A Few Reasonable Words

We hear a lot about the DNC & the RNC, but how much power do the national organizations really have? And are parties really driven by ideology, or is winning elections the only thing that actually matters to political parties?

What is gerrymandering and why are people (especially if they are democrats) so mad about it? Is it really to blame for all our problems? If not, what should we think about it? And where on Earth did that silly word come from? 

How important is competence in government? What is the civil service anyway? Are the Trump administration's early stumbles evidence of incompetence, or just the normal learning curve of a new president? 

With a President openly trafficking in conspiracy theories and his opponents developing their own about him, we explore the attraction to conspiratorial thinking. Why do folks believe conspiracy theories? How can we avoid succumbing to paranoid delusions?

Now that we've got a slate of cabinet nominees and a Trump Supreme Court nominee, how should we expect the Senate to advise & consent? Will (& should) Democrats play nice, or will they take the lessons of Merrick Garland to heart and play hardball?

What are the president’s powers? Can the president make or defy the law? What is the unitary executive theory, and what is the evidence supporting it? http://Afrwpodcast.wordpress.com

Final installment of our month-long series on politics & identity. Knowing what we do about racial identity & structural racism, how should Democrats and Republicans think about the role of identity politics in the future? 

We continue our month-long series on race, identity, & democracy with a look at institutional (or structural or systemic) racism, what kind of evidence there is for its existence, how we ought to feel about it, and what we might be able to do about it. 

We continue our a month-long discussion of the connections between race, racial attitudes, and politics in the United States today. This episode explores how identity groups form and relate to each other in democratic politics. How do people in those groups develop in-group and out-group attitudes, and how do those attitudes affect attempts to build coalitions and practice pluralistic politics? 

We continue our a month-long discussion of the connections between race, racial attitudes, and politics in the United States today. Today we talk about how and why some individuals develop group consciousness, and why we feel so conflicted about that.