Evidence points to generations of Americans increasingly less informed as to their republic’s origins and system of checks and balances, so it is not surprising that more Americans are less engaged in their communities and are increasingly pessimistic about the future. Checker Finn, a Hoover Institution adjunct senior fellow and past chairman of Hoover’s K-12 Education, joins Hoover emeritus research fellow David Davenport, co-author of the soon-to-be-released A Republic If You Can Teach It: Fixing America’s Civic Education, to discuss better ways to engage K-12 and college students in the understanding and appreciation of the concept of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Recent economic news out of California isn’t all that “golden:” 400,000 jobs shed and the nation’s highest unemployment rate; and the Golden State soon to be demoted from fifth to six in terms of global economies. Hoover senior fellow Lee Ohanian and distinguished policy fellow Bill Whalen, both contributors to Hoover’s “California on Your Mind” web channel, discuss why the West Coast economy has gone south (think: hostile business and jobs climate); and what’s behind governor Gavin Newsom’s recent spate of a bad publicity run that includes a harsh re-examination of his college baseball career. Finally, weighing the life and legacy of the late O.J. Simpson – and revealing the fate of the infamous white Ford Bronco (spoiler alert: start at Dollywood).

California’s Super Tuesday primary yielded a few surprises, including a low turnout that nearly doomed governor Newsom’s pet ballot measure and a San Francisco electorate moving rightward on local police tactics and welfare requirements. Hoover senior fellow Lee Ohanian and distinguished policy fellow Bill Whalen, both contributors to Hoover’s “California on Your Mind” web channel, discuss election results, the controversy over Panera Bread and a gubernatorial chum seemingly exempted from a California minimum-wage increase for fast-food chains, plus the state legislature revisiting snack-food additives (potentially bad news for chips and Gatorade consumers), and the future of daylight savings time.

Unusual for a member of Congress, the 40-year-old Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher is retiring later this year after only four terms in the House of Representatives. In a wide-ranging interview, Gallagher discusses what brought him to Capitol Hill and why he’s decided to depart so relatively soon; life inside a fractious Republican caucus; his legacy as chair of a House select committee examining the threat of an ambitious Chinese Communist Party; plus lessons learned from political and military service (Gallagher is an ex-Marine who served alongside Hoover senior fellow and Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster in Iraq).  

California’s Proposition 1, a $6.38 billion bond addressing mental health treatment across the Golden State, seems destined for voter approval. Is it sound policy – and a sound expense for a state deeply in debt? Hoover senior fellow Lee Ohanian and distinguished policy fellow Bill Whalen, both contributors to Hoover’s “California on Your Mind” web channel, join Hoover senior product manager Jonathan Movroydis to discuss the latest in the California, including a campaign to turn a coastal stretch of the Golden State into a new nation called “Pacifica”; the politics of “shrinkflation”; what this year’s US Senate race says about California’s top-two primary system; plus the legacy of the late C.C. Myers, who rebuilt the Santa Monica Freeway after 1994’s Northridge Earthquake.

Four US Senate candidates gathered for the first televised debate in advance of California’s March 5 primary; the state’s alarming budget deficit exposes fundamental problems with spending and taxes; and what are the odds of Silicon Valley luminaries building a new city form scratch in the heart of rural Solano County? Hoover senior fellow Lee Ohanian and distinguished policy fellow Bill Whalen, both contributors to Hoover’s “California on Your Mind” web channel, join Hoover senior product manager Jonathan Movroydis to discuss the latest in the California, including Barbie’s rough Academy Award treatment – no Best Director or Actress nod – and what that says about filmdom’s perception of blockbusters and the female artists.

A new year begins with a familiar story – Middle East turmoil – and two plots twists of late: US forces striking Yemen’s Houthi rebels while trying to safeguard Red Sea maritime traffic; and Iran firing missiles in the directions of Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria, which tests western resolve. Joel Rayburn, a Hoover Institution visiting fellow and member of Hoover’s Middle East and the Islamic World Working Group, and Bernard Haykel, a Princeton University professor of Near Eastern Studies and noted expert on Yemen, discuss strategic options in the Middle East including how to curb Iranian aggression, strengthening ties with regional allies, and reintroducing the notion of American-led deterrence.  

On the eve of Iowa’s presidential caucuses and the start of the 2024 primary season, what’s the inevitability of a Biden-Trump rematch? David Brady and Douglas Rivers, Hoover Institution senior fellows and Stanford University political scientists, discuss various political dynamics heading into Iowa and beyond including whether there’s room for three viable Republican candidates in January’s and February’s contests, the number of persuadable voters in a polarized “two-incumbent” general election, the role of third-party candidates as mischief-makers, plus alternate ways for selecting presidential nominees – i.e., is it time for national, regional or more “open” primaries?

What did we learn in 2023? California governor Gavin Newsom’s forays into national politics may have hurt his popularity back home; San Francisco’s pre-summit emergency clean-up proved that urban sanitation, like fame, can be fleeting.

Hoover senior fellow Lee Ohanian and distinguished policy fellow Bill Whalen, both contributors to Hoover’s “California on Your Mind” web channel, join Hoover senior product manager Jonathan Movroydis to discuss the latest in the Golden State, including how California’s fiscal outlook went from a massive surplus to a titanic deficit, whether there’s light at the end of the tunnel for the state’s troubled high-speed rail project, plus Shohei Ohtani’s future in Dodger blue – and maybe a dodger of state income taxes.

A tale of not two but three California cities: what some have suggested was a hypocritical sanitizing of San Francisco ahead of this week’s APEC summit; the question of who and what caused a fire closing a portion of a Los Angeles freeway for weeks ahead; and in Sacramento, the 20th anniversary of Arnold Schwarzenegger taking office as California’s 38th governor. Hoover senior fellow Lee Ohanian and distinguished policy fellow Bill Whalen, both contributors to Hoover’s “California on Your Mind” web channel, join Hoover senior product manager Jonathan Movroydis to discuss the latest in the Golden State, including the addition of “disinformation” and ethnic studies classes (the latter now a graduation requirement) to California’s K-12 curriculum.