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Barack Obama lost 63 seats in his first midterm. Trump lost 40. Biden will lose 6 or 8. How did the Dems do it? Harold Meyerson has been thinking about that.
Also, The Nation‘s top political writers analyze the good, the bad, and the ugly of the midterm elections, and find keys to building a winning coalition for 2024: D.D. Guttenplan, Elie Mystal, Joan Walsh, John Nichols, and Chris Lehmann. 11-10-2022
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How can we save democracy from white nationalism and right-wing authoritarianism? Steve Phillips argues we need to organize and turn out the millions of non-voters – people of color and young people – with a long-term, data-based strategy. Steve’s new book is “How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good.”
Also: a story about Black landownership, starting in Piney Woods, North Carolina, one of the oldest examples of uninterrupted land ownership by Black people in the US, going back to before the Civil War. Cameron Oglesby has that report. 11-3-2022
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In the key swing states of Arizona, Pennsylvania and Nevada, the union UNITE-HERE has the biggest ground game of any organization – Harold Meyerson explains what they do, how they do it, and why they are so good at it.
Also: How can we save democracy from white nationalism and right-wing authoritarianism? Steve Phillips argues (we need to organize and turn out the millions of non-voters) – people of color and young people – with a long-term, data-based strategy. Steve’s new book is “How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good.”
Plus; Stacey Abrams, running for governor in Georgia, is behind in the polls of likely voters. But her whole strategy is to organize and mobilize people who do NOT vote regularly – to expand the electorate with young people, people of color, and those the political scientists call “low-propensity voters.” She explains in this interview, from April, 2019, after her first campaign for governor. 11-4-2022
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Stacey Abrams, running for governor in Georgia, is behind in the polls of likely voters, which the pollsters define as people who vote regularly, especially in the last midterms, four years ago. But her whole strategy is to organize and mobilize people who do NOT vote regularly – to expand the electorate with young people, people of color, and those the political scientists call “low-propensity voters.” She explains in this interview, from April, 2019, after her first campaign for governor.
Also: Mike Davis, author and activist, radical hero and family man, died on Tuesday, Oct. 25. After talking about his life and work, we play part of an interview with him on this podcast from November, 2016, one week after Trump was elected. 10-27-2022
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Election day is less than two weeks away. What should the Democrats’ closing message be? Harold Meyerson of The American Prospect comments.
Also: Mike Davis, author and activist, radical hero and family man, died on Tuesday, Oct. 25. After talking about his life and work, we play part of an interview with him on this podcast from November, 2016, one week after Trump was elected.
Plus: The Trump years are not the only time American democracy has been threatened – the World War One years, when Democrat Woodrow Wilson was president, were another. That’s what Adam Hochschild argues –his new book is “American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis.” 10-27-2022
“City of Quartz,” Mike Davis’ masterpiece, was remarkable in many ways, not the least of which was the author photo, which became the focus of the Nation magazine’s review. There, Marshall Berman wrote that Mike looked like “an aging, ravaged light-heavyweight” who “doesn’t want company.” Berman confessed he was so turned off by the photo that the book “lay on my night table for weeks” before he started reading it. So began Davis’ ambivalent career in the intellectual trenches, declaring his independence by defying the convention of the warm, inviting author photo.
… continued at LATimes.com, HERE 10-26-2022
A brilliant radical reporter with a novelist’s eye and a historian’s memory.
Mike Davis, author and activist, radical hero and family man, died October 25 after a long struggle with esophageal cancer; he was 76. He’s best known for his 1990 book about Los Angeles, City of Quartz. Marshall Berman, reviewing it for The Nation, said it combined “the radical citizen who wants to grasp the totality of his city’s life, and the urban guerrilla aching to see the whole damned thing blow.”
… continued at TheNation.com, HERE 10-26-2022
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What will Republicans do if they win control of the House in the midterms? Now they’ve said something about that, officially: they call it their “Commitment to America.” Chris Lehmann calls it “a grab bag of cultural resentments papering over an anemic policy wish list.”
Also: The Trump years are not the only time American democracy has been threatened; the World War One years, when Democrat Woodrow Wilson was president, were another. That’s what Adam Hochschild argues –his new book is “American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis.” 10-20-2022
Listen HERE
Latino voters hold the keys to Democratic victories in the swing states of Arizona and Nevada, Harold Meyerson argues. New polling data highlights the possibilities – and the problems.
plus: Joe Biden has just made marijuana legalization a campaign issue–the Democrats should run with it, says John Nichols.
Also: Greil Marcus talks about Bob Dylan, from “Blowin’ in the Wind” in 1962 to “Murder Most Foul” in 2020. Greil has a new book out, it’s called “Folk Music: A Bob Dylan Biography in 7 Songs.” 10-20-2022
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Joe Biden has just made marijuana legalization a campaign issue–the Democrats should run with it, says John Nichols.
Also: Greil Marcus talks about Bob Dylan, from “Blowin’ in the Wind” to “Murder Most Foul.” He has a new book out, it’s called “Folk Music: A Bob Dylan Biography in 7 Songs.” 10-13-2022
Talking about politics, thinking about the Left.
The podcast “Living in the USA” is the online version of “Living in the USA” at KPFK radio, hosted by Jon Wiener and broadcast live Thursdays at 4pm at 90.7FM in LA, also streaming live at www.kpfk.org
New episodes posted every Thursday afternoon, at livingintheusapod.com
