Start Making Sense

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 the time. Since then, he’s won pretty much every other journalism award. He’s worked as a staff writer for The New York Times and The New Yorker. He’s also written a dozen books, most recently ‘Reporter: A Memoir.’ Also: Barbara Ehrenreich is another hero of ours-- the author of more than a dozen books, including the unforgettable “Nickel and Dimed.”  Now she has a new book out, a bestseller, and it’s terrific: it’s called “Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainly of Dying, and killing ourselves to live longer.”  Finally, Amos Oz died on Dec 28 --He was an Israeli novelist and unyielding critic of the occupation of the West Bank and a campaigner for a two state solution.  His novels were translated into dozens of languages, and he also wrote for The Nation.  Here

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 lot of ways, Trump himself was the biggest story in 2018--we ask Amy Wilentz the key question: “is Trump crazy?” She discusses 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 Times bestseller list. And the biggest story of the year, for all of humanity, has been catastrophic climate change --Bill McKibben says “it’s not just an environmental issue.”Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 the constitution if he’s upheld by the Supreme Court, 20 million people will lose their insurance coverage. The case has the potent name “Texas versus the United States.” Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at UC Berkeley, explains why that ruling is likely to be rejected at the Supreme Court—by vote of 9-0. Plus: right-wing authoritarians have been coordinating political campaigns and disrupting elections across national boundaries – a project masterminded by Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon. It’s time now for the left, especially the American left, to go on the offensive and reclaim its tradition of internationalism. Atossa Araxia Abrahamian reports on the project of Yanis Varoufakis—and Bernie Sanders—to organize a P

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 the ACLU and The Nation’s legal affairs correspondent, explains. Also: a report on The Nation’s investigation of Massive Accounting Fraud at the Pentagon – Dave Lindorff found that $21 million cannot be accounted for.  For decades, he says, the Pentagon has been “deliberately cooking the books to mislead Congress.” Plus: the Armenian Revolution: “a small light of hope and progressive democratic change in a Europe increasingly shadowed by authoritarian and dictatorial forces, especially in most of the former soviet-bloc states of Eastern Europe.”  That’s what Marc Cooper says—he’s spent months in Yerevan, where elections on Sunday confirmed the victory of the revolutionaries.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.

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 Meyerson explains -- he’s executive editor of the American Prospect. Also: Katha Pollitt finds lessons from the midterms about white women who support Trump – she argues that they are unlikely to change their minds, and that we’d do better following the example of Stacey Abrams and mobilizing the nonvoters. Plus: Frederick Douglass, the black abolitionist, was the most famous black American of the 19th century. Historian Eric Foner says Douglass’s political ideas can help us in our struggles today.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Michelle Obama declares in her new memoir, "I am not a political person, so I'm not going to attempt to offer an analysis" of Trump’s victory.  That’s her stance in the rest of the book as well.  It seems strange for the person the New York Times called "The most outspoken first lady in modern history."  What’s going on here?  Amy Wilentz comments. Plus: The Democrats won the midterms by the largest popular vote margin for either party in the history of midterm elections -- larger than the Watergate midterm after Nixon resigned in 1974, 44 years ago.  But there was a deeper and more significant victory hidden behind those numbers, Kai Wright argues: the political mobilization of millions of people of color in the South. Also: Last week the White House – that is, the Trump White House – released a major scientific report on climate change, with the darkest warnings to date about the consequences of rising temperatures for the United States.  Tom Athanasiou explains.Advertising Inquiries

Orange County, California, was the political starting point for Nixon, for the Barry Goldwater presidential campaign, and for Reagan—as Republican as any place in America. But starting in January, not a single Republican will represent Orange County in the House. It’s solid blue. Gustavo Arellano will explain how it happened – he’s a weekly columnist for the LA Times, and wrote the legendary column “Ask a Mexican.” Also: mass demonstrations in America, from the 1963 March on Washington to the 2017 Women’s March: what protests do when they work, and why: L.A. Kauffman explains. Her new book is "How to Read a Protest: The Art of Organizing and Resistance." Plus: cities providing sanctuary for people the federal government is trying to arrest and return to the oppression they had escaped-- today’s battles over Trump’s attacks on undocumented immigrants have some striking parallels with the battles over fugitive slaves in the decade before the Civil War. Andrew Delbanco comments--his new book is "

Frank Rich finds lessons for Democrats in the midterms: seeking “the political center,” as recommended by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff, running on “clean-government themes and promises of incremental improvement to the health care system rather than transformational social change,” is “ridiculous.” Frank writes about politics for New York Magazine and is executive producer of VEEP on HBO. Also: Trump’s appointment of a new acting attorney general, Matt Whitaker: is it legal? He hasn’t been confirmed by the Senate – or even nominated. Erwin Chemerinsky comments—he’s dean of the law school at UC Berkeley, and his new book is “We the People: A Progressive Reading of the Constitution for the 21st Century.” Plus: a report on that caravan from Central America headed across Mexico toward Tijuana, from Laura Carlsen, who has has been with the caravan. Trump has stopped talking about it, now that the midterms are over and his fear-mongering failed to win key House seats.Advertising Inquiries: https:/

Tuesday night was a good night for progressive Democrats, John Nichols argues—and Democratic control of the House will bring an epic change to Washington politics—starting with a return to Constitutional principles and an insistence that the president is subject to the rule of law. Also: women won unprecedented victories in the midterms.  Joan Walsh analyzes the feminist insurgency that will bring almost a hundred women to the House of Representatives in January—including the first two Muslim women (Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib and Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar); the first Native American women (New Mexico’s Deb Haaland and Kansas’s Sharice Davids), Texas’s first two Latina congresswomen (Veronica Escobar and Sylvia Garcia); plus three young black women (Massachusetts’s Ayanna Pressley, Connecticut’s Jahana Hayes, and Illinois’s Lauren Underwood). Plus: Brazil last week elected Jair Bolsonaro.  Our man in Rio, Andy Robinson, says he is “worse than Donald Trump,” and “as close to fascism as you will get in the world

Women voters—and candidates—are mobilized as never before for next week’s midterms: Joan Walsh and Cecile Richards report from across the country at a Nation event introduced by publisher and editor Katrina vanden Heuvel.  Joan is the magazine’s National Affairs Correspondent and Cecile recently stepped down as head of Planned Parenthood after leading the organization since 2006\. Also: the Democrats are focusing now on voter mobilization and turnout, while the Republicans are at work on voter suppression.  How significant will the Republican effort be in this election--and where is it likely to have the biggest impact?  Ari Berman reports—he wrote about vote suppression for the New York Times opinion pages. Plus Gary Younge, The Nation columnist, talks about politics in the midwest, the heartland, the rust belt – he’s covering the midterms from Racine, Wisconsin, an old Democratic factory town on Lake Michigan.  After so many defeats in the state, Democrats there told him they “can’t afford the luxury

62 per cent of white men voted for Trump, 31 per cent for Clinton.  Kai Wright has our analysis--he’s host of WNYC’s podcast The United States of Anxiety, and he’s also a columnist for The Nation.  It’s easy to get confused by the crosscurrents of misogyny and racism and xenophobia, he argues; they are not  discrete issues, but rather “the interlocking tools of white men’s minority rule.” Also: Trump’s place in American history: Jill Lepore of the Harvard history department and the New Yorker talks about her new book These Truths which starts in 1492 with Christopher Columbus, and ends in 2016 with Donald Trump. And we’ll recall the 1968 presidential election, when Richard Nixon won, and many of our current problems began.  The man who almost defeated Nixon was Hubert Humphrey, the onetime Minnesota senator who had become LBJ’s vice president.  Anti-war activists hated Hubert Humphrey in 1968--Michael Kazin will explain.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redc

What lessons have the Democrats learned from the disaster of 2016? Jeff Cohen talks about the progressives’ fight to win the party away from dependence on corporate contributions—and instead to mobilize the grassroots. Jeff is one of the co-authors of “Democratic Autopsy—One Year Later” at TheNation.com. Also: Arizona is a red state, ground zero for Trump’s anti-immigrant politics, but it’s changing. Sasha Abramsky has returned from Tucson, with a report on how and why the Democrats seem likely to flip a key House seat there. Plus: A historic challenges to the Republicans is underway in Georgia, where Stacey Abrams is campaigning to become the state’s first black governor, and first female governor. The polls have her tied with her opponent, a far-right figure endorsed by Trump. Joan Walsh just got back from Georgia with a report.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Rebecca Traister sees in the Kavanaugh hearings a typical case where women’s anger was marginalized or made to sound hysterical or infantile or threatening—but men’s anger was taken to be valid and righteous. But that is changing, she argues: women’s anger increasingly is “in the beating heart of many political and social movements.” Her new book is Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger. Also: David Cay Johnston talks about the “Mountain of Tax Cheating” by Donald Trump, as exposed in the massive New York Times report on where Trump’s money came from, and the violations of tax laws in his past. David is a Pulitzer-prize winning reporter who has written for the New York Times and the L.A. Times and is now editor of DCReport.org. Plus: what the Democrats can do about newly-confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh when they win the House in November and take control of the Judiciary Committee in January: John Nichols talks about investigations that could lead to the filing of arti

Joan Walsh explains why we lack confidence in the re-opened FBI background check into Kavanaugh’s past, and talks about the activists who are fighting the nomination, and the senators who need to be told “do not vote for this man.” Plus: D.D. Guttenplan talks about some alternatives to those old white Republican men who shouted and pouted at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week–his new book is “The Next Republic: the Rise of a New Radical Majority.” And while the eyes of the nation search for news on the FBI investigation of Brett Kavanaugh, the hard work of fighting for social change goes on--for example in St. Paul, where a campaign for a $15 minimum wage is being fought right now.  Michelle Chen reports.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh have been an outrage, even before the recent “allegations of sexual misconduct.” John Nichols comments. Also: Florida will vote in November on restoring voting rights for felons, and polls show the measure is likely to pass. Sasha Abramsky reports on the campaign and its significance. Plus: universal basic income—government payments to help keep people out of poverty: is that a better idea than a government job guarantee? Bryce Covert explains the current debate on the left. Support for this week’s episode of Start Making Sense is provided by Audible, visit [audible.com/sense](audible.com/sense) to get your first audiobook free.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Michael Moore talks about his new documentary, "Fahrenheit 11/9," opens Friday May 21 across America--It's a passionate argument about how the Democrats helped pave the way to Trump's election, and a call to arms to change our politics and vote on Nov. 9.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Katha Pollitt considers the arguments made by Brett Kavanaugh’s defenders in response to the charges that he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old when he was 17, and the evidence supporting Christine Blasey Ford, his accuser. Also: On the 10th anniversary of the financial crisis, Harold Meyerson argues that the recovery was a disaster all over again—and that we are still suffering from its political consequences.  Harold is Executive Editor of The American Prospect. Plus: 25 years ago, President Bill Clinton presided over a handshake on the White House grounds between PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, agreeing to the Oslo Accords, which, we were told, laid the foundation for peace between Israel and a Palestinian state. Mouin Rabbani comments—he’s a fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies and a contributor to the London Review of Books and The Nation.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

As world leaders (except for Trump) gather in San Francisco this week for the Global Climate Action Summit, Bill McKibben comments on California’s new law mandating 100 per cent clean electricity by 2045—and on the next task: keep oil and gas in the ground. Also: Should Democratic strategy focus on winning the votes of moderate Republicans? Steve Phillips points to one key factor: there aren’t that many of them.  Steve is the author of the New York Times best seller, 'Brown Is the New White: How a Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority.' Plus: the inequality industry: Atossa Abrahamian examines the new focus on inequality at the IMF, the Ford Foundation, and other elite institutions, and argues that there’s a big political difference between seeking to reduce inequality, and fighting for a world of equality.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In Oklahoma and West Virgina and Missouri, teachers have led amazingly successful battles against Republican budget-cutting and tax breaks for the wealthy. Although the Supreme Court’s Janus decision sought to cripple the ability of public sector unions to engage in politics, recent polls show that unions are more popular than ever. Randi Weingarten comments on the big picture of unions and politics – she’s president of the American Federation of Teachers, with 1.7 million members in more than 3,000 local affiliates nationwide. Also, At the California Global Climate Action Summit, in San Francisco next week, all the world’s major nations will be represented--except for our own government. Mark Hertsgaard reports on how California, under Governor Jerry Brown, has taken the lead in fighting climate change -- and how climate activists have organized at the upcoming summit to demand that the governor end new oil and gas drilling. Mark wrote the cover story for The Nation’s special issue on climate politics. P

Amy Wilentz takes up the vital question, is Melania Trump a hero of the resistance—or an accomplice of evil?  Is she edging “ever closer to open contempt for him,” as New York Times columnist Frank Bruni argues, and finding “increasingly clever ways to show it”?  Or is she sticking with her role as wife to a racist tyrant with a clear history of infidelity, and lots of cash? Also: how mothers and pregnant women are discriminated against and punished – here at home, and around the world.  Katha Pollitt talks about how that has happened—and why. And as Labor Day approaches, we talk labor unions and politics with Lee Saunders, president of AFSCME.  His union was the target of that decision by the Supreme Court in June, when it ruled, 5-4, that government workers who choose NOT to join unions may NOT be required to help pay for collective bargaining.  Saunders explains what unions are doing to fight back – in the November election, and in the long run.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy