Is This Democracy

By Lilliana Mason and Thomas Zimmer

What's Is This Democracy about?

Welcome to Is This Democracy, the podcast where we discuss the ongoing conflict over how much democracy, and for whom, there should be in America.

Hosted by Lilliana Mason and Thomas Zimmer

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Is This Democracy episodes:

04.16.2024
36. From Reagan to Trump: A Conversation about “Landslide” and the Transformation of American Politics since the 1970s – with Ben Bradford and Seth Cotlar (Part II)
We continue our conversation about “Landslide,” the fantastic new NPR podcast series – and about the transformation of politics in the 1970s, the emergence of a new kind of populist politics, how the Republican Party was taken over by rightwing...
04.11.2024
35. “Landslide”: How the Radical Right Took Over the Republican Party and Transformed American Politics in the 1970s – with Ben Bradford and Seth Cotlar (Part I)
“Landslide” is a new NPR podcast series that tells the story of American politics in the 1970s, specifically of the 1976 and 1980 presidential elections, of Jimmy Carter’s unlikely path to the White House and, most importantly, of how Ronald...
03.19.2024
34. What Today’s Republican Party Is Made Of – A GOP Primary Post-Mortem
Have we learned anything new about the Republican Party, its base, and MAGA America from the GOP primaries? We talk about why Trump was always going to win, why he is the dominant force in Republican politics – but also,...
02.23.2024
33. The Many Blind Spots and Pitfalls of the “Biden Too Old” Discourse
Joe Biden is “too old” and should step aside – at least that is what many of the nation’s most prominent commentators are telling us. But do their arguments actually hold up to scrutiny? Is Joe Biden too old and...
02.01.2024
32. “Project 2025”: What the Right Plans to Do Once Trumpism Returns to Power
What would a second Trump presidency look like? We dive deep into the detailed plans that have emerged on the Right for what they want to do immediately upon getting back to power. Almost two years ago, “Project 2025” was...
01.11.2024
31. Why the Reactionary Campaign Against Claudine Gay Is a Matter of Great Concern
Claudine Gay, Harvard’s first Black president, resigned on January 2 – the endpoint of a brutally dishonest rightwing campaign that could not have succeeded without the mainstream media eagerly joining the crusade to get her fired. We discuss why this...
11.30.2023
30. Mad Poll Disease and the Folly of “Popularism” – with Michael Podhorzer
In early November the New York Times released a poll that had Donald Trump clearly ahead in 5 of the 6 battleground states that will decide the 2024 election. It caused an earthquake and outright panic among (small-d) democrats. But...
11.10.2023
29. What Do Americans Value in 2023?
We start with a reflection on the results in Tuesday’s elections, and how they relate to polls that indicate Joe Biden is not just unpopular, but actually trailing Donald Trump in key swing states. What can and can’t we take...
10.27.2023
28. The New Speaker vs. Democracy, Threats of MAGA Violence as the New Normal, and the State of the 2024 Presidential Race
The Speaker drama is over (for now) – but who is Mike Johnson? His ascension is not only further evidence that the January 6 insurrectionists are now fully in charge of the House, but also a manifestation of how much...
10.13.2023
27. Reflections on the Israel-Hamas war – and what the latest Speaker drama can tell us about the dangerous state of Republican politics
After a very long summer break, “Is This Democracy” is back! We start with a reflection on the terrorist attack on Israel and the ensuing Israel-Hamas war, how it’s being discussed in the U.S., and the moral, political, and intellectual...
06.07.2023
26. Taking Stock: The State of American Democracy Heading into Summer
Let’s survey the political landscape and take stock of where things stand almost halfway through 2023. We started this podcast a little over half a year ago, just a few days before the midterms. The election ended in a better...
05.17.2023
25. The Ideology of Silicon Valley vs the Idea of Democracy – with Adrian Daub
Let’s tackle the philosophy and culture of Silicon Valley, and how they help us explain the politics of reactionary-to-far-right tech titans like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. In 2020, Adrian Daub published “What Tech Calls Thinking: An Inquiry into the...
05.16.2023
24. “Cancel Culture”: How a Moral Panic Is Capturing America and the World – with Adrian Daub
Let’s dive deep into the “cancel culture” moral panic, what it can tell us about U.S. society, culture, and politics, and how it has spread across the “West.” There is no one better equipped to help us do that than...
05.02.2023
23. “Polarization” Is Not the Problem. It Obscures the Problem – with Shannon McGregor
We need to be a lot more critical towards the pervasive polarization narrative, towards “polarization” as the central diagnosis of our time. “Polarization” obscures not only what the key challenge is – the anti-democratic radicalization of the Right – but...
04.21.2023
22. Land of Unlimited Gun Violence
Gun violence is a political problem, a democracy problem, an exceptionally American problem. We decided to do this episode after the shooting at Covenant School in Nashville. But that was over three weeks ago, and so there have been so...
04.06.2023
21. Trump Arraignment in Manhattan, Wisconsin Supreme Court, Tennessee Assembly: Many Different Battles – One Conflict
It’s hard to keep track of everything that’s happening in the struggle against the reactionary assault on democracy, on so many levels, all at the same time. We go through some of the big stories of the week and reflect...
03.30.2023
20. Walter Huss and the History of Republican Radicalization, From the 1950s to Today – with Seth Cotlar
Let’s talk about the history of American conservatism, the past and present of the Far-Right, and the paths that led to Trumpism’s rise. If there is one underlying assumption that defines this podcast, it is that the central threat to...
03.22.2023
19. The Legal Fate of Donald Trump – and What Republicans Really Mean When They Say “Law and Order”
On Saturday, Donald Trump used his social media propaganda platform to urge his followers “TO TAKE OUR NATION BACK” – by which he really meant: Protect him from being arrested, which he announced was going to happen on Tuesday. We...
03.16.2023
18. The War on Public Education Is Escalating – with Jennifer Berkshire
We are in the midst of an escalating rightwing assault on public education in America. It comes in the form of an attempted authoritarian takeover of schools and universities, in hundreds of bills establishing state censorship, banning books, purging anything...
03.10.2023
17. There Is No “Free Speech Crisis” On Campus – and the Latest in Fox News vs Democracy
Lily and Thomas dissect the “free speech crisis on campus” discourse. The pervasive “free speech crisis” narrative wants us to believe that liberty and freedom in this country are being threatened by “woke” radicals imposing an ever-more authoritarian “cancel culture,”...
03.08.2023
16. A Conversation on Critical Race Theory and Democracy - with Victor Ray (Part II)
We are in the midst of an escalating moral panic around “Critical Race Theory” that is serving, across Republican-led states, as justification to censor and purge anything that dares to dissent from a white nationalist understanding of America’s past or...
03.02.2023
15. A Conversation on Critical Race Theory and Democracy - with Victor Ray (Part I)
We are in the midst of a reactionary moral panic over “Critical Race Theory” that is being used by Republicans across the country to justify an escalating assault on academic freedom and attempts to stifle, censor, and ban any dissent...
02.23.2023
14. The Reactionary Crusade Against Trans Rights Is an Assault on Democracy – and Some Thoughts on the Idea of a “National Divorce”
After an unexpected hiatus, we are back! And we focus on what is undoubtedly one of the most pressing democracy and civil rights issues in America today: The escalating assault on trans rights, the reactionary crusade against one of the...
02.03.2023
13. The Murder of Tyre Nichols, the Authoritarian Takeover of Florida Education, and the Case *for* Teaching “CRT”
We share our thoughts on the murder of Tyre Nichols, on why we need to grapple with structural, systemic racism and how it produces discriminatory outcomes, and why the lack of accountability for police departments is a democratic crisis –...
01.27.2023
12. Six Burning Questions About the State of Democracy
We asked for your questions – and you delivered. We tried our best to answer some of them. The result is a wide-ranging discussion on a bunch of crucial issues, including: Why “economic anxiety” is not what fuels Trumpism or...
01.20.2023
11. America’s Racial (Counter-) Reckoning – and some reflections on the latest “scandal” involving classified documents
Every year, MLK Day brings a lot of shallow proclamations of admiration for a man whose actual vision and political project are often sanitized and sterilized to such extent that even Republicans whose mission it is to undo any of...
01.13.2023
10. Republican Extremism, MAGA Nihilism, and the rise of Ron DeSantis
It took 15 votes, and in the end, the insurrectionists finally captured the House: Our takeaways from how the speaker drama played out and what has transpired since, what it all tells us about the Republican Party, and how the...
01.05.2023
9. Chaos in the House! And What We Expect from American Democracy in 2023
We are witnessing a historic spectacle in the House. A deep dive into the Republican inability to elect a speaker from all angles: How to explain it, what the fault lines are, why it’s misleading to present the McCarthy camp...
12.23.2022
8. How Do We Save Democracy from Donald Trump? (And a proper dissection of the terms “culture wars” and “identity politics”)
The January 6 Committee is recommending prosecution: Justice is (maybe) coming for Donald Trump. We discuss the larger implications of this decision, the potential pitfalls, and the role of legal procedures in solving a political problem like Trumpism – Now...
12.16.2022
7. We Need to Talk About Centrism
A deep dive into “centrism,” inspired by Kyrsten Sinema leaving the Democratic Party: What is centrism (as an ideology, a political project, a brand)? Who are the centrists? And what do they actually want? – The centrist critique of the...
12.09.2022
6. Where to Put Trump in the History of Modern Conservatism (and Why Republicans Don’t Do “Soul-Searching” After Lost Elections) – with Nicole Hemmer!
What the Georgia runoff tells us about American politics, why Republicans mostly stuck with Walker, and why “hypocrisy” is really not a very useful (albeit well-deserved) criticism of conservative politics – What to expect next from the GOP, and why...
12.02.2022
5. What Does “Democracy” Even Mean, And Why Conservatives Don’t Want to Be Conservatives Anymore (Oh, and the meeting of white supremacists at Mar-a-Lago)
Trump hosted a leading Holocaust denier and white power activist for dinner: What to take away from this latest reminder of who Trump is and what the Republican base wants, and why we must not be lulled into a false...
11.25.2022
4. The Rogue Court, the Threat of Rightwing Political Violence – and Discussing Politics Over Thanksgiving
Conservative justices are leaking decisions, but more importantly, they have made the Supreme Court the spearhead of a reactionary counter-mobilization against democracy: What is to be done about a Rogue Court? – The Assault on the LGBTQ community in Colorado...
11.18.2022
3. Elon Musk, Donald Trump – and Should Journalists Be Rooting for Democracy?
The fate of Twitter: The democratic stakes of having so much of our media infrastructure in the hands of billionaires; the fraud relationship between the libertarian-to-far-right tech oligarchy and democracy; Twitter’s importance as an essential part of the virtual public...
11.11.2022
2. The State of Democracy After the Midterms (Still bad; Could have been way worse)
A big-picture reflection on the midterms (what else!) and what they can tell us about the state of American democracy – Why the result, while heartening, doesn’t simply prove that “the system works” and why democracy is still very much...
11.04.2022
Episode 1 - November 4, 2022
Our mission statement: Podcasting about a democracy on the brink – Joe Biden says democracy is on the ballot: Is he right? – Midterm primer: Why the election is close (when maybe it shouldn’t be?) and what people are voting...

What's Is This Democracy about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Is This Democracy episodes:

36. From Reagan to Trump: A Conversation about “Landslide” and the Transformation of American Politics since the 1970s – with Ben Bradford and Seth Cotlar (Part II)

35. “Landslide”: How the Radical Right Took Over the Republican Party and Transformed American Politics in the 1970s – with Ben Bradford and Seth Cotlar (Part I)

34. What Today’s Republican Party Is Made Of – A GOP Primary Post-Mortem

33. The Many Blind Spots and Pitfalls of the “Biden Too Old” Discourse

32. “Project 2025”: What the Right Plans to Do Once Trumpism Returns to Power

31. Why the Reactionary Campaign Against Claudine Gay Is a Matter of Great Concern

30. Mad Poll Disease and the Folly of “Popularism” – with Michael Podhorzer

29. What Do Americans Value in 2023?

28. The New Speaker vs. Democracy, Threats of MAGA Violence as the New Normal, and the State of the 2024 Presidential Race

27. Reflections on the Israel-Hamas war – and what the latest Speaker drama can tell us about the dangerous state of Republican politics

26. Taking Stock: The State of American Democracy Heading into Summer

25. The Ideology of Silicon Valley vs the Idea of Democracy – with Adrian Daub

24. “Cancel Culture”: How a Moral Panic Is Capturing America and the World – with Adrian Daub

23. “Polarization” Is Not the Problem. It Obscures the Problem – with Shannon McGregor

22. Land of Unlimited Gun Violence

21. Trump Arraignment in Manhattan, Wisconsin Supreme Court, Tennessee Assembly: Many Different Battles – One Conflict

20. Walter Huss and the History of Republican Radicalization, From the 1950s to Today – with Seth Cotlar

19. The Legal Fate of Donald Trump – and What Republicans Really Mean When They Say “Law and Order”

18. The War on Public Education Is Escalating – with Jennifer Berkshire

17. There Is No “Free Speech Crisis” On Campus – and the Latest in Fox News vs Democracy

16. A Conversation on Critical Race Theory and Democracy - with Victor Ray (Part II)

15. A Conversation on Critical Race Theory and Democracy - with Victor Ray (Part I)

14. The Reactionary Crusade Against Trans Rights Is an Assault on Democracy – and Some Thoughts on the Idea of a “National Divorce”

13. The Murder of Tyre Nichols, the Authoritarian Takeover of Florida Education, and the Case *for* Teaching “CRT”

12. Six Burning Questions About the State of Democracy

11. America’s Racial (Counter-) Reckoning – and some reflections on the latest “scandal” involving classified documents

10. Republican Extremism, MAGA Nihilism, and the rise of Ron DeSantis

9. Chaos in the House! And What We Expect from American Democracy in 2023

8. How Do We Save Democracy from Donald Trump? (And a proper dissection of the terms “culture wars” and “identity politics”)

7. We Need to Talk About Centrism

6. Where to Put Trump in the History of Modern Conservatism (and Why Republicans Don’t Do “Soul-Searching” After Lost Elections) – with Nicole Hemmer!

5. What Does “Democracy” Even Mean, And Why Conservatives Don’t Want to Be Conservatives Anymore (Oh, and the meeting of white supremacists at Mar-a-Lago)

4. The Rogue Court, the Threat of Rightwing Political Violence – and Discussing Politics Over Thanksgiving

3. Elon Musk, Donald Trump – and Should Journalists Be Rooting for Democracy?

2. The State of Democracy After the Midterms (Still bad; Could have been way worse)

Episode 1 - November 4, 2022

13. The Murder of Tyre Nichols, the Authoritarian Takeover of Florida Education, and the Case for Teaching “CRT”