The Round Table: A YVote Podcast

The Round Table: A YVote Podcast

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The Round Table: A YVote Podcast episodes

  • No doubt we are going against the grain of where the country is moving right now
    Michael Thorning broke down the challenges of our time: People are more and more attracted to extreme views in politics—extreme views have become how people distinguish themselves from one another—AND we have been living through a period of extreme partisanship. These are two different things but play off of one another. Further, they build off really deep rooted trends that go back for many decades.
    1 min
  • My work focuses on how to make Congress more responsive and more representative
    Michael Thorning from the Bipartisan Policy Center shares some of the fascinating programs he works on like BPC’s American Congressional Exchange, a first of its kind program in which bipartisan pairs of congress members visit each other in their home districts for a few days to build authentic relationships, and the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress, which is poised to make once in a generation changes to how Congress works, from the tech and social media they use to how much staff get paid and whether members should live in Washington through a number of critical rules and procedures.
    1 min
  • Looking at the nuts and bolts of our democracy

    At this week's Round Table, Inica, Olivia, and Riya spoke with Michael Thorning, Associate Director for Governance at the Bipartisan Policy Center which, as the name implies, actively fosters bipartisanship by combining the best ideas from both parties to promote health, security, and opportunity for all Americans. Michael spoke with us about BPC’s strategy of strengthening institutions and fostering broader participation in democracy in order to diminish the most extreme manifestations of partisanship and polarization. Michael helps us understand that bipartisanship is not an ideology unto itself but rather it’s a value, and a norm. If people want stability in our laws and government, you don’t want to be overthrown when your party is out of power. Government programs like social security endure because there were bipartisan compromises to start and sustain them, and the public has become dependent upon them. During these hyper-polarized times, speaking with Michael filled us with hope. Thanks for joining us!

    23 min
  • Whether objectivity exists is a debate historians have been having for a long time
    In response to a question from Inica about whether there is value in establishing facts and enabling people to figure out their own opinions, Julian Zelizer notes that this is a debate historians have been having for a loooong time. His shared his belief that we are ALWAYS interpreting, which entails brings values. As such, he endorses acknowledging that there is no pure objectivity while still striving to provide as balanced a view as possible, presenting evidence and different ways to think about the question so that students can ultimately decide for themselves.
    1 min
  • I use students’ energy to animate the classroom
    Professor Zelizer debunks the idea of college campuses being environments where professors are scared to speak and everything is fraught. He underscores that he’s found students engaged in the issues and wanting to debate them, and that he uses that energy to animate his classroom.
    1 min
  • The creation of “smashmouth partisanship”
    Professor Julian Zelizer’s tells us about his newest book, which focuses on Newt Gingrich who helped bring down the Speaker of the House for the first time in history as he rose to power, introducing a new kind of partisanship called “smashmouth partisanship” where you can take down people and destroy institutions. The book also helps explain what came of the Republican Party and why we see the kind of politics that’s common today.
    1 min
  • Why Is the House Burning?

    At this week's Round Table, Inica Kotosthane and Riya Mehta interviewed Julian E. Zelizer, a professor at Princeton University and author of 19 books on American History and politics and over nine hundred op-eds, including a weekly column on CNN.Com.  He's just published a book called  “Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, The Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party, ” which builds upon his last book "Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974," in helping us understand how the U.S. got to our current state of government.  As you can imagine, Professor Zelizer had a lot to say about the state of polarization and divisiveness in our country, how things got this way, the role of the media, and what it will take to create change.  Thank you for joining us!

    Articles:

    • When Politics Turned Toxic (New York Times Book Review of Burning Down the House, July 7, 2020)
    • ‘Burning Down the House,’ by Julian E. Zelizer: An Excerpt (New York Times, July 7, 2020)
    • How Newt Gingrich Laid the Groundwork for Trump's Republican Party (Time Magazine, July 7, 2020)
      • 29 min
    • I wanted to be able to guide the research questions I answered
      Johanna Lacoe of the California Policy Lab shared how in studying important issues related to education, school discipline and school safety, housing and foreclosures, neighborhood crime and criminal justice, she became increasingly aware of how linked all of these policy issues are, as is particularly evident in what’s going on right now with COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matters movement. We have all these systems set up and none of them are working in the ways we want them to, and they’re all related. It’s most obvious in criminal justice but it’s really about failures in all of the other systems.
      1 min
    • There is an age old American conflict btw federalism and anti-federalism
      Michael Jackson talks about the age-old tensions between uniformity at the top and local power. He underscores that a lot of the discourse around policing is because there is no uniform Use of Force law in America, there is no uniform training of cops in America. Criteria differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In order to address this, we as Americans have to decide how much uniformity we think is advisable.
      1 min
    • What’s Criminal About the Criminal Justice System

      At this week's Round Table, Julianna, Riya, and Sara spoke with Johanna Lacoe of the California Policy Lab. Dr Lacoe is a policy scholar with expertise in criminal and juvenile justice, education, employment, and housing. Her work includes evaluations of policies and programs aimed to prevent neighborhood violence, improve school safety and discipline, and prepare individuals reentering society after incarceration for employment. Dr. Lacoe has great analysis and reflection about this moment in criminal justice reform, the #DefundPolice movement, and the implications of inequality and injustice more broadly.  Thanks for joining us!

      25 min

    About The Round Table: A YVote Podcast

    From the publisher's feed

    The Round Table provides a platform for conversation and engagement of civically-minded young people from different parts of the country. We strive to model civil dialogue across various divides--socioeconomic, racial, ethnic, political, and regional. We aim to challenge norms and represent all kinds of diversity--especially of perspective and ideas--enabling listeners to “hear” our thinking.