Reckon Interview

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On the eve of the election, the Reckon Interview sits down with five people from around the South to discuss three simple questions:

No matter who wins Tuesday, it will be people like you shaping the future of the South.

Show Notes

3:27 Whitney Miller-Nichols | Educator

8:44 Courtney Campbell | Social Worker

17:03 Devon Frazier | Founder, Non-profit

23:32 Darius Williams | Cybersecurity

25:28 Kyle Buchanan | Hospital President

32:54 We want to hear from you. Tweet us your thoughts at @JohnHammontree and @RLNave

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The 2020 election has led to some of the strangest alliances in political history. Right now, political strategists who’ve previously worked for candidates as ideologically far apart as Dick Cheney and Bernie Sanders or Sarah Palin and Stacey Abrams, are united in a common goal: the defeat of Trumpism. But what happens after the election? If Trump loses, where does this energy go in January 2021? If Trump wins, what happens next?

Rick Wilson is a political strategist who has advised Republicans like George H.W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Rudy Giuliani. In 2019, he co-founded the Lincoln Project - a PAC made up of former Republican consultants dedicated to the defeat of Trump and Trumpism. 

Wilson argues that Republicans have to lose up and down the ballot in order to wipe out the seeds of Trumpism and rebuild the conservative movement. He also describes what the Lincoln Project will do in 2021 and beyond, if Trump loses. 

Aimee Castenell is a digital strategist with the Working Families Party in Atlanta. And she organizes on campaigns in several Southern states. 

She explains how people can get involved if there's a disputed election, drawing on the experience of the Georgia's governor's race in 2018, how to gear up for future campaigns and recruiting Black women to run to public office.

Show Notes

1:48 Rick Wilson | lincolnproject.us | @TheRickWilson

2:15 What is the Lincoln Project?

3:38 What makes Donald Trump different from earlier Republicans?

5:22 The Roy Moore election

6:17 Defeating Trumpism, not just Trump

8:13 What does the Lincoln Project do if Trump loses?

10:07 What separates the Lincoln Project from the Democratic Party?

12:34 What mandate would Joe Biden have?

15:08 On court packing and the filibuster

18:38 How to react when candidates won’t debate

20:00 Social isolation of #NeverTrumpers

21:02 Is there a Republican in the South you would vote for?

22:31 Stay in the fight

25:59 Aimee Castenell | Working Families Party | @aimeeorleans

27:27 Dealing with mismanaged elections

30:23 How to help out

31:55 Elections are not a zero-sum game

35:16 The long-term work of organizing

39:22 It’s going to be an uphill battle

41:02 The importance of local elections

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Doug Jones was never expected to be Alabama's senator. His unexpected victory in 2017 may have set off a chain reaction in the Deep South. Suddenly national money poured into races in states like Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina. And longtime power brokers in the Alabama Democratic Party found themselves on the ropes. Political consultant David Mowery explains how Jones' election changed what we thought we knew about Southern politics. And Rep. Chris England describes the turnaround of the Alabama Democratic Party.

Episode 10

2:19 David Mowery | moweryconsulting.com | @TheChairmanMow

2:30 The ‘Red Wall’

5:46 Doug Jones vs. Tommy Tuberville

7:45 A purple Alabama?

12:22 Impact of Covid-19 on campaigns

16:18 Future hurdles for the Alabama Republican Party

18:51 Getting distracted by outside events

20:43 Effects of Redistricting

24:31 Who the heck is persuadable?

26:36 Rep. Chris England (D-AL) | Chair of AL Democratic Party | @RepEngland70

28:05 The Doug Jones Effect

30:53 The takeover of the Democratic Party

37:56 What England does if Jones loses

39:40 Re-uniting a fractured party | Response to Reply All

45:02 Impact of SCOTUS vacancy

51:12 All politics is local

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There’s more to this discussion than partisan politics of course but in poll after poll… we’re starting to see some of the country's most inelastic states look a little more like swing states. And we’re starting to see a few cracks in the establishment on the right and the left. Jaime Harrison, the Democratic candidate in a statistical tie with Sen. Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, joins the Reckon Interview to discuss why the Democratic establishment should embrace the South. Dana Hall McCain, a conservative columnist in Alabama, joins the second half of the show to discuss how to stay true to your values, even when it seems like your party’s establishment has cast them aside. 

Show Notes

2:27 Jaime Harrison | Democratic candidate for senate, South Carolina | @harrisonjaime

2:49 Life growing up in the South

5:41 National Democrats and the South

8:01 Running as a Democrat in South Carolina

10:18 How national issues play in the South

13:46 Running as a Black man in the South

16:21 Winning back former Democrats

19:21 Relationship with Doug Jones and other Democrats

22:48 Building the bench

24:51 What winning would mean for South Carolina

27:33 Dana Hall McCain | Columnist | @dhmccain

28:10 Changes in Republican establishment

30:32 Trump and the Courts

34:51 Evangelicals and Catholics

37:13 Conservative Evangelicals and Biden

38:25 Conservative Evangelicals and Trump

43:46 How Republicans have responded to Trump

49:03 Changes in the Southern Baptist Convention

53:12 Great Commission Baptists

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America is having a long overdue conversation about policing and justice. Most of us know that the criminal justice system looks different for Black and Brown Americans. And many of us probably have a sense of why the system has always worked against them. But this week we’re examining just how expansive and damaging that system has been. Dr. John Giggie, an historian at the University of Alabama and director of the Summersell Center for the Study of the South, outlines how the roots of today’s problem of mass incarceration can be found in slave patrols, mass lynchings, and convict leasing. And Beth Shelburne, a journalist who has dedicated her career to covering the ins and outs of the prison industrial complex, walks us through the unique issues plaguing Alabama’s prisons -- one of the most dangerous prison systems in the country -- as well as problems similar to all prisons across the South.

Show Notes

1:58 Dr. John Giggie | University of Alabama | Summersell Center for the Study of the South

2:50 From slave patrols to mass incarceration

7:50 Convict leasing

9:07 Criminalizing Black bodies

12:23 The public display of lynchings

16:26 “Law & Order”

19:07 Media’s role in perpetuating stereotypes

20:53 Impact on other people of color

22:07 Mental health and prisons

25:21 Beth Shelburne | bethshelburne.com | @bshelburne

25:57 The terror of Alabama prisons

28:15 Who is in our prisons?

31:53 Prison conditions during Covid-19

34:01 Parole process

37:13 Would building new facilities solve the problem?

40:07 Sentencing reform

44:45 Hurdles people face after prison

49:51 Cash bail

51:25 How many people are affected by Alabama prisons?

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Earlier this year, Congress passed the biggest stimulus package in history, but who is actually getting that mone

This week, we're chatting with Dr Stephanie Yates, a professor of finance at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Diane Standaert, a senior vice president of the Hope Policy Institute in Mississippi, which aims to help people in underserved areas grow wealth. Dr. Yates explains how today’s wealth gap can be explained by a history of policies that deliberately cut Black and Brown people out of the opportunity to accumulate wealth -- and how some policies aimed to address that disparity have backfired due to a lack of oversight. And Diane Standaert describes how the largest stimulus package in American history could exacerbate those disparities, if we aren’t careful. 

Show Notes

2:11 Dr. Stephanie M. Yates | Director and Endowed Professor, Regions Institute for Financial Education, University of Alabama at Birmingham | @syatesmitch

2:52 How wealth is stored

4:55 How federal policies deepened the wealth gap

6:35 The subprime lending crisis

11:28 A new form of redlining

12:08 Efforts to reform the system

14:53 How minority-owned businesses impact the overall economy

18:26 How the government built white wealth

20:14 The creation of a caste system

24:55 Steps to take to survive a recession

27:01 Should I buy on credit right now?

29:10 Diane Standaert | Senior Vice President, Hope Policy Institute | @dianestand

30:01 The economy prior to this recession

34:45 How stimulus money is being distributed

35:57 How the PPP funds were divided

39:56 Resources for businesses struggling to stay afloat

41:29 How the South is handling the recession

52:49 Can we break the cycle?

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Football is religion in the South, to borrow the cliche. And a certain sect of fans and the establishment have always tried to separate that religion from politics. But that’s a tall order in 2020. When politics affect whether games can be safely played. When players and coaches wrestle with systemic racism and police brutality. When the president of the United States uses sports as… well a political football. And when a former football coach is pursuing a seat in the United States Senate. This week, we're speak with John Talty, Senior Sports Editor for AL.com and head of their SEC Insider, and Kiese Laymon, author of the highly acclaimed memoir Heavy and an English professor at the University of Mississippi. 

Show Notes

0:00 Nick Saban, Alabama Crimson Tide

2:17 John Talty, Senior sports editor and SEC Insider, @JTalty

2:34 Covering sports during a pandemic

3:40 Is it possible to ‘stick to sports?’

6:13 Is the NCAA really committed to racial justice?

8:29 Players and the league fighting for power

10:26 Mississippi athletes and the Confederate flag

12:18 The Covid-19 information war

15:01 What’s at stake for college towns?

17:17 Tommy Tuberville’s run for senate

23:10 Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy, @KieseLaymon

23:51 Life in Oxford, MS, during a pandemic

25:58 The cat’s out of the bag on ‘amateurism’

28:25 The burden students are carrying

29:58 Everyone else is making money in sports

32:22 The myths of living in Mississippi

38:54 The change that comes through sports

42:11 What do NFL owners really think?

4653 White people in Mississippi

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