend to be talking about quote unquote, illegal immigration and progressives talking about something else, too. You deal with people who try to get into America illegally, or is that for you, just a subject that you're not touching in this book?Felipe Torres Medina: I address it very lightly toward the final pages of the book. I first of all, I can, like, claim ownership on all immigrant narratives. And I wrote this about the legal immigration system because it's what I've navigated. Again, I am not an immigration lawyer. I am not an activist. I'm a comedy writer who happened to go through the immigration like system, so I but I did feel like, you know, okay, well, let's talk for a second. You've seen how hard it is because I've shown you all this evidence in the first couple stories in the book. And again, I say in the last pages because because of the interactive nature of the book, this could there is potentially a way for you for this to be the first, one of the first things you read in the book, but to where the last pages of the book, I say, okay, let's talk about you. We've seen how hard it is. Let's talk about the people who do so much to try and come here and who go even harder because they do it in the like, in the unauthorized way, you know, or the people who come here seeking asylum, which is a legal way to come to the United States, but is very difficult. So I do present that, but I do think it is not necessarily the subject of a comedy book, As I said earlier, when you're dealing with comedy, you want to be punching up. You want to be making fun of people in authority figures or in a sort of status position that is above the general population or the the voice of the comic. And with with undocumented immigrants and people trying to come here in irregular ways. It's it's very hard to find the humor there because these people are already suffering very much. And so to me, the line is threading the line of comedy there. It can very quickly turn into bullying or making fun of those people. And I don't want to do that because a lot of people are already doing that, and a lot of people who are already doing that work on this in this administration. So I don't I don't really want to mess with that.Andrew Keen: Philip, I'm not sure if you've got a a Spanish translation of the book. I'm sure there will be one eventually.Felipe Torres Medina: Hopefully.Andrew Keen: If people start reading this in Colombia, where you're from, Bolivia or Argentina, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, they think themselves, this is so hard to get in, even legally. Even if you have money to pay for lawyers, they might think, well, f**k it, I'll just try and get over the border illegally. And do you think in a way, I mean, it's obviously designed as a humor book, but in a way this would encourage any sane person to actually give up. I mean, go try and try and go somewhere else or just stay where you are.Felipe Torres Medina: I think, I think the book has a tone of I'm I'm a pretty optimistic person. So I think the book does have a tone of optimism and love for America. I do love the United States, where I, while presenting it as a difficult thing, I am also saying, like it? It's pretty good. You're going to have a good time if you make it here. So I don't think it will be a deterrent. Whether it's some sort of Trojan horse to create more people, to try and go through the border. I don't know, it'd be pretty funny if a funny book tended ended up doing that, but.Andrew Keen: It'd be great if we just got hold of the book and blamed you for for for all the illegal immigrants. But in all seriousness, it was been a lot of pieces recently about, according to the New York Times, people going silent for fear of retribution. As a comic writer and someone clearly on the left, the progressive in American politics. Do you think that there is a new culture of fear by some of your friends and colleagues in the comedy business? Are they fearing retribution? Trump, of all people, doesn't like to be laughed that some people say that he he only wanted to be president after Obama so brilliantly and comically destroyed him a few years ago.Felipe Torres Medina: I think in comedy, you know, I think people are tired of talking of Trump because, again, as I said, ten years of writing about him. I don't think anyone is necessarily afraid of talking about him or making fun of him. I think that is or his administration. I think that is proven like this past week with explosion of memes, making fun of J.D. Vance, his face, you know, to the point where J.D. Vance has tried to hop on the meme and be like, ha ha! Yes, I enjoy this very much too. Good job members. So like, obviously, first of all, he doesn't like it, but I think everyone is. And I think this is something that America does so well. Americans like to make fun of politicians, period. And even though I think in certain spaces of, you know, politics and activism, there might be fear of retribution that is much more marked. I think the let's make fun of of the Emperor for having no clothes that make fun of them is an instinct that that it's not going away and it won't go away any, anytime soon.Andrew Keen: Philip, finally, you've written a funny book about immigration. But of course, behind all the humor is a seriousness. Lots of jokes. It's a very entertaining, amusing, creative book. But it also, I think, suggests reform. You've given a great deal of thought. You've experienced it yourself. How can America improve its immigration story so that we don't have in the future more satirical books like America Like Me and what are the the reforms, realistically, that can be made that even conservatives might buy into?Felipe Torres Medina: Well, I think one of the biggest things is, if you look at it historically, there hasn't been comprehensive immigration reform since Clinton. Which is ridiculous. You know, we're nearing on 30 years there, and we're. We're basically 30 years since. And, you know, I'm 33, so it's a whole lifetime for a lot of people with no changes to a system, no comprehensive changes to a system. And that just means that, like it is going to become outdated. So obviously it's very hard right now with the tenor, but what we really need is for people to sit down and talk about it as a normal issue. And this is not an invasion. This is not a national emergency. It is simply an issue, an economic issue. And I think one of the biggest things, and one of my personal suggestions is that. The US Citizenship and Immigration Service has always been, as I said, this kind of strange ancillary part of the government. It started as part of the Department of Labor, eventually joining the Department of Justice. Then it goes back to labor. It kind of always bounces around. They don't know where it fits. And in after 911, it became part of the Department of Homeland Security. And I think that creates a an aura around immigration as something that is threatening to homeland security. You know, which is not true.Andrew Keen: Yeah. I see what you're saying. It's become the the sex when it comes to, in the context of Victorian something that we don't talk about, and we use metaphors and similes to, to, to describe. And I take your point on that. But what about some and I take your point on the fact that the system hasn't been reformed since Clinton. But let's end with a couple of final, just Doable reforms, Philippe, that can actually make the experience better. That will improve that. That might be cheaper that the the Doge people might buy into that both left and right will accept and say, oh, that's fair enough. This is one way we can make immigrating to America a better experience.Felipe Torres Medina: I think, rewarding if we're talking about this idea of like, we want the best immigrants, educated people. I think actually rewarding that because the current system does not do that for most people trying to get a work visa. They're subjected to a lottery where the chances are something like 1 in 16 of getting a work visa to be here, and that is really bad for companies in general. It's something that the big tech firms have been lobbying against for years, and because there's no consensus in Congress to actually do something. We have been able to address that. So I think actually rewarding the kind of like higher education, high achievement immigrants. In a way that isn't just like if you have $5 million, you can buy a gold car. Yeah, and.Andrew Keen: That's what Trump promised.Felipe Torres Medina: Right? Actually rewarding it in a way that's like, okay, well, if you have a college degree, maybe you don't just get a one year permit to work here, you know, maybe you can. There is a path for you to if you made your education here, if you start your professional life here, if you are contributing because all these immigrants are paying taxes or contributing, maybe there's a path that isn't as full of trapdoors and pitfalls. I would say that that that's one of the biggest things. And honestly, higher up, like I, I do think maybe this is my progressive side of me, but it's like get more people working in USCIS so that these waits aren't taking forever and getting more immigration judges, you know, hire people who are going to make this system efficient, because that is, I think, unfortunately, what Dodge thinks that the, you know, we're going to slim it down so it doesn't cost that much. Yeah. But if you slam it down, you don't have enough people. And there's a lot of people are still trying to come here and they're still trying to do things. And if you don't have enough people like working those cases, all you're creating is backlogs.Andrew Keen: Yeah. I'm guessing when those transforms the American immigration system through AI, you'll have another opportunity for you to write a book. Yeah. I mean, I let me in an important book, a very funny book, but also a very serious book by one of America's leading young comic writers full time, writing for Stephen Colbert, Philippe Torres Medina. Philippe, congratulations on the book. It's out next week. I think it will become a bestseller. Important book. Very funny too, and we can say the same about you. Thank you so much.Felipe Torres Medina: Thank you so much for having me.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
In this 83rd episode of Put Em on the Couch, we break down 10 clear signs that suggest President Donald Trump may be steering our country towards Autocracy. Nelson and I rewind Trumps recent speech to a joint session of congress. Using the President's own words, we analyze his rhetoric and discuss how it mirrors that of authoritarianism. Tune in to find out what all of this might mean for the future of American democracy. References: Arendt, H. (1973). The origins of totalitarianism. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Friedrich, C. J., & Brzezinski, Z. K. (1956). Totalitarian dictatorship and autocracy. Harvard University Press. Hetherington, M. J., & Weiler, J. D. (2009). Authoritarianism and polarization in American politics. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511627012 Pepinsky, T. (2017, January 9). Life in authoritarian states is mostly boring and tolerable: Americans have an overly dramatic view of what the end of democracy looks like. The Big Idea. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-big-idea/2017/01/09/life-in-authoritarian-states-is-mostly-boring-and-tolerable/
This episode of focuses on the dehumanizing aspects of autocratic movements. The increasing uncertainties about the future create vacuums that would be dictators and autocrats seek to fill with big lies and fraudulent claims that are presented with a false sense of certainty. The autocratic playbook that they all inevitably follow requires that they enforce forms of economic and informational isolation and instill a siege mentality that depicts the outside world as being hostile, unfair and dangerous. Authoritarian leaders deliberately seek to polarize people and radicalize what would otherwise be civil societies. They intentionally promote divisiveness and force people to take sides, while also demanding undivided loyalty to themselves. Autocrats cannot succeed unless others in power or seeking power assist them in creating an alternative reality. Eventually, those who enable and help justify the authoritarian regime lose their own ability to resist the inevitable descent into brutality, nihilism and violence. When questioning the judgment or actions of a leader equates to blasphemy, when blind loyalty overrides individual ethics and collective values, and when healthcare, science and education become tools for serving the agenda of the self-proclaimed savior rather than for seeking for truth and understanding, then a society has entered a critical phase of a life threatening socio-political disease. Autocratic leaders do not simply undermine institutions and sabotage basic freedoms, they also seek to normalize dehumanizing behaviors that make social and political violence unavoidable. If some people are denied their part in the whole of humanity, that leads to a diminishing of all the people. Ultimately, history is written in the depths of individual human souls and the story we are in is still being written. If we allow those in power to deny a genuine sense of humanity to some, we can only continue to lose our way and further lose our souls. If we open ourselves to the understanding that we are literally all in the same story, each suffering in our own way, we may find genuine ways to help heal and protect each other and have no need and no room for would be autocrats or self-appointed kings. Thank you for listening to and supporting Living Myth. You can hear Michael Meade live by joining his free online event “Radical Resilience” on Thursday, March 27. Register and learn more at mosaicvoices.org/events. You can further support this podcast by becoming a member of Living Myth Premium. Members receive bonus episodes each month, access to the full archives of over 650 episodes and a 30% discount on all events, courses and book and audio titles. Learn more and join this community of listeners at patreon.com/livingmyth. If you enjoy this podcast, we appreciate you leaving a review wherever you listen and sharing it with your friends. On behalf of Michael Meade and the whole Mosaic staff, we wish you well and thank you for your support of our work.
WBAI host Jenna Flanagan discussed Politics Done Right's Egberto Willies' article titled "Why did the Sunday mainstream media news sound so normal? We must do better."Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://politicsdoneright.com/newsletterPurchase our Books: As I See It: https://amzn.to/3XpvW5o How To Make AmericaUtopia: https://amzn.to/3VKVFnG It's Worth It: https://amzn.to/3VFByXP Lose Weight And BeFit Now: https://amzn.to/3xiQK3K Tribulations of anAfro-Latino Caribbean man: https://amzn.to/4c09rbE
From Republic to Autocracy, How Ancient Rome Warns Us About Democracy's FragilityAlex Petkas is a writer, entrepreneur, and the host of Cost of Glory, a podcast celebrating Western Civilization's eminent heroes. With a PhD in Classics from Princeton University, he transitioned from academia to alternative media, where he empowers professionals and entrepreneurs through educational programs and leadership retreats. Alex's mission is to translate profound insights from Greco-Roman leaders and philosophers into actionable wisdom for contemporary achievers, fostering a deeper appreciation for historical greatness among today's innovators.He talks to Bernie today about a topic on many people's minds these days... How similar are current events to the final days of the Roman Republic?The answers might surprise you! Tune in to find out!Hook a hard-working podcaster up!https://buymeacoffee.com/whatsnewinhistoryLinks:Alex's websitehttps://www.costofglory.com/Arnold J. Toynbee is the historian I reference in the episodehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Study_of_Historyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gzkHhSMHIAhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/755218.Catiline_s_War_The_Jurgurthine_War_HistoriesJUST READ! It's good for youhttps://kwikbrain.medium.com/10-brain-reasons-to-make-reading-a-habit-aa628d4b498cThis is a podcast by Dan Hörning and Bernie Maopolski.If you like what we do you can support the Fan of History project on https://www.patreon.com/fanofhistoryContact information:E-mail: zimwaupodcast@gmail.comhttp://facebook.com/fanofhistoryhttps://twitter.com/danhorninghttps://www.instagram.com/dan_horning/Music: “Tudor Theme” by urmymuse.Used here under a commercial Creative Commons license. Find out more at http://ccmixter.org/files/urmymuse/40020 Support the show and listen ad-free to all of the episodes, including episode 1-87. Click here: https://plus.acast.com/s/history. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Joe Sudbay is guest hosting for John again. He talks about Trump railing against President Zelensky while brown-nosing Vladmir Putin. He also discusses Trump posting a picture of himself as royalty on Truth Social proclaiming "Long Live the King" after announcing his challenge to NYC congestion pricing. Then, he interviews Kathleen J. Frydl who is an award-winning historian and author. She has written The G.I. Bill and The Drug Wars in America, 1940-1973 and they discuss her forthcoming piece: Liberalism & the Reinvention of the Corporate Person. Next, Joe speaks with Sarah Parker who is a prominent Black activist and community organizer based in Florida, known for her unwavering commitment to social justice and reproductive rights. She is the President and Executive Director of Voices of Florida, a grassroots organization dedicated to advocacy, education, and community support. Then finally, he plays a clip of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy passing the buck on recent plane crashes and chats with listeners about the resistance to Trump.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
During President Trump's first term, journalist Anne Applebaum reported on how he was moving toward authoritarianism. Now she's describing Trump's actions as regime change. "Our imagination of a coup or regime change is that there are tanks and violence and somebody shoots up the chandelier in the presidential palace," she says. "Actually, nowadays, that's not how democracies fail. They fail through attacks on institutions coming from within." Applebaum also talks about the dismantling of America's civil service system and how the Trump administration is distancing itself from NATO, while getting closer with Putin. Applebaum is a staff writer at the Atlantic and author of Autocracy, Inc.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Is the United States headed toward autocracy?That's a question prompted by a steady stream of executive orders seeking to consolidate power in the White House and upend long held policies and norms.New York Times Opinion writer M. Gessen lived through much of Russia's slide into autocracy, and wrote a book about it. They argue that one of the ways Vladimir Putin consolidated power... was by making a series of arguments that seemed outrageous at the time — like the idea that the LGBT population was a threat to Russian sovereignty. President Donald Trump's second term has been marked by a string of policy proposals that would have been unthinkable in any other administration.Even if they don't go anywhere, they're reshaping the boundaries of our democracy. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
From Russia to China: Autocracy, Inc. author Anne Applebaum reveals how modern autocrats create a new world order by working together against democracy. What We Discuss with Anne Applebaum: Modern autocracies form opportunistic networks rather than ideological blocs, collaborating through financial interests, technology sharing, and mutual support against democratic ideals — despite having different political systems. Russia's invasion of Ukraine represents a deliberate challenge to international law and norms, with Putin demonstrating he can violate conventions without consequences. China's surveillance technology has evolved to potentially predict political dissent by combining online monitoring, real-world tracking, and AI analysis — and this technology is being exported to other authoritarian regimes. The decline of democracy is typically gradual, often taking decades as institutions are slowly undermined, while many citizens may not realize their democracy is eroding until it becomes impossible to elect alternative leadership. Citizens can strengthen democracy through active local engagement: participating in local politics, joining community organizations, and building real-world connections across political divides. This practical involvement in addressing concrete local issues helps counter online polarization and maintain democratic resilience. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1117 And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course! Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom! Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!
President Trump’s social media post over the weekend that implied he is above the law triggered alarm bells from experts who were already concerned about the legal and constitutional boundaries tested during his first few weeks in office. Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, joins Amna Nawaz to discuss for our new series, "On Democracy." PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders
In this episode, we welcome back Joe Gallina, a brilliant mind behind the Call to Activism social media account. Together, we delve into the current political landscape, discussing the implications of Elon Musk's actions and the challenges facing our democracy. Joe shares his insights as an attorney on the importance of judicial checks on executive power and the dangers of unchecked authority. We explore the MAGA movement's impact on governance and the necessity for a united front against the chaos. Join us for an engaging conversation that highlights the urgency of activism and the power of community in these tumultuous times.
In this latest episode in the Two Kens collaborative series on American politics and Christian nationalism, Fong and Kemp point out the jarring historical parallels with how Germany's Hitler and Hungary's Orban were able to dismantle their countries democracies so quickly. This episode is a call to action and resistance for every American who is now seeing the clear signs of decay in our democracy. Transition and outro music credit to The Isley Brothers and their "Fight the Power" anthem from 1975.
Elon Musk and a band of young DOGE engineers are taking control of key government infrastructure. The scale and speed with which they're hijacking control of the federal government is shocking, and even President Donald Trump appears not to know all that Musk is doing. In order to analyze what's actually happening and understand how and why other tech billionaires are also cozying up to Trump, we're joined by Anne Applebaum, Eoin Higgins & Ryan Mac. Applebaum is a staff writer for The Atlantic, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, and author of the recently released Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run The World. Higgins is a reporter for the IT Brew and author of Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left. And Mac covers corporate accountability across the global technology industry for the New York Times, and he is the co-author of Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter. This episode was recorded on Monday February 3rd. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on Instagram and TikTok @onwithkaraswisher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Less than two weeks into Donald Trump's second term, the president is flooding the zone with executive orders, testing the very institutions that uphold democracy. The question now is how far can Trump bend these democratic institutions before they break? To find out, Christiane spoke to Princeton Professor and autocracy expert Kim Lane Scheppele and Norm Eisen, a former counsel to the House Judiciary Committee and U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic. Then, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians returned to what is left of their homes in northern Gaza this week, and while hostages are released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, Christiane sat down with Oliver Mcternan, a former Catholic priest turned hostage negotiator. They speak about possible next steps in the ceasefire deal and how to break the endless cycle of violence in the region. Plus, eighty years ago this week, Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz. It marked the beginning of the end of the Holocaust, the darkest chapter in human history. From her archives, Christiane's 2008 reported from Auschwitz for a documentary called "Scream Bloody Murder" which chronicled the stories of those few brave souls who tried to expose genocide. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In this episode, William Green speaks with Barron's Roundtable member Bill Priest, who is Vice Chairman of TD Wealth and founder, Chairman, and Co-Chief Investment Officer of TD Epoch. Bill is the co-author of several books, including “Winning at Active Management.” Having prospered for six decades in the financial markets, Bill has seen it all. Here, he talks about his core investing principles & why he believes investors are too complacent in the face of mounting risk & fragility. IN THIS EPISODE YOU'LL LEARN: 00:00 - Intro 06:50 - How Bill Priest fell in love with the stock market. 40:30 - Why he focuses relentlessly on free cash flow & cost of capital. 41:11 - How he goes about analyzing a business. 48:41 - Why growth stocks may start to struggle. 50:47 - Why he's worried about the threat of stagflation. 59:16 - How investors can protect themselves from an unknowable future. 1:03:36 - Why AI is unstoppable, not just another bubble. 1:07:35 - Why he'd be “very careful” about investing in China. 1:15:38 - Why you should keep ample cash to ride out difficult times. 1:17:20 - Why his exposure to equities is much lower than usual. 1:21:16 - How to be a successful leader. 1:57:16 - What he's learned from his daughter about happiness. Disclaimer: Slight discrepancies in the timestamps may occur due to podcast platform differences. BOOKS AND RESOURCES Bill Priest's investment firm, Epoch Investment Partners. Bill Priest's book, “Free Cash Flow & Shareholder Yield.” Bill Priest's book, “Winning at Active Management.” Anne Applebaum's book “Autocracy, Inc.” Ruchir Sharma's book, “What Went Wrong with Capitalism.” William Green's book, “Richer, Wiser, Happier” – read the reviews of this book. Follow William Green on X. Check out all the books mentioned and discussed in our podcast episodes here. Enjoy ad-free episodes when you subscribe to our Premium Feed. NEW TO THE SHOW? Join the exclusive TIP Mastermind Community to engage in meaningful stock investing discussions with Stig, Clay, Kyle, and the other community members. Follow our official social media accounts: X (Twitter) | LinkedIn | | Instagram | Facebook | TikTok. Browse through all our episodes (complete with transcripts) here. Try our tool for picking stock winners and managing our portfolios: TIP Finance Tool. Enjoy exclusive perks from our favorite Apps and Services. Learn how to better start, manage, and grow your business with the best business podcasts. SPONSORS Support our free podcast by supporting our sponsors: Hardblock Found Unchained The Bitcoin Way Vanta Fintool PrizePicks Onramp SimpleMining TurboTax Fundrise HELP US OUT! Help us reach new listeners by leaving us a rating and review on Spotify! It takes less than 30 seconds, and really helps our show grow, which allows us to bring on even better guests for you all! Thank you – we really appreciate it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm
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