What Biden can do on Day One without the Senate: Harold Meyerson; Trump voters: Joan Walsh; ‘Queen’s Gambit’: Ella Taylor

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Harold Meyerson considers the consequences of failing to win control of the Senate–and points to dozens of far-reaching executive actions Biden could take without Senate approval.
Plus: Joan Walsh of The Nation says, ‘It shouldn’t have been so close.”
and TV critic Ella Taylor reviews “The Queen’ Gambit,” the terrific series on Netflix about the protofeminist female chess champion in Cold War America.  11-5-20

 

The Politics of White Men, from Obama to Trump: Melissa Harris-Perry and Dorian Warren, plus Sherrod Brown on voting and Eric Foner on disputed elections

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Melissa Harris-Perry and Dorian Warren talk about the changing voter turnout among white men and people of color over the last three presidential elections—and other features of our political system. They are hosting a new podcast for The Nation, “System Check”—checking the systems that hold us back: premiering Friday at TheNation.com, Apple podcasts, and elsewhere.
Also: talking politics, and history, with Sherrod Brown. Of course he’s the senior senator from Ohio, first elected in 2006. He was re-elected in 2018—he won by 7 points—in a state Hillary Clinton had lost—by 8 points—just 2 years earlier. He talks about how he did that, and how Biden has learned the lessons of that campaign.
Plus: disputed elections past and present: Maybe the election next week will have a big enough vote for Biden so that it can’t be challenged in court; maybe the Republicans won’t dispute the outcome. But maybe they will. We’ve had other disputed elections in our history—of course we had the Supreme Court stopping the count in Florida in 2000; and there was another one, much less well known—the election of 1876. Historian Eric Foner explains.  10-28-20

White Voters and Joe Biden: Harold Meyerson; The Chicago 7: Lee Weiner; Borat: Ella Taylor

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Harold Meyerson reviews Biden’s excellent recent poll results in swing states, and looks at the Democrats’ long standing problem with white male voters, and what can be done to bring them back into the party. Also: The one union that’s doing door-to-door precinct work during the pandemic.
Also: ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’ – the new Aaron Sorkin film – is the most-widely reviewed movie in America right now; 250 critics have written about it. Of course it’s about the trial of leaders of the antiwar protests at the Democratic National Convention in 1968 in Chicago –the indicted included Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, Bobby Seale, Davie Dellinger, John Froines and Lee Weiner – and we have a conversation with Lee Weiner – about the movie, and what really happened.
Plus: This week more than ever we need a bit of relief from the election
–maybe the new Borat movie? Sasha Baron Cohen’s return with his memorable character from ‘Khazakstan’–but of course it’s all about “President MacDonald Trump.” Ella Taylor will talk about “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.” 10-29-20

Mike Davis: Climate Change, Extreme Fires, and White Flight plus Rennie Davis on ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7′

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Mike Davis argues that climate change is bringing “extinction events” to native land cover around the world. Extreme fires are one of the main forces bringing this apocalypse—spurred in places like California by white flight among Trump supporters to high-fire-danger areas.
Also: The new Aaron Sorkin film, Trial of the Chicago 7, opened on Netflix this past weekend. Of course it’s about the 1969 trial of leaders of the antiwar movement, including Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Rennie Davis—and we have Rennie Davis as a guest. He was the New Left’s most talented organizer, and he talks about the film and the real history of those protests—and also politics today.  10-21-20

Disputed elections, past and present: Eric Foner; David Byrne’s utopia: Ella Taylor

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Maybe the November election will have a big enough vote for Biden so that it can’t be challenged in court; maybe the Republicans won’t dispute the outcome. But maybe they will – we’ve had other disputed elections in our history — of course we had the Supreme Court stopping the count in Florida in 2000–and there was another one, much less well known–the election of 1876. For some comparisons we turn to Eric Foner — he’s won the Pulitzer prize, the Bancroft Prize and the Lincoln prize for his work, most of which has been about Reconstruction.
Also: making music together in a dark time: that’s David Byrne’s utopia. there’s a movie about it, and it’s playing now on HBO Max: “American Utopia.” Ella Taylor comments. 10-23-20

Can ‘herd immunity’ lead to ‘re-opening America’? Gregg Gonsalves on Covid-19, plus Allissa Richardson on Black Cell-Phone Videos

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A group of scientists are calling it “The Great Barrington declaration”—a strategy to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic by age-targeted reopening. The advocates call it “focused protection”; they say it would create herd immunity. Gregg Gonsalves argues that it will not—and that “we can do better.”
Also: Cell-phone videos of police killing Black people have had an immense political impact over the last couple of years. Allissa Richardson comments on the videos and the new Black protest journalism, based largely on Twitter. Her new book is Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones, and the New Protest #Journalism. 10-14-20