Start Making Sense

Katha Pollitt explains how women employees’ complaints of sexual harassment forced out Roger Ailes—and examines Donald Trump’s comments about it. Plus: Ari Berman analyses the effect of voting rights victories in court on Trump’s chances in North Carolina and other swing states. And David Zirin reports from the Olympics in Rio—the protests, the displaced people, and the real problem: not the Brazilian government, but the International Olympic Committee. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Trump is everywhere in the news this week, so we decided to do something different: 60 minutes of political talk that is Trump-free. Guaranteed. Instead: The fight to limit government surveillance tactics: Ben Wizner talks about what we have won—and what we need to do next. He’s director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project and the lawyer for Edward Snowden. Plus: Susan Faludi tells the story of transgender woman—her father, who transitioned when she was 75. Susan of course is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. Now she has a new book out: it’s called "In the Darkroom." And Tom Lutz has been traveling a lot – he went to Lhasa to talk about Tibetan resistance to China; he went to Jordan to talk about Iran and America; and he went to Teheran to talk about the Kurds. His new book is "Drinking Mare’s Milk on the Roof of the World." Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/

John Nichols analyzes Hillary Clinton’s big speech and the place of Bernie Sanders supporters in Democrats’ plans to fight Donald Trump. Plus D.D. Guttenplan reports on Bernie and the Bernie people at the convention—the battles, the booing, and the work to keep the movement alive after November. And Amy Wilentz looks at gender in politics today: Donald Trump’s brand of masculinity, Ivanka Trump’s brand of femininity, and all those criticisms of Hillary Clinton’s voice, smile, and more. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Amy Wilentz and Jon Wiener debate Trump’s chances for victory in November: Jon says he won’t win; Amy says ‘don’t be so sure.’ Plus: John Nichols and D.D. Guttenplan analyze the candidate's speech and the aura of violence inside the convention hall, and George Zornick reports on the action in the streets and the conduct of the Cleveland police. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The shooting of police officers in Dallas does not change anything about the shootings of black men in Baton Rouge or St. Paul, Kai Wright argues—he’s Features Editor of The Nation. Also: Donald Trump has changed the Republican Party in fundamental ways, says Harold Meyerson of The American Prospect, and it may never recover. And Clara Bingham talks about how the sixties changed America, starting with young Hillary and young Bernie. She interviewed 100 people for her new book Witness to the Revolution. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Joan Walsh says the FBI director’s blunt criticism of Clinton’s handling of her email provides the presidential hopeful with an opportunity to acknowledge mistakes and make amends. Walsh is The Nation’s National Affairs correspondent. Plus: we found something else to worry about: Cyber attacks on the US paralyzing our electric grid and our water supply. The award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney has a new documentary about that, called Zero Days—it opens this Friday. Also: Ben Ehrenreich and Amy Wilentz talk about life for Palestinians on the West Bank. Wilentz is a contributing editor at The Nation, and Ehrenreich’s new book is “The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine.” And “A Prairie Home Companion” is ending its long run on public radio—Garrison Keillor explains that the secret of the show’s success was “no competition.” Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The victorious campaign in Britain to leave the European Union has many striking parallels to Donald Trump’s campaign to win the White House. D.D. Guttenplan says “that ought to keep Hillary supporters awake at night.” Also: the Supreme Court issued a sharp rebuke to Texas’s anti-choice laws on Monday in the most sweeping victory for abortion rights in 25 years. Zoë Carpenter comments. Plus: A test case of Republican vs. Democratic rule in two states. Minnesota and Wisconsin have taken opposite approaches to voting rights, and some other things too—and the results are now clear. Ari Berman explains. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The People’s Summit brought organizers and activists to Chicago last weekend for three days of planning about where to go next with the Bernie movement—at the Democratic National Convention, and after. RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, weighs in. Also, lessons for the left from the NRA in the wake of the Orlando shootings: David Cole, The Nation’s legal affairs correspondent, argues that gun control advocates can win if they focus on state laws rather than Supreme Court challenges. His new book is Engines of Liberty. Plus: Could Donald Trump really ban Muslims from entering the country if he were president? Sasha Abramsky says the answer is simple: yes. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Orlando was one of the most gay-friendly cities in the South—and still is, says Nadine Smith of Equality Florida. Also: Bernie won the war of ideas in the Democratic party—what does that mean for Hillary now? Harold Meyerson comments. And historian Adam Hochschild talks about the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, American leftists who fought the fascists in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Everything you need to know about the California primary—John Nichols explains it all to producer Alan Minsky. Also: Andrew Cockburn of Harper’s magazine explains how Obama’s drone “kill list” is approved—and what happens after. Because politics isn’t everything, we talked about the great Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar Wai with John Powers—he’s critic at large on “Fresh Air with Terry Gross.” Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Bernie Sanders’s campaign rallies in California have brought out more than 100,000 people—many of whom think he can win the state’s primary next week. Nicky Woolf of Guardian US has been following the campaign; he thinks they may be right. Also: Elizabeth Warren seems to be Donald Trump’s most effective critic—and she seems to enjoy the work. Margaret Talbot of The New Yorker comments. Plus: Can the millions of Bernie supporters become a long-lasting force in American politics? D. D. Guttenplan examines four efforts to organize progressives for the years after November 2016. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Bernie Sanders has stopped his direct attacks on Hillary, and he’s been able to make some strong appointments to the platform committee for the Democratic National Convention. Is the unification of the party underway? Harold Meyerson explains. Plus: Most “independent” voters in fact have long-standing ties to one party or the other—very few swing from one party to the other between elections. Joshua Holland has the facts. And Tom Frank examines the “Hillary Doctrine,” her long-standing commitment to microfinance as the best way to help poor women around the world. It doesn’t work, he argues. Tom’s new book is Listen, Liberal! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hillary will have to do something different to beat Donald Trump, Bruce Shapiro argues—because appealing to moderates, like the Clintons did in the nineties, is not going to work this year. Also: The #BreakFree climate protests have mobilized tens of thousands in direct actions against coal, oil, and gas companies around the world. Zoë Carpenter reports. Plus: Patrick Cockburn, who Seymour Hersh has called “the best Western journalist at work in Iraq today,” gives us an update on Iraq, Syria, Libya, and ISIS. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Donald Trump’s ideal opponent is a member of the establishment, Steve Fraser argues—the kind that used to be called a “limousine liberal.” Hillary Clinton, he argues, fits the bill perfectly. Also: The only way Trump could win, says Ari Berman, is through suppressing the vote of Democrats in half a dozen swing states. A state-by-state survey suggests he’s unlikely to succeed. And historian Eric Foner takes up the question that has troubled Bernie Sanders’s supporters for months: How did he lose the African-American vote to Clinton? Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

When Hillary Clinton defeats Donald Trump in November, his millions of supporters will be told that their American birthright has once again been stolen from them. Rick Perlstein talks about the potential for violence in the streets after election day. Plus: What really happened to Sandra Bland? To understand that, you have to begin way before she died in a Texas jail. Debbie Nathan reports. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Trump says he’ll fight for jobs against NAFTA-type trade deals, and he doesn’t take money from Wall Street. Is that enough to win some of Bernie Sanders’s supporters to his side? John Nichols weighs in on this week’s primary results. Plus: The Prince of Sex: Richard Kim explains why Prince is a gay icon today—despite the artist’s lack of support for the gay movement. Also: Challenging “Political Correctness” is a favorite theme of Donald Trump—but what exactly does that mean? Laila Lalami explains. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

A Clinton vs. Trump campaign in the fall would be a battle of the negatives, Frank Rich says--and Hillary’s are dangerously high. Plus: Hillary and Haiti—a long relationship, and a revealing one. Amy Wilentz comments. And we speak with Viet Nguyen—his novel "The Sympathizer" just won the Pulitzer Prize. It begins in Saigon on the last day of the Vietnam war, and features a Viet Cong spy inside the Saigon army. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Naomi Klein argues that the problem with Hillary Clinton’s climate policy is not her corporate contributions; it’s her corporate ideology. The climate justice movement, she says, "requires the kind of boldness Bernie Sanders represents." Also: Military historian Andrew Bacevich says America can never win its twenty-year war for the Middle East. Plus: Amy Goodman talks about how she got arrested at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul in 2008—and other highlights from the 20-year history of the show Democracy Now! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

John Nichols says that, after the Wisconsin primary, Bernie has momentum on his side. Also: David Cole argues that citizen activists are the real force behind changes in constitutional law—look at how the NRA changed the meaning of the Second Amendment; look at how the gay rights movement changed the meaning of “marriage.” His new book is Engines of Liberty. Plus, Obama’s legacy: Gary Younge contrasts the symbolic victory with the real defeats for the left, especially in the use of US military power in the Mideast. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Sasha Abramsky asks, if Donald Trump were president, would he be a familiar kind of New York deal-maker—or a deluded demagogue? Campaign contributions go mostly to TV ads that don’t work, and consultants who are even more useless, Andrew Cockburn reports—what counts is face-to-face canvassing to build voter turnout. Obama is a “folk hero” in black America, says Erin Aubrey Kaplan—her new book is "I Heart Obama.” And, for opening day of major league baseball, our Dave Zirin talks about the game with Noam Chomsky—who recalls growing up with the hapless Philadelphia Athletics, and going to Little League games with his grandson today. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy