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 Tom Frank: Would Bernie Have Been Able to Beat Trump? Hell Yes!

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In the Rust Belt, “they hated Hillary”—that’s what Tom Frank found on his recent book tour for the paperback edition of Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?
Also: Is Ivanka Trump responsible for her father’s attack on Syria? Amy Wilentz comments on the president’s reliance on his daughter—and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Plus: Now that Neil Gorsuch has been sworn in as a Supreme Court justice, Ari Berman reviews the big picture of the battle for voting rights.

 Chris Hayes: Donald Trump Is a Law-and-Order President In the Worst Possible Way. TheNation 4/6

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How we got from the events in Ferguson to the election of you-know-who: Chris Hayes talks about race, incarceration, and politics in his new book  A Colony in a Nation—Salon called it “a dark book for a dark time.”

Plus: Although Trump was the least Christian of all the Republican candidates, white evangelicals voted for him overwhelmingly, despite the work of some prominent evangelical leaders.  Sarah Posner of the Nation Institute analyzes the political deal that evangelicals made—she wrote about the issue last month for The New Republic.

And Gary Younge explains what it’s been like talking about kids killed by guns—on call-in shows on talk radio.  His book Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives recently won the Anthony J. Lukas Prize.

 

 Chris Hayes: Americans Hated Trump’s Health-Care Plan—Will They Go For Single Payer? TheNation.com

JW: A week after repeal-and-replace failed in the House, we’re trying to assess the damage to Trump and the opportunities for progressives. Seems to me this is a disaster for Trump, and a disaster for the Republican Party. Is it possible this is wrong?

Chris Hayes: No. I don’t think you’re wrong. What an unbelievable failure. I have never, in my political reporting career, seen something crash and burn quite like this. Sixty times they voted for repeal, while Obama was president, and now you cannot get a vote for this piece of, frankly, garbage legislation that no one liked—no one across the ideological spectrum.
…continued HERE

Chris Hayes: Trump ‘Knew Literally—And I Mean Literally—Nothing About’ His Health-Care Bill

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Chris Hayes assesses the damage to Trump and to the Republicans caused by the failure of their effort to end Obamacare—and the opportunities the major defeat now opens up for progressives.
Plus: The deepening crisis facing Trump over questions about his campaign’s collusion with the Russians. Joan Walsh comments.
And Amy Wilentz argues that all the publicity about Ivanka and her children is part of a Trump media campaign to distract the public and delight tabloid readers.

Is Trump Like Nixon? Rick Perlstein Q&A 3/29

If you Google the question “Is Trump Like Nixon,” you get something like four million reults, mostly answering ‘yes.’
But we weren’t so sure about that, so we checked with Rick Perlstein–he wrote the book Nixonland.
READ our Q&A with Rick Perlstein HERE

The GOP Repeal-and-Replace Fiasco: John Nichols on Trump Watch 3/23

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The House GOP abandoned its vote to repeal Obamacare and replace it with TrumpCare, I mean RyanCare. On ”Trump Watch” we have comment from John Nichols of The Nation.

Also: Why do many white workers who voted for Trump still support him? The Nation sent D.D. Guttenplan to the rust belt to find out— he’s returned now with his report.

Plus: The City of LA has expanded its sanctuary policy – but the County sheriff is pulling back from the crucial question of the jails. We’ll speak about it with Ahilan Arulanantham, legal director of the ACLU of southern California.

 Jane Mayer on the Reclusive Billionaire Who Made Trump President:
Start Making Sense 3/23

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The hedge-fund magnate Robert Mercer was probably the most important backer of Trump for president. Jane Mayer of The New Yorker has the first in-depth report on this little-known figure and former Breitbart News funder.

Also: Is Trump like Nixon? Both won by exploiting the resentments of the white working class; both covered up crimes committed by their campaigns against the Democrats. But Rick Perlstein, author of the classic book Nixonland, says the answer is no: Trump is not like Nixon.

Plus: Tom Hayden finished a book on the antiwar movement of the 1960s before he died in October: Hell No: The Forgotten Power of the Vietnam Peace Movement. It’s out now from Yale University Press. Steve Wasserman, Tom’s editor and publisher, comments.