America's Democrats

The religious right’s rise to political power

We take a look back at how the religious right and the white nationalist movement took over the Republican party.

Katherine Stewart’s explores the rise of the religious right in America and its vast reach into American politics. She warns that the end result is fundamentally anti-democratic, and it is dangerously anti-science.

Religion professor Damon Berry says real Christians want nothing to do with the white nationalist movement, which he says is growing.

The Sunshine State’s Dark Bully

How about Ron DeSantis? The Florida governor is the new darling of the right-wing media, funders, and other establishment powers who’re pushing him to be your next president.

“Ron DeSantis is the new Republican Party,” gushed one arch-conservative media maven. That’s odd, since what characterizes Ron’s tenure (and is causing a collective swoon for him within the rightist hierarchy) is his Big Government authoritarianism.

Pope Pius XII and WW II-The Secret, Sordid History

The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler is a new explosive and controversial book by Pulitzer-Prize-winning author David Kertzer, a Professor of Social Science at Brown University. The book tells the story of Pope Pius XII and his actions during World War II, including how he responded to the Holocaust. Spoiler alert: He did not cover himself in glory. 

If you'd like to hear the entire episode, visit BillPressPods.com.

The one thing Trump manufactured successfully… “Former Republicans”

Revisiting our interview with Author Rick WIlson on his book “Everything Trump Touches Dies: A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever.”

The presidency of Donald Trump has brought discord to a party known for its political discipline as critics within the GOP take aim at a President they feel is destroying their party. Among them is Rick Wilson.  Never one to mince words, his book is a scathing critique of Donald Trump.

Beware: The GOP Has Chosen to Embrace The Crazy

Perhaps you remember Sen. Barry Goldwater, the GOP’s fringy, far-right-wing 1964 presidential nominee who famously said, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” Today, however, the core of the Republicans Party has gone so far beyond the fringe that they would boo Goldwater’s right-wingism as insufficiently rabid. Instead, their new rallying cry is: “Nuttiness in the defense of extremism is no vice.”

SCOTUS: "Outrageous. Aggressive."

Bill and his guest Elizabeth Wydra runs down the major and disastrous decisions from this Supreme Court. Wydra is the Constitutional Accountability Center’s President. From 2008-2016, she served as its Chief Counsel. Throughout her tenure she has filed more than 200 briefs on behalf of the Constitutional Accountability Center and clients, which include preeminent constitutional scholars and historians, state and local government organizations, groups such as the League of Women Voters and the AARP, and members of Congress.

If you'd like to hear the entire episode, visit BillPressPods.com.

Environmental initiatives are often smeared as being anti-labor, while unions are often painted as anti-clean energy. Neither is necessarily true—in fact, the fights for climate and economic justice are deeply intertwined.

Activist Wallace Mazon says the fight for good jobs has to go hand in hand with the fight against climate change.

Joseph B. Uehlein works at the forefront of building union support for the effort to confront climate change.  He says the Green New Deal has the potential to rebuild the labor movement and unite the working class.  

The Curse of Medical Debt

What’s the most damning thing about America’s healthcare system? The system.

While our doctors, nurses, and technicians are among the best in the world, the system itself is not even designed for care, but for the constant expansion of profits for insurance giants, drugmakers, hospital chains, system managers, financiers, and other voracious components of the medical industry. For starters, ponder that term, “medical industry.”

The Still Dangerous Case of Donald Trump

During the hearings of the January 6th Select Committee, one question keeps coming up, “Did Donald Trump believe he had actually won the election?” “How could it be, that after being told repeatedly that no substantial fraud had occurred, he still maintained he won?”  

“Is the man crazy?”

It just so happens that we looked into this very question on the Bill Press Pod back in the summer of 2020 with our series, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump

If you'd like to hear the entire episode, visit BillPressPods.com.

Protecting America’s Future.

Children are not allowed to vote, but they have the most vested interest in America’s future. Today we hear from experts about how the way complex political fights affect minors and what can be done about them.

Simon Workman works on policy solutions that will improve the lives of children. It’s an issue, he says, that affects all Americans and tells us how voters can make politicians accountable.

Danielle Allen tells the story of her cousin, a young man who was tried as an adult at age 15 for attempted carjacking.  After 13 years in prison, he was released and died violently at the age of 29. It is a story she says, about the deep and destructive “war on drugs” that has corrupted a criminal justice system that has abandoned our nation’s youth.

Kartoonus Americanus Is Going Extinct!

Right before our eyes, an invaluable American species is fast disappearing from view. Kar-toon-us A-mer-i-kan-as.

These are the newspaper cartoonists who’ve long delighted readers and infuriated power elites. And there’s nothing natural about their sudden decline – it’s not the result of a declining talent pool, and certainly not due to a lack of political targets. Rather, what’s happening is that their media habitat is being intentionally destroyed.

The J6 Committee Makes its Case.

The January 6th Select Committee hearings. We'll hear from California Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, who led the questioning in Monday's hearing. 

If you'd like to hear the entire episode, visit BillPressPods.com.

The trap of poverty wages.

According to researchers, the number of Americans living at or near the poverty line has risen sharply since the beginning of the pandemic. This week, we hear from experts about the plight of poverty-wage workers around the world and the best strategies for combatting those conditions at home.

Historian Annelise Orleck traveled the world to write a book about  workers who live on poverty wages. What she found gave her a renewed sense of hope and possibility.

Elizabeth Lower-Basch has a long history inside and outside of government figuring out the best ways to assist struggling families. She says that “work requirements” for people on public assistance is exactly not the way to help.

How Can Democrats Save the Party… From Their Own Leaders?

“It’s over.” “Biden’s numbers are in the ditch.” “Democrats are doomed.” “Call the priest.”

These are Democrats talking! Even before November’s congressional elections are run, many conventional-thinking Democratic operatives are surrendering to a presumed Republican sweep. You don’t need a political science degree to know that if you start out announcing that you’ll lose, chances are you will.

"We're in a Bad Place Right Now." With Norm Ornstein

Norman Ornstein is one of the leading experts on the Congress and an Emeritus Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author, with Thomas E. Mann of the 2012 book, It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism and with Thomas E. Mann and E.J. Dione, the author of the 2017 book, One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported.

If you'd like to hear the entire episode, visit BillPressPods.com.

A minimum and maximum wage.

The minimum wage often stands in for a variety of different workers-rights issues in political debates. This week we dig into how minimum wage laws can function as part of a broader social agenda—and study their direct, and incredibly intriguing opposite. 

Economic analyst Janelle Jones says a higher minimum wage is a crucial tool in bridging our nation’s widening income inequality gap  And in the face of federal inaction, cities and states are setting up to the plate.

Income inequality in America is now at a rate we haven’t seen in close to 100 years.  In a new book, author Sam Pizzigati says it’s time to resurrect an idea once endorsed by President Franklin  D. Roosevelt … a maximum wage for our nation’s highest earners.

A Rube Goldberg Inflationary Spiral

Last July, several GOP senators combined their 5-watt intellects to charge that inflation was rising because of the “insane tax and spending spree of President Biden and the Democrats.”

Never mind that the “insane” spending is for such sensible, productive, and enormously popular national needs as childcare and jobless benefits, Mitch McConnell’s rabidly partisan flock saw the chance to politicize the public’s legitimate worries about rising prices.

To Stop Gun Violence, Elect Democrats.

With the tragic massacre of children and teachers in Uvalde, Texas dominating the news, we talked to Igor Volsky of Guns Down America about what can be done, if anything, to combat gun violence and the politicians who support it. But our gun laws cannot change unless our politicians do, so Bill also talked to two sharp political reporters about the 2022 primaries: Niall Stanage, White House Columnist for The Hill and Political Analyst at News Nation AM and Maya King, Politics Reporter for the New York Times covering the South based in Georgia.

If you'd like to hear the entire episode, visit BillPressPods.com.

Teachers at the front line of progressive politics.

How a wave of teachers strikes in red state America is changing the political landscape. Education advocate Jeff Bryant tells us why a record number of educators are running for office, and what they want.

In 2018, in some of the reddest states in our nation, teachers led  a series of walkouts demanding not only better pay for themselves, but better schools for the children they teach.  Writer Eric Blanc embedded himself in this unlikely and powerful rebellion for an inside view of a movement that has the potential to rebuild working class politics in America.

Jeff Bryant has written extensively about the intersection of education and politics. He says that a movement that began with teachers’ walkouts has turned into an a record number of educators running for office and fighting for the future of public schools.

Save the Whales! Save Polar Bears! Save Political Cartoonists!

I never dreamed of growing up to be a political activist/ commentator, but here I am, and it’s worked out pretty well for me. I’ve been lucky enough to have a voice in public matters and eke out a modest living running my mouth as an independent populist agitator. Still, I have to confess to the sin of Job Envy. Not in the sense of being resentful, but regretful about my own inability to lift the trade of journalistic commentary to the heights attained by a small, feisty collection of unique public opinionators: Political cartoonists.

“News for People Who Give a Damn.”

Journalist Judd Legum was a regular on the Bill Press Show for years. Today, he makes his debut on the Bill Press Pod. Legum writes a four-times per week newsletter, Popular Information, that practices Independent Accountability Journalism. He compares what people and institutions SAY to what these same people and institutions actually DO. Today we talked about the Great Replacement Theory behind the Buffalo shooting, that has been mainstreamed by Right Wing media and politicians; which corporations are contributing to Right Wing politicians while espousing Human Rights; Ron DeSantis and book banning in Florida and what the heck is going on with Elon Musk.

If you'd like to hear the entire episode, visit BillPressPods.com.

Homegrown extremism in America.

This week marks the ten-year anniversary of the Facebook corporation going public on Wall Street. We examine that story from two different angles: The growing income inequality in America, which has often been fueled by Silicon Valley bubbles and the financialization of our economy, and the way Big Tech has helped stoke right-wing rhetoric—and even violence.  

Distinguished historian Ron Formisano has written a book about plutocracy and says we are in a new “gilded age” when the state and federal governments are up for sale.

Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University San Bernardino, is one of the most trusted voices on hate and extremism in America. We discuss how the landscape of political violence has changed under the Trump administration.

Why Should We the People Respect a Court That Disrespects the People?

Mitch McConnell, the perpetually sour old goose who heads the Senate Republican Caucus, had a hissy fit when the news leaked out that American women are about to have their most fundamental constitutional right taken from them by a cabal of Supreme Court judges.

What made Mitch twitch, of course, was not the bad news for women… but the leak.

Midterm Ground Zero.

Former Progressive Caucus Co-chair Mark Pocan and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin are at the center of the 2022 midterms. Ron Johnson is up for reelection and control of the Senate may hinge on that race. There are competitive House seats that may determine control in that chamber. In Wisconsin the legislature is so gerrymandered, it is almost impossible for the Democrats to gain control. So having a Democratic governor is the one check on the extremist Wisconsin Republican Party.

If you'd like to hear the entire episode, visit BillPressPods.com.

From rideshare apps to food-delivery services—to ballot measures like California’s proposition 22, which allows companies to treat their employees interchangeable and dispensable—the new economy of the gig and temporary work is proving to be a disaster for workers' rights and long-term stability. This week we talk to two experts about just what is being lost in this transformation. 

Union leader David Rolf says even Republicans can be persuaded that America will be better off with a strong middle class. But it’s the plutocrats and their hired guns standing in the way.

In his book, labor historian Louis Hyman tells the story of America’s transformation to a temp economy and why he calls it the moral crisis of work in the 21st century.

America needs a quality childcare system

Nearly every nation with an advanced economy (and some not so advanced) treats child care as a fundamental public good essential to nurturing children, families, and the whole society. But not our US of A.

Indeed, our so-called leaders relegate millions of working parents and 21 million kids under 5 to the tender mercies of a for-profit market, with child care facilities ranging from impossibly expensive to helter-skelter, unlicensed Kiddie Korrals.

Midterm Madness Begins

With the midterms just seven months away, Bill talks to Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the University of Virginia Center for Politics’ nonpartisan newsletter on American campaigns and elections. They focus on the primaries coming up in the month of May in the GOP where Trump has endorsed candidates. How these primaries turn out may determine who controls the Senate in 2023. They also discuss the likelihood of the Republicans taking over the House of Representatives. And a little conversation about Biden and Trump in 2024.

If you'd like to hear the entire episode, visit BillPressPods.com.

We must go further with voting rights.

With primary races soon to be in full swing, we take a closer look at some of the structural hurdles Americans face at the polls—and at just how narrowly President Biden was elected two Novembers ago. 

Phil Keisling used to be the secretary of state for Oregon, one of three states that allow people to vote by mail. He said the practice increases turnout, especially among younger and more diverse voters.

The passage of H.R.1 would mark a necessary advance in defense of the right to vote.  But does that go far enough? Amel Ahmed says more can be done to go on the offense in the struggle over voting rights. 

We’re Stuck on a Monopoly Merry-Go-Round

The problem with our so-called “free market” is that it’s not free for you and me. It’s largely controlled by monopolies, which are free to inflate prices just because they can, letting gougers gleefully extract unwarranted monopoly profits from us.

This milking of consumers by tightly consolidated industries is propelling today’s surging price hikes.

Ukraine: "A Grinding Slog."

Today's guest is Joe Cirincione, here for a monthly update on Putin's war in Ukraine. Cirincione is a Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He previously served for over 12 years as the President of the Ploughshares Fund, a foundation focused on nuclear nonproliferation and conflict resolution. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

If you'd like to hear the entire episode, visit BillPressPods.com.