How to Save a Country

Over the last two seasons, Felicia and Michael have talked with politicians, superstar activists, and renowned academics—from Senator Elizabeth Warren to economist Thomas Piketty.

In this final episode of How to Save a Country, they’re taking a look back, and hashing out debates they’ve had between themselves along the way: What’s the real difference between “progressive” and “liberal”? What big projects should the left set their sights on, and which are politically out of reach? And how well does “the middle out” work as a descriptor for post-neoliberalism?

And later, they play back some of the boldest ideas guests have discussed on the show, including expanding the House of Representatives (a pet cause of Michael’s).

“I hope that in the years to come, we can look back on this capsule of conversations that we’ve had over the last few seasons and see that we captured a moment in time. Right on the cusp of changing the economic paradigm, but before that paradigm was fully instantiated,” says Felicia. 

“And I hope that we can see these conversations as a prelude maybe to a new way of organizing, organizing our economy, organizing our democracy, organizing and fighting for our vision of freedom.”

Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.

You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.

What do people mean when they talk about freedom? Throughout history, that question has often had dark answers, as Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Jefferson Cowie explains in this episode.

“Going all the way back to Athenian democracy is the freedom to enslave, the freedom to oppress, the freedom to dominate,” he tells Felicia and Michael.

In his book, Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power—which won the 2023 Pulitzer for History—Jefferson argues that this kind of freedom is deeply American, and explores the story of one place that exemplifies it: Barbour County, Alabama.

Jefferson takes Michael and Felicia on a journey through the county’s history, highlighting the treatment of the Muscogee Nation, political dynamics during the Reconstruction Era, and the political career of four-time Alabama governor and Barbour County native George Wallace.

And later, Jefferson, Felicia, and Michael discuss the present-day fight over freedom, and the role historians have in this moment of political instability.

Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.

You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.

Almost a decade ago, economist Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century changed the way many people understood capitalism and inequality.

In the years since, his research and ideas have helped jolt our politics out of autopilot and elevate solutions like a wealth tax into the mainstream.

This episode—recorded in Paris following a panel discussion Thomas and Felicia participated in with historian Gary Gerstle—is about what comes next.

“I think it's important that progressives . . . start thinking again not only about next week, but also about next decade and next century,” Thomas tells Felicia.

He talks about the possibility of a universal basic inheritance, the battle for progressive taxation, and what he sees as the key to prosperity: “much more investment in education, human capital, public infrastructure.”

Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.

You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.

If you’ve never heard of OIRA, you aren’t alone. But while small, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is a mighty federal agency, with a vital role in reviewing and implementing executive branch regulations.

It’s also a popular target for some on the right. When conservatives target the administrative state and paint executive powers or civil service as overreaching, agencies like OIRA are what they’re disparaging.

What would the US look like without the administrative state? And what can progressives do to protect it? This week, Felicia and Michael ask those questions (and many more) of OIRA’s recent leader, K. Sabeel Rahman, who served in the agency from 2021 to early 2023.

Sabeel is the co-founder and co-chair of the Law and Political Economy Project, the former president of the think tank Demos, and the author of the books Democracy against Domination and Civic Power: Rebuilding American Democracy in an Era of Crisis (co-authored by Hollie Russon Gilman).

As Sabeel tells Michael and Felicia, OIRA is indispensable in that rebuilding.

“Of course we want our government to be responsive and accountable to the public,” Sabeel says. “But I would actually argue that the way we do that is through the regulatory process, through having policymakers in government who are apolitical, neutral civil servants whose whole mission is to serve the public, not to serve any one party.”

And later, the trio discuss OIRA’s efforts to make government services more accessible and reflect on the too-close-for-comfort debt ceiling battle.

Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.

You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.

This week, we’re sharing an episode from our friends over at The Politics of Everything, a biweekly podcast from The New Republic that explores the intersection of culture, media, and politics through interviews with scholars and journalists.

In ways large and small, the changing climate affects how we live and, for a growing number of people, where we live. Many have already relocated because conditions have become too dangerous back home, whether due to sea level rise, wildfires, or drought. Others are moving preemptively, aiming to settle in a region with less perceived climate risk. On episode 65 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to journalists Debra Kamin and Jake Bittle about the effect that small-scale climate migration is having on one “climate-proof” city—and the potential ramifications of widespread population relocation in the future.

This podcast is sponsored by Columbia University Press. To learn more, please visit cup.columbia.edu.

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What is feminist economics? How is the field changing what we want from policy? And what is the value of unpaid labor in our economy? In this episode, renowned economist Nancy Folbre answers those questions, and traces the much-needed rise of the care agenda. 

Nancy is director of the program on gender and care work at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She’s the editor of For Love and Mercy: Care Provision in the United States, and author of Greed, Lust, and Gender: A History of Economic Ideas, among other works.

As she tells Michael, feminist ideas once considered subversive are now common in the mainstream–and changing how policymakers think about the economy.

“I think we want to consider what the output of the care economy is, and the actual output is us. It's our capabilities,” says Nancy. “The care economy is about the production and the development and also the maintenance of human capabilities. This doesn't factor into GDP.” 

And later, Michael and Felicia discuss how care can be a winning political message.

Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.

You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.

One of the clearest ways to see how a political idea lands in the real world is to hit the campaign trail. These ideas go through the ultimate test in cafes and backyards, in conversations with people who want to share their own experiences. Last year, Harvard political philosophy professor Danielle Allen was able to experience this firsthand when she ran for governor of Massachusetts. 

This week, Danielle—who is also the founder and president of the organization Partners in Democracy—speaks with Felicia and Michael about her 15-month campaign and what she learned about our political institutions. 

“The thing that was amazing about that was how frank people were in sharing about their lives, challenges, frustrations, tragedies,” Danielle says. “And so what I came to understand was that this actually conveyed a deep faith and optimism in the power of our institutions to deliver for people.”

Michael and Felicia also talk to Danielle about the policies she advocated, what freedom for all actually looks like, and her most recent book, Justice by Means of Democracy. 

Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.

You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.

Political pundits often discuss the differences between red and blue states in the US. But political strategist Michael Podhorzer argues that this framework drastically understates the true nature of the divisions in our country. We have always been more like two separate nations—tenuously united under the Constitution. These “red and blue nations,” as he calls them, are divided by geography, by political economy, and by different views toward religion and even toward democracy itself.  

In this week’s episode, Podhorzer—former political director of the AFL-CIO—talks with Felicia and Michael Tomasky about the historical origins of this split, the ramifications for electoral strategy, and the role the Supreme Court has played in hardening these divisions.

“They don't actually hear cases anymore,” Podhorzer says. “They look for opportunities to legislate. And in fact, I think that's really the frame we need to think about the court now: It's the only functioning legislative body in the country.” 

The trio also discusses the 2024 election, the Federalist Society, and the importance of unions. 

Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.

You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.

The majority of people who participate in or follow US politics focus on four- and six-year election cycles. But certain political and economic developments take place over much longer time scales, as our guest this episode knows well.

Historian Gary Gerstle, author of the recent book The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era, calls these longer stages in our political history “political orders”—a concept he created with Steve Fraser (co-editor of a previous book).

Political orders are a new way to conceptualize political time, Gary explains to Michael and Felicia. They are political movements that are able to popularize certain norms and ideas with the general public, and also sway opposing political parties to align with said norms and ideas. 

This week, Gary takes Felicia and Michael on a historical journey spanning nearly a century to discuss domestic and international factors that led to the ascension and demise of the New Deal and neoliberal orders.

They also discuss the present, including different possibilities for the next political order. One possibility, Gary explains, is a revived progressive political order—one that “harks back to successful elements of the New Deal while also guiding us in new directions, with the ability to take into consideration those issues that the New Deal either ignored or repressed.”

Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.

You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.

Once the foot soldiers of the right-wing movement, social conservatives are increasingly setting the agenda, arguing for a state that takes an active role in shaping and preserving traditional institutions like the nuclear family. However, this vision of family offered by social conservatives is inextricably linked with a disturbingly retrograde view of gender, sexuality, reproductive rights, and American history.

This week, Michael and Felicia talk to Julie Kohler—writer and host of the podcast White Picket Fence, which is about the fractured politics of white women. Julie’s writing on politics, feminism, and gender and family under neoliberalism has appeared in outlets like CNN, the Washington Post, Fortune, the Daily Beast, and Democracy, A Journal of Ideas.

Julie, Michael, and Felicia discuss the role social conservatives played in American politics in the past, and the increasing power this coalition wields in politics today.

“At the most extreme, if you really endorse this notion that the state should be playing a role in establishing moral culture, what you can end up with is a comfort with, if not open embrace of, illiberal authoritarianism,” Julie says.

Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.

You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.