Lever Reruns

Why do Democratic politicians try to means-test every social program to the point where they become incomprehensibly complex? Will stock market populism save the republic from the predators on Wall Street? The Daily Poster discussed these topics and more this week with Thomas Frank, the famed author of classics such as What’s The Matter With Kansas and Listen, Liberal.

Tom and Sirota review The Daily Poster’s reporting over the course of the last week, and focus in on Democrats’ obsession with means testing and how that undermines universalist social programs. They also discuss the GameStop controversy and how it at once threatens Wall Street kingpins but also celebrates the kind of market populism that was first touted in the boom-bust 1990s.

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The entire election could come down to the state of Pennsylvania. Donald Trump won it in 2016 and the polls this time around are close. As Democrats have been requesting more ballots than Republicans under the state’s new vote by mail system, Trump and Republicans have been trying to limit that system in ways that critics say are designed to suppress turnout. There are also fears that Republican lawmakers in the state legislature will try to steal Pennsylvania’s Electoral College electors for Trump. 

For insight into what’s happening in the state, I caught up with Pennsylvania’s Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro. He is running for his second term there, and has been in court in a series of cases about the election.

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As part of the exclusive content we offer to supporting subscribers, I am going to periodically publish some podcast interviews I’ve done that still remain relevant today. This is the first.

Back in 2017, I talked to author Thomas Frank about how the Democratic Party had lost so much power over the previous decade. Though some of the topics are a bit outdated, the overall themes are a constant. Frank has a new book out today that updates much of what he was reporting on back then. It is called The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism. Listen to this podcast and then check it out.

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