The Alabama-ness of Alabama Politics: Howell Raines; plus Adam Shatz on the President and the Bomb

The legendary journalist Howell Raines reports from Alabama on the continuing Republican support for Roy Moore, the Senate candidate accused of molesting a 14-year-old and sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl. Meanwhile, his Democratic opponent, the heroic civil-rights attorney Doug Jones, is running “the most vigorous Democratic campaign that’s been waged in Alabama in at least 30 years.”
Also, the president and the bomb: We’re hoping the generals keep Trump from doing anything crazy, like starting a nuclear war with North Korea—but the system is set up to give the president control over nuclear weapons, rather than the military. Adam Shatz explains–he wrote about Trump and the bomb for the London Review of Books.
Listen HERE

The Resistance Year One: David Cole; plus Harold Meyerson on Al Franken and Steve Ross on ‘Hitler in LA’

Trump Year One: The Resistance and the ACLU.  David Cole reports–he’s the ACLU’s National Legal Director, and he discusses voting rights, the travel ban, and the essential role played by citizen activism.
Also: Our Washington Report with Harold Meyerson, executive editor of The American Prospect: the House passes the GOP tax bill, and Al Franken apologizes for unwanted sexual acts.
Plus: historian Steve Ross talks about his new book, ‘Hitler in L.A.: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots against Hollywood and America.’
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Can the Democrats Actually Beat Roy Moore in Alabama? Howell Raines, plus Adam Shatz on Trump and the Bomb, and Corey Robin on Trump and The Reactionary Mind

The legendary journalist Howell Raines reports from Alabama on the continuing Republican support for Roy Moore, the Senate candidate accused of molesting a 14-year-old and sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl. Meanwhile, his Democratic opponent, the heroic civil-rights attorney Doug Jones, is running “the most vigorous Democratic campaign that’s been waged in Alabama in at least 30 years.”
Also, Trump and the bomb: We’re hoping the generals keep him from doing anything crazy, like starting a nuclear war with North Korea—but the system is set up to give the president control over nuclear weapons, rather than the military. Adam Shatz explains.
Plus: The reactionary mind of Donald Trump: Corey Robin talks about Trump’s place in the tradition of reactionary political thought—his book The Reactonary Mind: from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump is out now in a new paperback edition.
Listen HERE

Harold Meyerson: the Virginia vote; Katha Pollitt: Anger Management; Mike Wallace: ‘Greater Gotham’

The Democratic triumph in Tuesday’s Virginia election and its implications for 2018–Harold Meyerson comments, also: what the Democrats should do on tax policy.
Plus: Katha Pollitt on anger management, one year after Trump was elected;
And: New York City–it’s Trump’s home, and it’s also the antithesis of Trump. Comment from Mike Wallace–he won the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1999 for “Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898” and has authored a follow up, it’s called “Greater Gotham: A History of NYC 1898-1919”.
Listen HERE
11/9/2017

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Russia, Trump, and the Democrats; plus George Zornick on the tax bill and Danny Meyer on the trouble with tipping.

Katrina vanden Heuvel reports on the dedication of Russia’s monument to victims of the Gulag, and comments on Robert Mueller’s investigations—which “must continue”—and on the lessons of Trump’s victory: the Democrats must overcome their failure to win working class voters.
Plus: The GOP tax bill faces problems in the House, and may never get to the Senate—where additional obstacles await. George Zornick explains.
Also: Legendary restauranteur Danny Meyer explains why he’s against tipping—he spoke at a dinner in honor of The Nation’s Food issue, held at his restaurant at the Whitney Museum, “Untitled.”
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Trump’s Ghostwriter Says the President Is Now In Survival Mode

Q&A with Tony Schwartz, the author behind The Art of the Deal–he says Trump has always been “100 percent self-absorbed, incapable of interest in other human beings, and completely self-referential. Even 30 years ago, he had an incredibly short attention span. Lying was almost second nature to him; he did it as easily as most of us drink a glass of water.”  But now, as Special Counsel Robert Mueller closes in, he is “moving to a darker place.”
–continued at TheNation.com, HERE

Michelle Goldberg: Do Republicans Have the Guts to Go Against Trump? Plus Bob Dreyfuss on Mueller at work, and Tony Schwartz on Trump.

Republicans and Trump, after the indictments: Michelle Goldberg, op-ed columnist at The New York Times, looks at why some Senate Republicans have broken with Trump—and why the rest have not, even after special counsel Robert Mueller has made it clear he’s just getting started with criminal charges against Trump’s associates.
Also: Tony Schwartz knows a lot about Trump—in fact, he wrote Trump’s bestselling memoir The Art of the Deal. That classic of modern literature spent forty-eight weeks in 1987 on the Times best-seller list, and more than a million copies have been sold. When Mueller’s prosecutors close in on Trump, will he become more cautious and careful? Schwartz’s answer is a short one: “Not a chance in hell.”
Plus: The arrest of Trump’s campaign chief Paul Manafort on Monday on multiple felony charges is only the beginning of the results of the work of special counsel Robert Muller. The political implications for Trump are ominous. Bob Dreyfuss explains.
Listen HERE