The Preamble

Today on Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, Sharon welcomes back author and friend, Natalie Franke. Natalie’s new book, “Gutsy” is all about how we develop the courage in our own lives to do what we need to do. When we treat failure as the scapegoat, we often ignore the fact that fear is truly the culprit for why we get stuck, or postpone handling even simple tasks. Learn what it means to live with bold, brave, and boundless courage.

Special thanks to our guest, Natalie Franke, for joining us today. You can preorder a copy of Gutsy here.

Hosted by: Sharon McMahon

Guest: Natalie Franke

Executive Producer: Heather Jackson

Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode of Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, Sharon has a conversation with Matson and Tawni Browning about their book, The Hate Next Door. Matt gets candid about his time working undercover in white supremacist groups and what it was like to balance his dueling realities: where the job ended and where his home life began. Matt and Tawni also talk about the type of person white supremacist hate groups target for recruitment and the types of messaging they rely on to spread their violent ideologies.

Special thanks to our guests, Matt and Tawni Browning, for joining us today. You can order a copy of The Hate Next Door here.

Hosted by: Sharon McMahon

Guest: Matson and Tawni Browning

Executive Producer: Heather Jackson

Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today on Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, Sharon is joined by author Amanda Montell to talk about all things cultish. There isn’t always a standard definition of a cult, but there are things to look for, and we’ve all fallen for cultish practices or groups before. Language is often used as a tool of influence, like thought-terminating cliches, mantra phrases that are used to shut down independent thinking or questioning. Cultish leaders also take advantage of people by relying on our confirmation biases. We may think we couldn’t be fooled into joining a cult, but human nature is full of mystic moments and irrationality; it’s inevitable that we’ve joined a few cults along the way.

Special thanks to our guest, Amanda Montell, for joining us today. You can order a copy of Cultish here.

Hosted by: Sharon McMahon

Guest: Amanda Montell

Executive Producer: Heather Jackson

Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode of Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, Sharon welcomes former Senator Russ Feingold to the show. Russ is a three-term senator from Wisconsin and his new book, The Constitution in Jeopardy, talks about Constitutional evolution; how the framers built in mechanisms to change it when necessary. One of those mechanisms is the Constitutional Convention–a convention that the United States has never held. What might a convention change, and what are the dangers of it? Could a convention gut the Constitution and threaten democracy? What would a productive and successful Constitutional Convention look like?

Special thanks to our guest, Russ Feingold, for joining us today. You can order a copy of The Constitution in Jeopardy here.

Hosted by: Sharon McMahon

Guest: Russ Feingold

Executive Producer: Heather Jackson

Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, on Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, we welcome a very special guest: Rainn Wilson. You may know him best as Dwight from The Office, or maybe you’ve listened to his podcast with author Reza Aslan, Metaphysical Milkshake. Rainn and Sharon discuss the majesty of Spirit Bears, travel, and starting a spiritual revolution as a way to help heal our worldwide, modern pandemics. They also get real with death, religion, and the temporary nature of materialism.

Special thanks to our guest, Rainn Wilson, for joining us today. You can order Soul Boom here and watch The Geography of Bliss here. ***Please note that Rainn Wilson joined us for the recording of this podcast episode prior to the SAG strike.

Hosted by: Sharon McMahon

Guest: Rainn Wilson

Executive Producer: Heather Jackson

Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, on Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, Sharon connects with author David Treuer who writes about the sweeping history of Native Americans in his book, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee. It’s a history that goes beyond what most Americans are taught about key events or standout figureheads. Native past and present doesn’t pivot solely around tragedy and suffering; and when we tell only those stories, it shapes how we think. David seeks to create a narrative of bounty; Native history may have a surplus of pain, but it also has a surplus of joy and culture.

Special thanks to our guest, David Treuer, for joining us today. You can order The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee here.

Hosted by: Sharon McMahon

Guest: David Treuer

Executive Producer: Heather Jackson

Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode of Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, journalist Carla Power talks with Sharon about radicalism. Her book, Home, Land, Security, seeks to define and clarify extremism; having radical ideas does not necessarily make a person a resort to political violence. So what, then, does? What are the roads that lead people into committing radically extreme acts, and what are the roads that lead them back out from a state of violence? What does it take to de-radicalize people inside terrorist groups?

Special thanks to our guest, Carla Power, for joining us today. You can order Home, Land, Security here.

Hosted by: Sharon McMahon

Guest: Carla Power

Executive Producer: Heather Jackson

Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today on Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, Sharon talks with author Victor Lukerson about the Tulsa Race Massacre. Victor’s new book, Built From the Fire, brings to light the atmosphere and events in Oklahoma that make up the 1921 riot–or as Victor calls it–the pogrom, or organized extermination of an ethnic group. Learn about the violence and destruction white Tulsa wrecked on the prosperous black community of Greenwood, the community's perseverance, and the effects that are still felt today, a century later.

Special thanks to our guest, Victor Luckerson for joining us today. You can order Built From the Fire here.

Hosted by: Sharon McMahon

Guest: Victor Luckerson

Executive Producer: Heather Jackson

Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today on Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, Sharon talks with author Kate Masur, whose book, Until Justice Be Done, shines a light on what we can consider to be the first Civil Rights Movement–the movement for free Black Americans to gain equality from our country’s inception through Reconstruction after the Civil War. We often think of the fight to gain rights as a movement that happened in the 1950s and 1960s, but even in the early 1800s, there was an organized effort to resist racist laws and policy.

Special thanks to our guest, Kate Masur, for joining us today. You can order Until Justice Be Done here.

Hosted by: Sharon McMahon

Guest: Kate Masur

Executive Producer: Heather Jackson

Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Disinterment and repatriation is important work, but it’s only just begun, and it’s not the only work that needs to be done to acknowledge and atone for the history of Indigenous boarding schools. The Federal Government has not yet provided a centralized place for survivors or descendants of survivors of Federal Indian boarding schools, or their families, to voluntarily detail their experiences in the boarding school system.

Which means that there are still generations within the Indigenous community who continue to carry the invisible burden of these schools. The “road to healing” has started, maybe, but it's the indigenous people themselves who have taken the most significant steps forward.

Note: We would like to issue a content warning for this episode. Some parts of this episode may not be suitable for younger audiences.

Hosted by: Sharon McMahon

Executive Producer: Heather Jackson

Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder

Written and researched by: Heather Jackson, Amy Watkin, Mandy Reid, and KariMarisa Anton

Thank you to our guest K. Tsiannina Lomawaima and some of the music in this episode was composed by indigenous composer R. Carlos Nakai.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.