Michelle Obama’s memoir is out now in paperback - It’s called “Becoming,” and it has sold more than 14 million copies worldwide in hardcover, and was named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times, NPR, and a dozen other places.  But the book avoids politics—which seems strange for the person the New York Times called "the most outspoken first lady in modern history."  Amy Wilentz comments.  (originally broadcast in November 2018)

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Amy Wilentz reports on the huge protests in Port-au-Prince last Sunday, the biggest in decades, and asks why the Biden Administration is following Trump policies in Haiti.  Amy is author of the award-winning report from Haiti, "Farewell Fred Voodoo."

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Historian Eric Foner talks about Will Smith’s 6-part series on Netflix on the 14th Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, which established birthright citizenship and guaranteed equal protection to all “persons”—the series, with a stellar cast, is called “Amend.”

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Biden and the Democrats need to change things enough to win new supporters --and now that impeachment is finished, his $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill takes the center of the political stage, including the $15 minimum wage.  Alan Minsky comment on that, and on the longer term problem of restoring American manufacturing-he’s Executive Director of Progressive Democrats of America. 

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We take a step back from this week’s politics and look forward to 2022 and future elections.  The Democrats’ victories in Georgia were a decade in the making; can we do it again in another Republican state?  Steve Phillips says “Texas is next.”

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Rennie Davis, who died on February 2, was probably the New Left's most talented organizer.  We spoke with him at a Nation magazine event at the end of September, where he recalled his trip to North Vietnam at the height of the war.

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For Black History Month, Gary Younge talks about Barack Obama and his memoir “A Promised Land” – and the refusal of many liberals to critique his policies and decisions. 

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Faced by the pandemic and economic collapse, Biden Biden knows he has to work harder and faster than any president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt – he doesn’t have a hundred days to launch his initiatives – he’s got to set the tone in ten.  John Nichols comments on what Biden has accomplished in his first week – and what his next priorities ought to be.

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Gary Younge, the award-winning former columnist for The Guardian and member of The Nation's editorial board, comments on the insurrectionists of January 6.  They failed to stop Congress from certifying Biden as the winner of the election -- so what WAS the plan?  and what IS their future?

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In Joe Biden’s first speech as president-elect,  he promised Black America that he would have their backs.   Now he needs to take prompt action to fulfill that pledge.  Barbara Ransby comments--she’s a historian, writer, and longtime political activist, a distinguished professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, best known for her award-winning biography Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement.

 

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