Democratic erosion is the process by which democratic states drift, inch by inch, into authoritarianism. On paper, Russia has among the best democratic systems out there. In reality, like in the US, things are a bit more complicated.  On the show, we’ve twice visited the book “How Democracies Die,” a self-explanatory title about eroding democracies, including ours in the US. We wanted to have a conversation about how the democratic system put in place after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s became the Russia of today under Vladimir Putin.

Our guest is Jeff Hawn, a doctoral candidate at the London School of Economics. He’s a contributing author at Newslines Institute.

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The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

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Anne Lutz Fernandez is a former marketer, investment banker, and recently retired English teacher. Her 2015 book Schooled, is a collection of stories from teachers across the US about their experiences and challenges in US classrooms.  

In July, Anne and Nate both appeared on the EdTrust’s podcast and discussed the Critical Race Theory moral panic. In some ways, this episode is a continuation of that conversation.

This episode begins with a brief host commentary about the vacant senate seat in the 27th legislative district and why Nate has withdrawn from consideration for the seat. The conversation with Anne begins at 8min 17sec.

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The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Pacific Luthern University

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Claudia Rowe is a long-time journalist, currently writing opinion pieces for our friends at Crosscut. She recently published a piece detailing how Seattle Public Schools has shed 2000 students during the pandemic to private schools, homeschooling, and neighboring districts.  As a reminder, schools in Washington are funded annually on a per-pupil basis, so this could have an eventual impact of upwards of $30 million. She joined us to discuss this and her upcoming book about how we completely fail children in foster care.

This conversation was brought to you by our friends at LibroFM (use promo code “TACOMA”).

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Claudia’s prior show appearances

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member

This conversation is the final of a series of episodes we will be releasing along with the ladies from IWL in preparation for what will likely be another very weird school year. This time we’re hearing from a student and a parent.

Silong Chhun is an activist in Tacoma’s Cambodian community and an advocate for refugees everywhere. He is making his third appearance on the show, this time joined by his son, Harlem. Harlem is a rising ninth grader at Lincoln High School in Tacoma and came on to give a student perspective on back-to-school.

In addition, this episode contains the first ever Nerd Farmer game show called Is it Older than my Dad?, which Harlem absolutely dominated–much to my surprise.

This conversation was brought to you by our friends at Pacific Lutheran University.

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Silong’s prior show appearances

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member

This conversation is part of a series of episodes we will be releasing along with the ladies from IWL in preparation for what will likely be another very weird school year. 

Robin Lake is the director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education. CRPE is a non-partisan research and policy organization based at the University of Washington. Robin is a researcher; her work focuses on scaling policy initiatives to improve academic outcomes across districts and states. 

In the spring of 2020, she was an early voice calling for schools to close and was an even louder advocate for reopening in the spring of 2021. She joined us to talk about that fall ahead and how school systems are and should be preparing for the year ahead. 

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Going Further

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member

This conversation is part of a series of episodes we will be releasing along with the ladies from IWL in preparation for what will likely be another very weird school year.

Bill Hanawalt is the former director of education programs at Peace Community Center on Hilltop and the current development director for Degrees of Change, the organization behind the Act Six Scholarship program. Act Six provides scholarships and ongoing support for Puget Sound students to attend Gonzaga, Northwest University, Pacific Lutheran University, Saint Martin’s, and Whitworth.

Bill is also a candidate for the Tacoma School Board this November. He came on to offer a perspective as a community partner.

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The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member

Last week Pierce County held its August primary. Turnout was weak and progressive candidates struggled locally and across the state. This is a familiar pattern in odd-year elections in Washington: turnout is low, but the olds vote in droves, and we all collectively lament our options in the November general election. This week we brought on two guests who are fighting to change this dynamic in the community.

Sharlett Mena is a recent (and hopefully future Democratic) candidate in the 29th legislative district. Darryl Crews is up to his neck in the local music scene and is the curator of “the New Pacific Northwest” playlist on Apple Music.

They’re the organizers behind Voter Turn-UP, an upcoming event and ongoing campaign around voter engagement in the South Sound. We brought them on to debrief the primary and discuss their upcoming kick-off event on August 28.

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The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member

In my Government & Politics classes, I have taught students about debt and deficits in a doctrinal way for nearly a decade. But recently I have started to question what I (and likely you) learned from the zeitgeist, media, college, and US politics about debts and deficits.

Today’s #NerdFarmerAcademy episode is a conversation with economist Dr. Fadhel Kaboub, Associate Professor of economics at Denison University and President of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity. He is a noted expert in Modern Monetary Theory, heretofore MMT. MMT is an economic theory that posits our approach to debts and deficits is just wrong. MMT economists believe that the concerns frequently expressed about the US debt are basically economic concern-trolling. They note that because the US government, unlike you and I, is a currency issuer, rather than a currency user, the limits on government debt are much higher than most of us have been led to believe. They call on the government to use debt to do great things. MMT-ers believe we can afford a much more generous government that can make a meaningful difference in the lives of working people.

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The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member

Everywhere you look, there is an endless parade of stories warning us about the dangers of inflation. This is a familiar song, for most of my adult life, in particular online, inflation hawks have been sounding the alarm. The latest round of worry (panic) has been in response to the rounds of stimulus caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. So we invited an economist to help us understand inflation, what causes it, how we measure it, and why both wealthy and not so wealthy people worry about it.

Bill Dickens is a utilities economist and chief economist and president of BJNJ. His work typically focuses on hydro, natural gas, and smart grid technologies. But this week he joined us for a conversation about macroeconomics and inflation. Thanks to Rep. Strickland for recommending Bill to us.

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Going Further

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member

Andrew Ujifusa is an assistant editor at Ed Week. He recently reported on the Critical Race Theory (CRT) moral panic sweeping much of the country and the teacher censorship bills that are being proposed in response. In particular, in a recent piece he compared the CRT controversy to the conservative backlash over the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) last decade, which was similarly fueled by online and cable news disinformation and misinformation.

He came on the show to do a “notebook dump” about what he has learned from reporting on CRT and to help us unpack the freakout that is currently happening.

Cast of Characters

Going Further

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member