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The 2020 election will liberate us from Donald Trump and Republican hegemony.  A sweeping Democratic victory will make it possible at last for us to address our most serious problems. That’s what Stan Greenberg says – he’s a longtime pollster and adviser to Democratic presidents from Clinton to Obama.  He’s also a bestselling author, with a new book out – it has the wonderful title R.I.P. G.O.P.: How the New America is Dooming the Republicans.
Also: Edward Snowden published a memoir this week, called Permament Record, and The Nation magazine features an excerpt–it’s about his youthful enthusiasm for home computers connected to the internet, which had just become available, and the contrast he draws between the internet in those days and what it soon brought: the “identitarian consistency” required by “surveillance capitalism.”   Editor D.D. Guttenplan explains.
Also: What’s Really Going on While Trump Creates Chaos: Sasha Abramsky separates what Trump is actually doing from what he’s tweeting.  His new column at TheNation.com is “Signal/Noise.”  9/18/19

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Last week Tory rebels in parliament staged a dramatic insurrection against their own Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, blocking his plans for a “no-deal Brexit.”  But virtually no Republicans in Congress have resisted Trump.  Why is that?  D.D. Guttenplan compares and contrasts the two parties and political systems – he’s editor of The Nation, and he’s lived in Britain for the last 25 years.
Also: It’s hard to keep track of Trump’s outrages—there are new ones virtually every day.  But Nation columnist Katha Pollitt remembers; she discusses almost every bad thing Trump did this summer.  And she takes up the question, is Trump getting worse?  More unhinged, more desperate, perhaps because he sees that his chances of winning reelection are not good?
Plus: Thirteen House Republicans have announced their retirements in the past several weeks—they don’t want to run for reelection in 2020.  They are a diverse group, and include moderates as well as conservatives, some newcomers and some with decades of seniority, two of the party’s 13 women, and its only African-American Congressman.  How much can the Democrats hope to gain from this development?  John Nichols comments–he’s National Affairs Correspondent for The Nation and host of the “Next Left” podcast.  9/12/19

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How the Koch brothers transformed an obscure oil company based in Wichita into a $110 billion colossus, and reshaped the Republican Party—but failed to prevent Trump from becoming president: Christopher Leonard on Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America.
Also: Indivisible, the big network of local Democratic Party activists that sprang up after Trump’s victory, faces a big challenge: whether to endorse a candidate in the Democratic Primaries.  Joan Walsh reports on the conflict between the Washington headquarters of the organization and the hundreds of grassroots groups.  9/5/19

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We’re still thinking about the terrorist attack in El Paso, where 22 people were killed at a Walmart and two dozen more were injured.  Like almost all of these attacks, the El Paso killings have been treated as an isolated event carried out by a loner.  But the attacks in Charleston, Charlottesville, Christchurch, El Paso and elsewhere are connected; they are all part of the White Power movement, with roots going back to the 1970s.  That’s what Kathleen Belew says — she writes for the New York Times op-ed page, she teaches history at the University of Chicago, and she’s the author of the book “Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America,” it’s out now in paperback.
Also: HUAC is history; the heyday of the House Un=American Activities Committee was the 1950s.  But we’re still concerned about government attacks on people, and groups– called “Un-American.”  David Maraniss has been thinking about that history – his father was called before HUAC in 1952 and then blacklisted from his job as a newspaper editor. His new book is “A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father.”  8/29/19

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The latest polls—including the highly respected Fox poll—show Trump in terrible shape at this point: Among registered voters he trails Biden 50-38, Bernie 48-39, Elizabeth Warren 46-39, and even Kamala Harris 45-39. He’s losing crucial segments of his 2016 base. And in many of the states he carried last time, he’s deep into negative territory on the approval polls. Jeet Heer comments—and takes up the question, how does he think he can win?
Also: The synergy between politics and popular culture has never been clearer or stronger than in the Age of Reagan—and now there’s a wonderful new book on “movie culture in the Age of Reagan”—it’s called Make My Day, by J. Hoberman; for thirty years he was a film critic for the Village Voice.  He talks about Dirty Harry, Star Wars, Rambo, and Ghostbusters—and how Trump compares with Reagan, pointing to Howard Beale in Network and to Rocky’s racist happy ending. 8/21/19