Civics 101

Latest Episodes:

What are the rules for making fun of politicians? Oct 07, 2025

Show notes

Did you know cartoonists were on Nixon's enemies list? Or that LBJ prevented a cartoonist from getting a medal when he made a cartoon against the Vietnam War? Today we talk about the history of editorial cartoons and political satire, from "Join or Die" to the Obama fist bump, from Thomas Nast to Jimmy Kimmel. Our guide is New Yorker cartoonist Tom Toro, author of And to Think We Started as a Book Club.

To see the illustrations we discuss in the episode, click here.

CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more!
To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro.
Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Grievances in the Declaration (part 2) Sep 30, 2025

Show notes

Click here to listen to part one of our airing of the grievances if you haven't yet! Today we tackle charges 13-27 against the King, as well as comparisons that have been made between George III and Donald Trump.

Our guide is once again Craig Gallagher from Colby-Sawyer College, who breaks down what exactly got the colonists so darn mad.

Make sure to listen to our episode on the modern-day effects of the declaration on the Native American community.

CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more!
To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro.
Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can the president legally hide their health status? Sep 23, 2025

Show notes

The American public has long been on the lookout for unsteadiness in the leader of the free world. It's important to us (or, historically, has been) that the president seems, well, well. If not robust. Of course, the president is a human, and as such is not immune to malady.

So why do we care so much about the president's health? Are they under obligation, legal or otherwise, to keep us in the loop? What happens when they don't?

Our guide today is clinical ethicist Joel Wu.

CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more!
To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro.
Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Grievances in the Declaration (part 1) Sep 16, 2025

Show notes

"He" has done bad things. Twenty seven of them. And these things were so bad that the colonists used them to demonstrate that they had no choice but to become an independent nation. King George III was, in their eyes, a despot. So what did he do?

Today we talk about grievances 1-12 in the Declaration of Independence. We will cover the rest, as well as modern-day parallels, in a few weeks. Our guest is Craig Gallagher, professor at Colby-Sawyer College.

To hear about the entire Declaration of Independence, please listen to our episode on it here.

CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more!
To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro.
Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why does the government fund things, and what happens when it stops? Sep 09, 2025

Show notes

Congress appropriates funds, the executive branch ensures those funds are spent and spent wisely. That is how it works. It is not, however, how it is working right now. The Trump Administration has, in recent months, repeatedly and often successfully frozen the funds that Congress assigned to certain departments and agencies. Jobs have been lost, research shelved, life-saving care ended, budgets and plans thrown into disarray.

So why and how has this happened? Why were we funding education, science, medicine and foreign aid in the first place? Our guide to this tumult is Samuel Bagenstos, professor of law at the University of Michigan and former Chief Counsel at both the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Health and Human Services.

CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more!
To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro.
Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Civics Trivia: Taxes, terrifying birds, and The West Wing Sep 02, 2025

Show notes

It's another edition of Civics 101 Trivia! This time, it's also the swan song for one of our own.

Senior Producer Christina Phillips, our mastermind of minutiae and all things related to taxes, joins us to convene a final round of her trademark trivia.

Here is the link to the FOIA documents about the government's involvement in Hollywood productions.

CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more!
To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro.
Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is same-sex marriage in legal peril? Aug 26, 2025

Show notes

In 2015, the Supreme Court made marriage equality the law of the land. However, for the first time in over five years, Kim Davis (an opponent of same-sex marriage) petitioned for a writ of certiorari to overturn Obergefell. Is there a possibility the court will revisit its finding? How does this decision compare to other recently overturned decisions like Roe v Wade? And is even talking about this a problem in itself??

Talking us through the situation and possible scenarios is Danaya Wright, Professor in Constitutional Law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law.

CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more!
To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro.
Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Obergefell v Hodges, 2015 Aug 26, 2025

Show notes

This is the decision that said the fundamental right to marry is protected under the 14th Amendment. How did it come about? What was the status of marriage before June of 2015? And why is the government so involved in the marriage business anyways?

This episode features the voices of Melissa Wasser from the Project on Government Oversight and Jim Obergefell, the named party in Obergefell v Hodges.

CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more!
To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro.
Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens when enough states want to change the Constitution? Aug 19, 2025

Show notes

Our Constitution provides for its own changes -- the framers knew that, while they worked hard, the law of the land was neither perfect nor should it be entirely immutable. So they included Article V, which allows either Congress OR the states to amend the Constitution if enough people agree. We've never had a constitutional convention of the states before, but that doesn't mean we won't. There's currently a movement trying to make it happen -- we dig into the why and how of this totally legal but very difficult path to change.

CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more!
To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro.
Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How can the president take over a city's police department? Aug 15, 2025

Show notes

On Monday, August 11th, Trump announced a takeover of Washington, D.C.'s Metropolitan police. He also deployed National Guard troops and federal agents to the streets, all in the name of cracking down on crime. We called on political scientist and historian Dan Cassino to help us understand what happened, why it's legal and what could happen next.

CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more!
To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro.
Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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