Tim Talks Politics

One of the things TTP works to do is to promote a deeper, richer conversation about politics and citizenship, and I think a big part of that is taking the political conversation out of the recognized grooves of political news and discourse to hear how everyday people engage in the American experiment in self-government.  So, I'm excited to introduce you to Anastasia Halcomb who has launched an independent bid for the presidency. In this first interview on the Tim Talks Politics podcast, Anastasia shares her story about what brought to the point of running for president, the challenges of running as an independent, and her vision for a more hopeful America.

Get the show notes at www.timtalkspolitics.com.

I introduce this week's topic of America in the Middle East by hewing a little more closely to the news cycle than usual in the podcast, and that's because the last couple of weeks have seen some pretty incredible developments in the Trump administrations approach to the MENA region. Of greatest focus in the US, is Turkey's invasion of northern Syria and the withdrawal of American forces in the contested space, opening up Kurdish fighters to Turkish aggression and causing a general realignment not only in the Syrian conflict, but in how Americans talk about the Middle East. If you had told me 10 years ago that Republicans would (largely) be arguing to get troops out of the Middle East and Democrats would be arguing to keep them, I would've laughed. No longer. In the general upheaval, the really big question is, "Just why does America get so invested in the Middle East and its conflicts?" Critics of US foreign policy will say it's because of the oil, "No blood for oil," being a common slogan heard when the deployment of US troops to the region is in question. But is America in the Middle East just for the oil? And if so, why is that even the case? This is a short, introductory primer to America's interest in the MENA (Middle East North Africa) region.

Get the show notes at www.timtalkspolitics.com.

The last couple of episodes have focused on some of the big theories that shape our view of international politics. In addition to providing you with summaries of no less that 5 theoretical frames useful to interpreting foreign relations, specifically American foreign relations, I left off last time with applying rational actor theory to President Trump and his approach to foreign policy. In this episode, I’m going to continue on that line of thought but will be expanding the cast of characters to include the other elements of the American foreign policy infrastructure, and then apply some of the theories we’ve learned to a brief discussion on the Trump administration's approach to relationships with Iran.

Get the show notes at www.timtalkspolitics.com.

I’m going to spend the next two episodes broadening the discussion on IR theories I introduced last episode – realism, liberalism, constructivism – by first introducing an additional theory this week: Rational Actor Theory. Next week, we’ll look at a particular story in the news and consider how these different theories inform our understanding of it. For both of these episodes, I’ll use President Trump and his foreign policy forays as a case study, which brings me to today’s main question: Is President Trump a rational actor?

Get the show notes at www.timtalkspolitics.com.

Today, I’m shifting the discussion to the world beyond America’s shores. That’s right, we’re talking about international relations and foreign policy. In my intro, I say that this podcast is about “government, citizenship, and America’s place in the world.” The first six episodes have largely focused on that “government citizenship” part and since we’re still in the early going/introductory phase of this podcast, I wanted to be sure to introduce this particular topic and provide you with some broad conceptual ideas about thinking about “America’s place in the world.”

Get the show notes at www.timtalkspolitics.com.

For all its stirring words affirming the powerful potential of the individual, the DOI recognizes that building a nation requires a unified, collective effort of free and equal individuals. But how do we hold free and equal individuals together? With the ancient practice of swearing an oath on something the individuals value, in this case, "their lives, fortunes and sacred honor."

It’s more than soaring rhetoric at work here. It’s a concrete step of faith. Jefferson has framed an oath around the core truth claims of the DOI. By affixing their signatures to the document, the Founders committed themselves, and those future generations who would come after them, to continue to affirm, those truths.  

Get the show notes at www.timtalkspolitics.com.

Not going to lie, this is a very hard segment to research without  pretty much paraphrasing or copying what others have said.  So before we get started, let me read off a great resource to understand the list of abuses/facts that Jefferson is submitting to a “candid world” to justify America’s DOI.

The National Humanities Center put together a fantastic annotated DOI.  Get it, read it, use it in the classroom.  It clarifies the context of the DOI quite a bit.  

I’ll be relying on this document a lot as we go through, while adding a few comments on my own.  If Jefferson was writing a clickbait headline for the Huffington Post, he might have titled this segment of the declaration “26 Facts About British Politics That Will Make Your Blood Boil.”  It’s really the 18th century equivalent of a listicle, but far more eloquently worded.  There’s 26 of these suckers, so let’s dive in. 

Get the show notes at www.timtalkspolitics.com.

When it comes to political discussions we should be like Hawkeye and Black Widow facing off in Captain America: Civil War - it’d be good to ask one another, “We’re still friends, right?”  We’re still playing on the same team with the same rule book, right?  If so, then we can do some productive civic discourse.  If not, then we need to work on identifying just what we believe and agree on as a political community, locally and nationally. There's no better place to start than by reading through the document that started it all: The Declaration of Independence. This is Part 1 in a three-part series. Get the show notes at www.timtalkspolitics.com.

We defined politics in the previous episode as being a series of negotiated relationships.

Critical to those relationships is information, which is why an independent and diverse media is so crucial to the health of democratic system.

However, the Internet has broken down a lot of barriers and filters, and now we’re all members of the media.  So we need to discuss how we, as citizens, engage in information and how that informs our politics.

One of the big stories of the 2016 election was the role of misinformation and its effect on the outcome.  So today, i want to talk about how to find good information and how to use it in your political discussions, then I’ll supply you with a few resources.

In this episode, Tim briefly explores the differences between politics and government. Though the two terms are VERY closely related, there are some interesting distinctions. Where it gets really interesting, though, is when we consider how government structures enable and limit certain political processes, and how those processes adapt and respond. Crucial to effective citizenship is an understanding of one's role as an individual citizen within the community and awareness of ones relationship with both government and politics.