Women Voters and the Midterms: Katrina vanden Heuvel, Joan Walsh, and Cecile Richards; plus Ari Berman on vote suppression and Gary Younge on the Midwest

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Women voters—and candidates—are mobilized as never before for next week’s midterms: Joan Walsh and Cecile Richards report from across the country at a Nation event introduced by publisher and editor Katrina vanden Heuvel.  Joan is the magazine’s National Affairs Correspondent and Cecile recently stepped down as head of Planned Parenthood after leading the organization since 2006.
Also: the Democrats are focusing now on voter mobilization and turnout, while the Republicans are at work on voter suppression.  How significant will the Republican effort be in this election–and where is it likely to have the biggest impact?  Ari Berman reports—he wrote about vote suppression for the New York Times opinion pages.
Plus Gary Younge, The Nation columnist, talks about politics in the midwest, the heartland, the rust belt – he’s covering the midterms from Racine, Wisconsin, an old Democratic factory town on Lake Michigan.  After so many defeats in the state, Democrats there told him they “can’t afford the luxury of hope.”  11/1/18

Midterm Countdown: John Nichols & David Dayen; Plus Sandi Tan on “Shirkers”

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With five days until the November 6 Midterm elections, we have two political updates: John Nichols comments on national matters–Trump’s closing, he says, is bound to get worse; and David Dayen reports on the California situation–where Democrats hope to flip five or six House seats.
Plus: Singapore-born film-maker Sandi Tan joins us in-studio to talk about her Sundance award-winning documentary, “Shirkers,” now streaming on Netflix–the story of teenage filmmakers and the amazing film they made–20 years ago–and then lost.
11/1/18

We Have a Problem With White Men: They Support Trump—Kai Wright, plus Jill Lepore on Trump and History and Michael Kazin on Hubert Humphrey

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62 per cent of white men voted for Trump, 31 per cent for Clinton.  Kai Wright has our analysis–he’s host of WNYC’s podcast The United States of Anxiety, and he’s also a columnist for The Nation.  It’s easy to get confused by the crosscurrents of misogyny and racism and xenophobia, he argues; they are not  discrete issues, but rather “the interlocking tools of white men’s minority rule.”
Also: Trump’s place in American history: Jill Lepore of the Harvard history department and the New Yorker talks about her new book These Truths which starts in 1492 with Christopher Columbus, and ends in 2016 with Donald Trump.
And we’ll recall the 1968 presidential election, when Richard Nixon won, and many of our current problems began.  The man who almost defeated Nixon was Hubert Humphrey, the onetime Minnesota senator who had become LBJ’s vice president.  Anti-war activists hated Hubert Humphrey in 1968–Michael Kazin explains.  10/25/18

The Mail Bombs and the Midterms: Harold Meyerson, plus Guerilla Theater in L.A.–Hieronymous Bang

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From the mail bombs sent to prominent Democrats, to Trump’s efforts to distract voters with stories about migrants on the march in Mexico — Harold Meyerson analyzes the state of the midterm elections, now less than 2 weeks away.  Our special focus: the swing districts of southern California, of course.
Also: pop-up Guerilla theater in Los Angeles: the great Hieronymous Bang explains what’s going on with the political play whose name cannot be spoken on the radio, and Alan Minsky joins in.
10/25/18

 

Can Progressive Momentum Transform The Democratic Party? Jeff Cohen, plus Sasha Abramsky on Arizona and Joan Walsh on Georgia

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What lessons have the Democrats learned from the disaster of 2016?  Jeff Cohen talks about the progressives’ fight to win the party away from dependence on corporate contributions —and instead to mobilize the grassroots.  Jeff is one of the co-authors of “Democratic Autopsy—One Year Later” at TheNation.com.
Also: Arizona is a red state, ground zero for Trump’s anti-immigrant politics, but it’s changing.  Sasha Abramsky has returned from Tucson, with a report on how and why the Democrats seem likely to flip a key House seat there.
Plus: A historic challenges to the Republicans is underway in Georgia, where Stacy Abrams is campaigning to become the state’s first black governor, and first female governor.  The polls have her tied with her opponent, a far-right figure endorsed by Trump.  Joan Walsh just got back from Georgia with a report.  10/18/18

Voting Rights in 2018: Sasha Abramsky on Florida, plus Rebecca Traister on the politics of women’s anger

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The most important voting rights issue on the ballot in 2018 is restoring the voting rights of 1.4 million ex-felons in Florida. An initiative on the ballot there would repeal one of country’s worst Jim Crow laws–and it seems likely to pass. Sasha Abramsky has that story.
Also: the political power of women’s anger: Rebecca Traister has been thinking about that. Her new book is called “Good and Mad.”  10/18/18

Rebecca Traister: The Politics of Women’s Anger

Q: The New York Times page-one headline after Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony read, “A Nominee is Rescued By a Display of Rage.” I wonder if you have any comment on that?
Rebecca Traister: One of the things I write about in the book is the issue of whose rage is taken seriously as politically valid and politically consequential. . . .
Continued at TheNation.com, HERE  10/12/18

Impeach Kavanaugh? John Nichols, plus D.D. Guttenplan on Mobilizing a New Radical Majority

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What the Democrats can do about newly-confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh when they win the House in November and take control of the Judiciary Committee in January: John Nichols talks about investigations that could lead to the filing of articles of impeachment–and some other possibilities.
Also: D.D. Guttenplan talks about some alternatives to those old white Republican men who shouted and pouted and voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing – his new book is “The Next Republic: the Rise of a New Radical Majority.” 10/11/18