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Letters & Politics seeks to explore the history behind today’s major global and national news stories. Hosted by Mitch Jeserich.
The day after the election, some of the predictions in the large picture have been confirmed where the Democrats would take control of the House of Representatives, while the Republicans extended their lead in the Senate. For analysis about these results we are joined by Thomas Frank, Barbara Arnwine, and Geoffrey Kabaservice. Guest: Thomas Frank … Continued
A conversation with Professor Thomas E. Mann about of some of the most consequential midterm elections in the history of U.S. politics, including the 1994 midterm when Newt Gingrich and the Republicans took power in the House of Representatives for the first time in forty years. And in 2010, when the Tea Party swept many Republicans … Continued
A conversation with Professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson. She has been conducting research in the last forty years on how mass communication affects politics. After conducting extensive forensic analysis of the 2016 election, she says there’s a a strong case to be made that the alleged Russian hacking of the DNC and pushing information obtained was enough … Continued
A conversation on the Republicans within the Nixon administration who opposed the president and Nixon’s attempt to use the federal government to go after his political enemies. Guest: Michael Koncewicz is the Cold War Collections Specialist at the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York University. He previously worked for the National … Continued
A conversation with Professor Matt Grossmann about his research on how the two major parties are changing and resulting in a wide polarization and dysfunctional governing. The Republican Party he says, is the vehicle of an ideological movement while the Democratic Party is a coalition of social groups. Republican leaders prize conservatism and attract support by … Continued
A conversation with Professor Christopher R. Browning about the similarities and differences in which the current political situation in the United States resembles the interwar period of WWI and WWII and the rise of fascism in Europe. Guest: Christopher R. Browning is Frank Porter Graham Professor of History Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the … Continued
Brazil presidential election was won by far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro has frequently disparage women, gays, and blacks; praised torture an killings by police, and has said he will bring military men to his cabinet. Guest: James Green is professor of Brazilian History and Culture at Brown University. And the Director of the Brown-Brazil Initiative. Professor Green … Continued
We are joined by Adele Stan to talk about pipe bombs found in the mail to highly visible Trump critics, and some of the conspiracy theories going around, especially those concerning billionaire George Soros, one of the recipients of such a package. Guest: Adele Stan, is a columnist for The American Prospect, and the editor of … Continued
A conversation about what a big turnout could mean for the midterm election, the credibility of the process and the online political manipulation. Also, we talk about the bombs sent by mail to the Obama’s, The Clinton’s, George Soros and CNN. Guest: Steven Rosenfeld, is a senior writing fellow of the Independent Media Institute, where he covers national … Continued
A conversation with Professor Alan I. Abramowitz about how political polarization arose in the US, and in fact, is increasingly stronger. Partisan alignment grew out of the breakup of the old New Deal coalition; it introduced the most important difference between our current political era and past eras. The rise of “negative partisanship”, explains how … Continued
