Start Making Sense

By The Nation Magazine

Society & Culture

What's Start Making Sense about?

Progressive news without the boring parts—featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the week in news. Hosted by Jon Wiener and presented by The Nation Magazine.

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Sherrod Brown: How to Beat ...

11.13.2019

Sherrod Brown, the senior senator from Ohio, was re-elected in 2018. He won by 7 points—in a state Hillary Clinton had lost—by 8 points—just 2 years earlier. What are the lessons for 2020? “You need to talk to workers,” he ...

Start Making Sense episodes:

11.13.2019 Sherrod Brown: How to Beat Trump; plus D.D. Guttenplan on Joe Biden and Thom Hartmann on the Supreme Court Sherrod Brown, the senior senator from Ohio, was re-elected in 2018. He won by 7 points—in a state Hillary Clinton had lost—by 8 points—just 2 years earlier. What are the lessons for 2020? “You need to talk to workers,” he ...
11.06.2019 The Election, One Year Away: John Nichols on the Polls, plus Paul Adler on Socialism and John Powers on John Le Carré Where do we stand one year out from the election? The best polls this week show Trump losing the popular vote by around 15 points—but also show that he’s still “highly competitive” in the swing states Democrats must carry in ...
10.30.2019 Joe Biden’s Zombie Campaign: Jeet Heer on Moderate Dems, plus Elie Mystal on Senate Republicans and Amy Wilentz on Haiti Joe Biden may be the frontrunner, but he’s slipping, and it seems doubtful that he will get better at this. Big donors are pulling away from him. But do the “moderates” in the party–-the Wall Street Democrats--have a Plan B? ...
10.23.2019 How TV Made Trump: Tom Carson, plus David Perry on Ilhan Omar and Pico Iyer on Japan We all know Trump got famous on TV with The Apprentice – but how many of us ever watched The Apprentice? Reality TV was a key force in making Trump president. Tom Carson talks about “Audience of One” by James ...
10.16.2019 The Deepening Desperation of Donald Trump: Sasha Abramsky on the President, plus Corey Robin on Clarence Thomas and Katha Pollitt on Abortion Trump’s increasingly reckless efforts at intimidation reveal the increasingly desperate situation he has created for himself, where even Fox News has become an inconsistent and unreliable defender of his actions. Sasha Abramsky separates Trump’s efforts at distraction from the political ...
10.09.2019 The new Supreme Court term will be worse than the last one—a lot worse: Elie Mystal, plus Amy Wilentz on Ivanka and Jeet Heer on impeachment The Supreme Court term began its fall term this week--and even though Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed at the start of last year’s court term, this year the Supremes’ decisions will be worse – a lot worse. Elie Mystal explains why—he’s ...
10.02.2019 Republicans and Impeachment: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly--Joan Walsh, plus Andrew Bacevich on Afghanistan and Azadeh Moaveni on ISIS Women The big question about impeachment is not the House -- there now seem to be enough votes there to pass at least one article of impeachment--the big question is about the Senate and whether some Republicans will abandon Trump. Former ...
09.25.2019 Impeachment at Last: Jeet Heer on Trump, plus Eric Foner on voting rights and Jane McElevey on the UAW strike Trump finally went too far, even for Nancy Pelosi: he used money appropriated by Congress for foreign aid to pressure the president of Ukraine to come up with dirt on Joe Biden—dirt that Trump could use in the upcoming election. ...
09.18.2019 2020 will Bring a Historic Defeat for the Republicans: Stan Greenberg on the Election, plus D.D. Guttenplan on Edward Snowden and Sasha Abramsky on Trump The 2020 election will liberate us from Donald Trump and Republican hegemony. A sweeping Democratic victory will make it possible at last for us to address our most serious problems. That’s what Stan Greenberg says – he’s a longtime pollster ...
09.11.2019 Why Doesn’t the GOP Resist Trump the Way Tories Resist Boris Johnson? D.D. Guttenplan on Britian and America, plus Katha Pollitt on Trump and John Nichols on Republican Resignations Last week Tory rebels in parliament staged a dramatic insurrection against their own Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, blocking his plans for a “no-deal Brexit.” But virtually no Republicans in Congress have resisted Trump. Why is that? D.D. Guttenplan compares and ...
09.04.2019 Why the Koch Brothers Don’t Support Trump: Christopher Leonard on “Kochland,” plus Joan Walsh on Indivisible How the Koch brothers transformed an obscure oil company based in Wichita into a $110 billion colossus, and reshaped the Republican Party—but failed to prevent Trump from becoming president: Christopher Leonard on Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and ...
08.28.2019 The White Power Movement after El Paso: Kathleen Belew on domestic terrorism, plus Davis Maraniss on HUAC We’re still thinking about the terrorist attack in El Paso, where 22 people were killed at a Walmart and two dozen more were injured. Like almost all of these attacks, the El Paso killings have been treated as an isolated ...
08.21.2019 Trump’s Terrible Poll Numbers: Jeet Heer on the campaign, plus J. Hoberman on Reagan and the movies The latest polls—including the highly respected Fox poll—show Trump in terrible shape at this point: Among registered voters he trails Biden 50-38, Bernie 48-39, Elizabeth Warren 46-39, and even Kamala Harris 45-39. He’s losing crucial segments of his 2016 base. ...
08.14.2019 Bernie or Bust? Harold Meyerson on DSA, plus Katha Pollitt on Jeffrey Epstein and John Nichols on White Nationalism If Bernie does NOT get the nomination, the Democratic Socialists of America will not endorse the Democrat who does. “Bernie or Bust” was what they decided at their recent convention – but is that a good idea? Harold Meyerson comments--he’s ...
08.07.2019 America After El Paso: Joan Walsh on Trump, plus Katha Pollitt on Protest and D.D. Guttenplan on the Green New Deal After Trump’s tweets about the El Paso killings, Beto’s response was the one of the best: “He’s not tolerating violence, he’s inciting racism and violence in this country.” Joan Walsh, National Affairs Correspondent for The Nation, examines the mainstream media’s ...
07.31.2019 Trump’s Escalating Racism: A Sign of Political Desperation? Harold Meyerson, plus Jeet Heer on Al Franken and Paul Krassner remembered Are Trump’s recent racist tweets part of a political strategy, or an uncontrollable personal impulse? Harold Meyerson comments – and also proposes ways to end the potentially devastating divide among Democrats over a Green New Deal. Harold is editor-at-large of ...
07.24.2019 Is Trump Crazy? Would Pence be Worse? Amy Wilentz & Jane Mayer, plus EJ Dionne: America After Trump Amy Wilentz comments on the mental and emotional status of the president, as analyzed by 27 psychiatrists in ‘The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,’ a book edited by Bandy X. Lee. The book was number four on the New York ...
07.17.2019 Democracy Is Not Well: Astra Taylor, plus Katha Pollitt on Travel to Mars Democracy is not doing well these days – we have Trump, and Brexit, and a host of other examples. Astra Taylor has been thinking about that: she talks about the paradoxes of rule by the people, the many ways it’s ...
07.10.2019 Joy-Ann Reid: How Trump Happened; plus Amy Wilentz on Jared’s Mid-East Peace Plan Racial anxiety was more important than economic anxiety in motivating Trump’s voters, Joy Reid of MSNBC argues. A key factor in Trump’s victory was nostalgia for a white, Christian America where men were still in charge. And of course Hillary ...
07.03.2019 Joe Biden has No Place to Go Except Down: Robert Borosage on politics, plus Martin Duberman on the lost world of gay liberation It’s an extraordinary victory: the first round of Democratic debates shows that all the major candidates are working within a progressive framework. Robert Borosage says Bernie gets the credit—and that, although Biden currently is far ahead in the polls of ...
06.26.2019 Elizabeth Warren’s American Story: Joan Walsh on the senator, plus Jeet Heer on Joe Biden and Andrew Bacevich on Mideast Wars Campaigning in Iowa, Elizabeth Warren has made her story an American story, Joan Walsh says, and thereby found a good way to connect her policy proposals to her own life, and thereby to other people’s lives--and also to refute critics ...
06.19.2019 Elizabeth Warren is Leading in the Ideas Primary: Katrina vanden Heuvel, plus John Nichols on Bernie and Socialism and Sasha Abramsky on Florida Elizabeth Warren may be running third in the Democratic polls, after Biden and Bernie, but she seems to be the clear leader in what we call “the ideas primary.” Katrina vanden Heuvel comments—and suggests that foreign policy, where Warren has ...
06.12.2019 Trump or Brexit: Which is Worse? DD Guttenplan on politics, plus John Nichols with Rashida Tlaib and Katha Pollitt on abortion and men For most Americans, the question “Which is worse: Trump or Brexit?” has an easy answer: of course it’s Trump! But D. D. Guttenplan, The Nation’s new Editor, says it’s more complicated than that: for starters, Americans can get rid of ...
06.05.2019 The Missing Candidate in California: Joe Biden--David Dayen on the Primaries, plus Bruce Shapiro on Assange and Ezra Levin on the Indivisible Pledge Joe Biden was the only leading Democratic candidate who did NOT come to the California state Democratic convention last weekend in San Francisco – David Dayen reports on the biggest of the Super Tuesday primaries; he’s the new executive editor ...
05.29.2019 Daniel Ellsberg: Espionage and Julian Assange; plus Robert Pollin on Medicare for All and Alyssa Battistoni on Climate Politics The indictment of Julian Assange on espionage charges is an attack on freedom of the press—that’s what Daniel Ellsberg argues. Ellsberg too was indicted under the Espionage Act – and put on trial by the Nixon Administration in 1972, because ...
05.22.2019 The New York Times vs. Bernie: Amy Wilentz on media bias, plus John Nichols on Ilhan Omar and Karen Greenberg on government secrecy Bernie is back on Page One of the New York Times, but their report last weekend was not about his new plan to save public schools–the most progressive education program in modern American history–or his proposal to end all subsidies ...
05.15.2019 What Joe Biden Has In Common with Donald Trump: Harold Meyerson, plus Michael Ames on Bowe Bergdahl and Laila Lalami on ‘The Other Americans’ Joe Biden has one thing in common with Donald Trump: a campaign promising “restoration” of a lost past, rather than the kind of transformation we need to deal with our current problems-- That’s what Harold Meyerson says. Of course the ...
05.08.2019 The New Voters of 2020 and the Democrats: Steve Phillips, plus Ben Ehrenreich on Climate and Commerce and Amy Wilentz on Haiti’s Notre Dame For the 2020 election, we’ve been focusing mostly on the candidates who want to challenge Trump – but we also need to consider the voters, and the changes in the electorate since 2016. Especially significant: young people of color. Steve ...
05.01.2019 Does it Have to Be Biden? Joan Walsh on the Candidates, plus Joshua Holland on Impeachment and Peter Richardson on Carey McWilliams When Joe Biden finally declared his candidacy, he immediately pulled way out in front in the polls of Democratic candidates. The polls also show him the one most likely to beat Trump. Joan Walsh points to some of the problems ...
04.24.2019 ‘We’re capable of doing remarkable things to combat climate change’: Bill McKibben plus Richard J. Evans on Eric Hobsbawm What can we do to reduce the speed of climate change? Bill McKibben argues that we're at a bleak moment in human history -- and we'll either confront that bleakness, or watch the civilization our forebears built slip away. Bill ...
04.17.2019 Trump’s Tax Returns: Why We Will See Them, and What We Will Find: David Cay Johnston, plus Zoe Carpenter on plastics and Laurie Winer on Stephen Miller The chair of the House Ways and Means Committee formally requested six years of Trump’s personal & business tax returns earlier this month. Trump has said he won’t do it—and that the law is “100 per cent” on his side. ...
04.10.2019 Kirsten Gillibrand’s Journey to the Left: Joan Walsh, plus Eric Foner on Reconstruction and Amy Wilentz on Jared Kushner Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, and Elizabeth Warren are the women in the Senate who have announced campaigns for the Democratic nomination—and Gillibrand is running on Medicare for All and a Green New Deal. She started out in Congress ...
04.03.2019 Stacey Abrams: How We Fight for the Right to Vote; plus Harold Meyerson on the Trouble with Beto * When Stacey Abrams ran for governor of Georgia last November as the first African-American and the first woman candidate, she got more votes than any Democrat in Georgia history, including Obama and Hillary Clinton. She tripled Latino turnout; she ...
03.27.2019 Don’t Trust Barr on the Mueller Report: John Nichols; Plus Greg Grandin on Trump’s Wall and Adam Hochschild on Woodrow Wilson Nobody should be satisfied with Attorney General William Barr’s account of the Mueller report, says John Nichols. We had assumed that the independent counsel’s investigation into obstruction of justice would conclude one way or the other. Instead we have Barr ...
03.20.2019 College Admissions Scams, from Jared Kushner to the Present: Amy Wilentz, plus Medicaid in Arkansas and Abortion in Mississippi 50 people in six states were accused by the Justice Department last week of taking part in a major college admission scandal. They include Hollywood stars and business leaders, who paid bribes to elite college coaches. But that’s not the ...
03.13.2019 How to Beat Trump in 2020: John Nichols on Strategy, Michael Kazin on Southern Democrats, and Katha Pollitt on Women The Democrats’ picking Milwaukee for their convention in 2020 indicates how that Wisconsin is a key battleground the party must win in order to recapture the White House. John Nichols talks about what it going to take for the Democrats ...
03.06.2019 Bill McKibben: From Coal and Gas to Wind and Sun; plus Maia Szalavitz on the Opioid Epidemic and Sean Wilentz on Impeachment To replace coal and oil, do we need nuclear power? Is switching from coal powered electric plants to natural gas a step in the right direction? And what lessons can we draw from the recent victories—and setbacks--for the climate movement ...
02.27.2019 Michelle Goldberg: The Time is Right for a Green New Deal; plus George Zornick on Elizabeth Warren and Michael Walzer on Movement Politics Trump’s presidency is not the end of Democracy, as some of our friends have suggested. Instead we are seeing the end of a political cycle, the one that began in 1980 with Reagan. And now, it’s time for something new—and ...
02.20.2019 Naomi Klein: To Fight Climate Change, We Have to Radically Rethink What Is Possible; plus Dahlia Lithwick on Trump’s ‘Emergency’ and Manuel Pastor on Calif. vs. Trump Naomi Klein says the Green New Deal needs to follow the example of the New Deal of the 1930s, when nothing would have happened without “massive pressure from social movements” that “changed the calculus of what was possible.” Naomi is ...
02.13.2019 Child Care for All belongs on the Progressive Agenda Katha Pollitt, plus David Klion on Bernie’s foreign policy and Antony Loewenstein on Afghanistan Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, free college tuition, a $15 minimum wage – and how about adding Child care for all to the Progressive agenda? That’s Katha Pollitt’s proposal—she argues it will help huge numbers of people. Also: ...
02.06.2019 The State of the Union is Not Good: John Nichols on Trump, plus Sasha Abramsky on TPS and Elizabeth Kolbert on climate change John Nichols says Trump’s State of the Union speech Tuesday night was "cynical and crude." Also: Temporary Protected Status – “TPS” - has allowed immigrants and refugees from half a dozen countries with terrible problems to stay in the US ...
01.30.2019 Trump’s Wall—and the Walls of the Future: Atossa Araxia Abrahamian on Borders, Joan Walsh on Pramila Jayapal, and Harold Meyerson on Politics after the Shutdown The battle between Democrats and Trump over a border wall was a disagreement about symbolism, not policy, Atossa Araxia Abrahamian argues; the borders of the future won’t be as easy to spot as the wall that Trump is proposing. And ...
01.23.2019 2019 Will Be the Worst Year of Trump’s Life: John Nichols on politics, Sarah Jaffe on the LA teachers strike, and Sean Wilentz on slavery and the constitution What will 2019 be like for Trump? Will it be like Nixon in 1974—the Watergate year, which ended with his resignation? Or more like Clinton in 1998—the Monica year, which culminated with an impeachment trial in the Senate in 1999? ...
01.16.2019 The anti-immigrant temptation on the left: David Adler on politics, Pedro Noguera on the LA teachers strike, and Kate Aronoff on the battle of ideas A political movement combining a left-wing economic program with anti-immigrant initiatives: it’s developing right now in Germany and France – could it happen here? David Adler explains: he’s the Policy Coordinator for the European Spring — Europe’s first transnational party, ...
01.09.2019 The Issues Republicans Are Afraid to Touch: Harold Meyerson on Politics, plus Aaron Maté on Russiagate and Alex Press on Amazon workers Now that the Democrats are in charge in the House of Representatives, Harold Meyerson says, we can learn a lot about progressive political opportunities by studying “the Republican dogs that didn’t bark in the night” – the political issues Republicans ...
01.02.2019 The Best of 2018: Seymour Hersh on Trump, Barbara Ehrenreich on ‘Wellness,’ and Amos Oz Remembered Our most popular interviews of the year, starting with Seymour Hersh, one of our heroes; he says “don’t underestimate Trump.” He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for his expose of the My Lai massacre—he was a 33-year-old freelancer at ...
12.26.2018 The Facts of Russiagate have been Obvious for a Long Time: David Klion on Putin and Trump, plus Amy Wilentz on Trump’s Mental Status and Bill McKibben on Climate Change For our year-in-review show, we open with a Russiagate update with David Klion – he says it’s basically a corruption scandal whose basic facts have been obvious for a long time—and one that should bring down Trump’s presidency. In a ...
12.19.2018 2018: A Big Year for Progressives—John Nichols on Politics, plus Erwin Chemerinsky on Obamacare and Atossa Araxia Abrahamian on Left Internationalism John Nichols presents the highlights of The Nation’s annual Progressive Honor Roll—our heroes in Congress, in state politics, and in leading protests at the border. Also: is Obamacare unconstitutional? A federal judge ruled last week that all of Obamacare violates ...
12.12.2018 William Barr: Another Jeff Sessions? David Cole, plus Dave Lindorff on Pentagon Accounting Fraud and Marc Cooper on the Revolution in Armenia Trump’s nominee for Attorney General, William Barr, is more qualified to do the job than Matt Whitaker--but so are thousands of others. His record, however, show’s he as bad as Jeff Sessions—if not worse. David Cole, National Legal Director of ...
12.05.2018 George H.W. Bush Gave Us Today's Republican Party: Harold Meyerson, plus Katha Pollitt on White Women and Trump and Eric Foner on Frederick Douglass George H. W. Bush paved the way for today’s Republican party with his racist Willy Horton campaign, nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, and pardoned the Iran-Contra conspirator whose trial would have exposed his own abuse of power. Harold ...

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