Impolitic

This special edition of Impolitic features several legal experts and scholars to help us better understand America’s electoral system. We first reflect on the 2020 election and implication for the upcoming 2024 election. Our guests explain legal processes and permissible challenges that may occur in an election. We also explore potential conspiracy theories, misinformation, and disinformation that may affect public opinion. We close by providing listeners with resources to better understand America’s election system.

Ballotpedia is a non-profit and non-partisan organization dedicated to providing unbiased information on elections, politics, and policy. We encourage all listeners to visit Ballotpedia (ballotpedia.org) for more information on local and federal elections.

In this episode, we speak with John Chrastka, the founder and Executive Director of EveryLibrary. He explains the recent increase in the number of book challenges and bans in America. We explore the rationality and motivations behind book bans, and discuss various ways to protect libraries and intellectual thought for future generations.

EveryLibrary helps public schools and college libraries win funding at the ballot box and seeks to ensure stable funding and access to libraries for generations to come. They also support grassroot efforts across the country to defend and support local libraries against book banning, illicit political interference, and threats of closure. Please visit their website (https://www.everylibrary.org/) to learn more.

Dr. Patrick Hunnicutt and Dr. Geoffrey Henderson discuss their research that air pollution reduces the level of political participation in the United States. As they explain, this could have serious negative consequences for the future of American democracy — as air pollution increases, democracy will suffer. Despite their findings, Drs. Hunnicutt and Henderson offer clear policy solutions and suggestions to reverse this negative trend.

We speak with Eve Schaub, an internationally published author and humorist. She is the author of Year of No Sugar and Year of No Clutter, and her work has been featured on the Dr. Oz Show, Fox & Friends, USA Today, and The Huffington Post among others. We discuss Eve’s latest book, Year of No Garbage, in which she describes her attempt to live an entire year without creating any trash at all! Eve explains the ubiquity of plastics which she characterizes as the 'Darth Vader’ of the environment, provides insight on why our modern recycling system is broken, and argues that it may actually be better not to recycle.

In this episode, Dr. James Kinter of George Mason University provides a basic understanding of climate change. We cover key terms and frequently asked questions including how we define “climate” and what it means for climate to change. He helps us understand other key concepts and terms, and addresses conspiracies and commonly misunderstood facts. Dr. Kinter closes by discussing potential policy solutions, and we we should be optimistic about the future.

In this episode we chat with Benjamin Decker, a technology researcher and former investigative journalist at The New York Times. He is currently the CEO of Memetica, an open-source and human intelligence digital investigative firm. Ben explains the role of memetics and the importance of studying online information and social culture. We address the implications and potential dangers of online content that threaten the United States, and discuss the role of open source intelligence in the Ukraine War. Find out why Ben says online content sharing is basically a high school popularity contest!

To learn more about Memetica, check out their website: https://memetica.co/.

We speak with Professor Jason Lyall of Dartmouth College and discuss his new book, Divided Armies: Inequality and Battlefield Performance in Modern War. Professor Lyall explains why both diversity and inclusion are important components of an effective military force. We also address the recent critique that the US military is "woke" and discuss why incorporating broad viewpoints are essential in the military academies.

Professor Lyall's book, Divided Armies, is available from Princeton University Press: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691192437/divided-armies.

In this special edition of Impolitic, we ask two scholars to help us answer the question: what is socialism? Robert Wyllie of Ashland University and Barry Eidlin of McGill University offer their respective insight and opinion on how socialism is defined, and the role it plays in both the United States and around the world.

We explore the history of gun control in the United States with Professor Robert Spitzer -- one of the country's leading experts on gun control. Dr Spitzer offers a broad history of gun control and discusses the many myths concerning gun control policies. The episode concludes with a brief conversation on areas for potential agreement between both sides of this contentious debate.

We speak with Dr. Nolan Cabrera of the University of Arizona to help us understand critical race theory (CRT). He provides a broad explanation and historical overview of the academic theory. We also discuss the various criticisms CRT has faced -- both in academia and in public discourse.