Democracy Nerd

Have you ever thought "Maybe *I* should run for office?" If so, then Amanda Litman has some advice for you: do it. Amanda co-founded Run For Something on Trump's inauguration day in 2017, with a goal to help progressive candidates get elected into office. Amanda joins the program to discuss the history of the organization and offer key advice to first-time candidates.

Author Paul Street joins the podcast to discuss his tenth book, "This Happened Here: Amerikaners, Neoloberals and the Trumping of America." Although those who warned that Trump would usher in an era of acceptable fascism were met with scorn or ridicule, Paul points out that they were correct. And may require a people-powered movement beyond the ballot box to ensure that Trump-branded fascism doesn't take a stronger hold.

In this excerpt as guest host of the Thom Hartmann Show, Jefferson speaks with Professor Nolan Higdon, author of "The Anatomy of Fake News" and "Let's Agree to Disagree: A Critical Thinking Guide to Communication, Conflict Management, and Critical Media Literacy," about historic examples of fake news, how to take steps to spot and resist fake news, and why four minutes taken out of 41,000 hours of video doesn't prove that January 6th was a peaceful sight-seeing tour instead of a violent insurrection.

Francisco Perez, Associate Professor Economics at the University of Utah, joins the podcast to discuss his essay "How Do We Build Back Black Wealth? Understanding the Limits of Black Capitalism," pointing out that a racially-diverse oligarchy is not the ideal end result for the purposes of economic and racial justice.

In this excerpt as guest host of the Thom Hartmann Show, Jefferson speaks with Professor Nolan Higdon, author of "The Anatomy of Fake News" and "Let's Agree to Disagree: A Critical Thinking Guide to Communication, Conflict Management, and Critical Media Literacy," about historic examples of fake news, how to take steps to spot and resist fake news, and why four minutes taken out of 41,000 hours of video doesn't prove that January 6th was a peaceful sight-seeing tour instead of a violent insurrection.

In this segment filling in as guest host for the Thom Hartmann Program, Jefferson speaks with Adam Berinsky, the director of MIT's Political Experiments Research Lab, who provides a primer on political disinformation & misinformation, including how each term is defined and also what (if anything) can be done to stop the spread of political disinformation & misinformation.

Filling in as guest host for The Thom Hartmann Program, Jefferson speaks with Grace Adcox, Polling Analyst for Data for Progress, who parses the data showing bipartisan support from voters for President Biden's legislative agenda, including the protection--even expansion--of Social Security. Little wonder Ron DeSantis keeps talking about "stopping woke," whatever that means.

Ira Shapiro, a longtime Capitol Hill staffer and Senate historian, joins the podcast to provide the current pulse of the U.S. Senate, touching on whether any GOP Senators will challenge Donald Trump in the Republican primary; the role age plays in determining a Senator's effectiveness; and whether the current Senate can continue last session's "comeback."

In the 1980s, noted classicist Maurice Pope wrote a manuscript about how sortition--or lottery-based democracy--should be implemented for a more fair and representative society. This manuscript proceeded to be rejected by each publishing house that had the chance. Decades later, this manuscript, titled "The Keys to Democracy: Sortition as a New Model For Citizen Power," is now seeing the light of day due to the diligent efforts of Maurice's son Hugh, who edited and revised the rediscovered manuscript for posthumous release after his father's passing. Hugh joins the podcast to discuss the experience of editing his late father's work, why there is more receptiveness to lottery-based democracy today than four decades ago, and why he believes that sortition provides the "keys to democracy" to help solve wicked problems.

Can an unhealthy and unequal democracy meet the needs of its people? The COVID pandemic exacerbated inequality in the United States, reaching levels not seen in a century. Not only do high levels of inequality pose a threat to democracy, but an unequal society is also an unhealthy society. Or so argues Dr. Stephen Bezruchka, faculty member of the University of Washington's School of Public Health and author of "Inequality Kills Us All: COVID-19's Health Lessons For Us All."