Trump Watch

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Bernie Sanders has stopped his direct attacks on Hillary, and he’s been able to make some strong appointments to the platform committee for the Democratic National Convention. Is the unification of the party underway? Harold Meyerson explains.

Plus: Most “independent” voters in fact have long-standing ties to one party or the other—very few swing from one party to the other between elections. Joshua Holland has the facts.

And Tom Frank examines the “Hillary Doctrine,” her long-standing commitment to microfinance as the best way to help poor women around the world. It doesn’t work, he argues. Tom’s new book is Listen, Liberal!

Bernie is holding big rallies all over southern California this week—Santa Monica on Monday (left), Anaheim and Riverside on Tuesday, Lancaster today, Ventura tomorrow.  John Nichols has our political update.

Also on today’s show: What Happened to Sandra Bland?  To understand that, you have to begin way before she died in a Texas jail, a year ago.  Debbie Nathan reports on one black life that mattered.

Plus: Historian Eric Foner takes up the question that has troubled Bernie Sanders’s supporters for months: Why didn’t more black people vote for Bernie?  How come so many African-Americans support Hillary?

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Hillary will have to do something different to beat Donald Trump, Bruce Shapiro argues— because appealing to moderates, like the Clintons did in the nineties, is not going to work this year.

Also: The #BreakFree climate protests have mobilized tens of thousands in direct actions against coal, oil, and gas companies around the world. Zoë Carpenter reports.

Plus: Patrick Cockburn, who Seymour Hersh has called “the best Western journalist at work in Iraq today,” gives us an update on Iraq, Syria, Libya, and ISIS.  His new book is Chaos and Caliphate: Jihadis and the West in the Struggle for the Middle East.

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Donald Trump’s ideal opponent is a member of the establishment, Steve Fraser argues—the kind that used to be called a “limousine liberal.” Hillary Clinton, he argues, fits the bill perfectly.

Also: The only way Trump could win, says Ari Berman, is through suppressing the vote of Democrats in half a dozen swing states. A state-by-state survey suggests he’s unlikely to succeed.

And historian Eric Foner takes up the question that has troubled Bernie Sanders’s supporters for months: How did Bernie lose the African-American vote to Clinton?  One reason: voting for Hillary for many in black America is one last chance to vote for Obama.

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“Boom Bust Boom” is the delightful new film made by TERRY JONES of Monty Python.  it explains economics to everyone, and answers three big questions: 1. Why do crashes keep happening? 2. Why are students taught crashes do NOT happen? 3. Will we ever learn from our mistakes?
ALAN MINSKY comments–the film features the economic theories of his father, Hyman Minsky.

Also: HAROLD MEYERSON on the “hostile takeover” of the GOP–by a man named Trump.

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When Hillary defeats Donald Trump in November, his millions of supporters will be told that their American birthright has once again been stolen. Rick Perlstein talks about the potential for violence in the streets after election day.

Plus: What really happened to Sandra Bland? To understand that, you have to begin way before she died in a Texas jail. Debbie Nathan reports — on one black life that mattered.

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Donald Trump says he’ll fight for jobs against NAFTA-type trade deals, and he doesn’t take money from Wall Street. Is that enough to win some of Bernie Sanders’s supporters to his side? John Nichols weighs in on this week’s primary results.

Plus: The Prince of Sex: Richard Kim explains why Prince is a gay icon today—despite the artist’s lack of support for the gay movement.

Also: Challenging “Political Correctness” is a favorite theme of Donald Trump—but what exactly does that mean? Laila Lalami explain

John Nichols on yesterday’s primaries: Trump’s triumphs; and what’s left for Bernie now – beyond staying in thru California in June?  John’s new book is People Get Ready.
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Plus: political spin – we hate it! But is it really getting worse?  Historian David Greenberg says probably not – his new book is  Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency.
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And from the archives: David Wilson, founder and director of the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City, talks about the tiny world of micro-miniature sculpture.

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A Clinton vs. Trump campaign in the fall would be a battle of the negatives, Frank Rich says—and Hillary’s are dangerously high.

Plus: Hillary and Haiti—a long relationship, and a revealing one.  Amy Wilentz comments.
Read Chelsea Clinton’s once-secret memo about the Clinton Foundation’s failings in Haiti here.
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And we speak with Viet Nguyen—his novel The Sympathizer just won the Pulitzer Prize.  It begins in Saigon on the last day of the Vietnam war, and features a Viet Cong spy inside the Saigon army.

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Maybe you heard the news: Hillary won big in the New York primary, and Trump’s victory was “huuge”” – HAROLD MEYERSON will talk about where Bernie can go from here, and what might happen in a Hillary vs. Trump campaign.

Also: America can never win its mideast wars—that’s what military historian ANDREW BACEVICH says – his new book is America’s War for the Greater Middle East.

And we’ll talk about genocide in Indonesia in the sixties, and its aftermath today, with documentary filmmaker JOSHUA OPPENHEIMER—his film The Look of Silence received the Ridenhour Documentary Film Award today in Washington.
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