Lever Time

Latest Episodes:

The American Roots Of The World’s Right-Wing Nationalism Aug 09, 2024

Show notes

For more than a decade, global politics have been rocked by the rise of right-wing nationalist governments. Similar to Donald Trump’s rise in the United States, countries like India, Hungary, Brazil, and Italy have seen the emergence of far-right governments who’ve channeled popular anger into support for nativist and anti-immigrant platforms. It turns out we’re largely to blame for it.

Today on Lever Time, Arjun Singh sits down with Vox senior correspondent Zack Beauchamp to discuss his new book The Reactionary Spirit: How America's Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept The World, in which Beauchamp traces the roots of modern right-wing regimes to an antidemocratic tradition that began in the United States.

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Is Tim Walz the Real Deal? Aug 07, 2024

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On Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, a move that drew praise from a wide swath of the party, from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Sen. Joe Manchin.

Though Walz was relatively unknown until recently, his stock within Democratic politics skyrocketed in the last few weeks. As governor, Walz passed legislation Democrats have long championed, including increasing taxes on corporations, providing free breakfast and lunch to all school students, and creating a paid family and medical leave program.

On Lever Time, Arjun Singh sits down with Ryan Grim, co-founder of Drop Site, to dig deeper into Walz’s record — the good and the bad — and explore what Walz’s selection signals to voters.

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When Will The Climate Killers See Their Day In Court? Aug 02, 2024

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Floods, heat waves, wildfires and other climate extremes are becoming a way of life for millions around the world — and tragically a way of death. After a historic, record-breaking flood in France killed her mother, a daughter wants to hold oil companies criminally responsible for her death, joining seven other plaintiffs in a lawsuit. Today on Lever Time, senior investigative reporter Lois Parshley examines a growing global movement of advocates and legal scholars trying to convince courts that fossil fuel companies should be charged with homicide after they knowingly caused climate change.

Read the companion article to this episode exclusively on The Lever by clicking here.

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Can Harris Fight – And Win? Jul 26, 2024

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As Vice President Kamala Harris becomes the presumptive Democratic nominee, her party is facing an uphill battle to defeat Donald Trump and his attempt to frame his corporate agenda as populism. In a wide-ranging interview on The Brian Lehrer Show on New York’s largest public radio station, David Sirota discusses his recent essay in The Lever about how Democrats must do a better job making clear the party is serious about fighting for America’s working class.

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Will Democrats Decide To Lose The Election? Jul 19, 2024

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With Trump last night becoming the GOP nominee and now having his largest polling lead — and with Biden reportedly on the verge of dropping out — David Sirota, Arjun Singh, and The Atlantic’s Tyler Austin Harper review what is one of the wildest moments in American political history. The biggest question of all: Will the Democrats decide to lose the election, or will they actually fight to win?

It's been an extraordinary three weeks in American politics. Biden's disastrous debate performance brought the questions about his age and mental fitness center stage, a gunman nearly assassinated former President Donald Trump, and Republicans went full MAGA by announcing former never-Trumper J.D. Vance as Trump's runningmate at the Republican National Convention. All while the Democrats squabble over Biden’s future.

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How DNC Delegates Could Oust Biden Jul 12, 2024

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Should he stay or should he go? President Joe Biden’s decision to remain in the presidential race has consequences for hundreds of millions of people — and it has at least one Democratic National Committee member and convention delegate inquiring whether the party can force him off the ticket. But if Biden’s out, corporate lobbyists who’ve embedded themselves into the party could help select the new nominee.

Today on Lever Time, Arjun Singh speaks withThe American Prospect’s Executive Editor David Dayen, Jacobin staff writer Branko Marcetic, and Sludge co-founder David Moore to unpack the divide fracturing the Democratic Party and look at how corporate power is woven into the fabric of the party’s convention, to be held in Chicago from August 19 to 22.

Biden’s road to the 2024 presidential nomination has been anything but democratic. Team Biden crushed all attempts to have him prove his mettle against primary challengers. After his disastrous debate performance against Trump triggered a revolt within his own party, Biden didn’t hold a town hall to meet with the public — he hopped on the phone with his top donors.

Now, those same donors could portend Biden’s downfall, with wealthy backers like George Clooney urging the president to step down, and others yanking their donations. Will the new alliance between a majority of Democratic voters and the party’s elite insiders all be on the same page regarding Biden’s potential replacement?

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Who Broke The Economy? Jul 05, 2024

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Today on Lever Time, we unpack how corporations built and then broke the supply chain — and more importantly, how they took advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to price gouge everybody else.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, it felt like we ran out of everything: toilet paper, hand sanitizer, microchips, exercise bikes, and more. High demand and supply shortages rocked the economy. Now we know that it was the corporations that did it to themselves.

In his new book How the World Ran out of Everything: Inside the Global Supply Chain, veteran New York Times reporter Peter Goodman who covers the global economy unspools the long and sordid history of how the supply chain went global, then consolidated, and ultimately ended up in the hands of just three companies — creating a complicated and surprising crisis that has unfolded around the world.

Then, as inflation began to set into the economy, corporations saw a huge opportunity to raise prices as consumers grew desperate — and they took it, giving us “greedflation.” In this episode of Lever Time, Goodman and Lindsay Owens, the executive director of The Groundwork Collaborative, sit down with senior podcast producer Arjun Singh to unpack how that gave us inflation.

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The Democrat Banished For Warning Us About Biden Jul 01, 2024

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How is it that the Democrats’ main bulwark between America and a Trump regime is an impaired president whose White House reportedly tried to hide his decline? On this episode of Lever Time, we talk to the Democratic operative who first tried to sound the alarm to avert this disaster — and who then faced a “quiet throat-slitting” by party bosses.

We also explore how Democrats are trying to blackmail voters with an impossible choice: vote for a struggling Biden or get Trump and the potential end of democracy.

Democratic strategist Jeff Weaver ran the presidential primary campaign of U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, the only elected Democrat who tried to challenge Joe Biden for the party’s 2024 nomination. Weaver also ran Bernie Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.

On this episode, Weaver details his and Phillips’ experience when they tried to make sure voters knew about Biden’s decline. Weaver also explains exactly how the party could select a new nominee if Biden decides to halt his campaign — and how Democratic powerbrokers might try to tilt the process at the Democratic convention.

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Why Hasn’t Biden Stepped Down? Jun 28, 2024

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Last night’s debacle of a presidential debate raised a huge question: Why did Democratic Party powerbrokers prevent a serious, contested presidential primary against Joe Biden?

It’s a question that our podcast Lever Time dared to explore a while ago when it was a taboo topic. At the time, we were criticized for even discussing it — even though this morning, it seems everyone in America is now finally asking the question we had the temerity to ask.

So today we’re re-releasing that original episode of Lever Time here — but with a new updated discussion about what happened at last night’s debate, and why it’s so important.

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The World After Billionaire Media Jun 21, 2024

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Today on Lever Time, David Sirota sits down with Semafor co-founder and editor-in-chief Ben Smith to grapple with journalism’s industry-wide reckoning — and explore why independent news might come out on top.

There’s a crisis in journalism. Major media outlets like The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, NPR, and NBC News have laid off hundreds of staff this year, while other publications like Vice and Pitchfork have shut down their flagship websites.

In January alone, one report estimated that more than 500 journalists lost their jobs — with local news outlets especially hard hit. One study found that more than half of U.S. counties have limited or no access to reporting about their communities.

And yet amid the destruction, independent news outlets are emerging from the rubble. Can these digital media start-ups, subscriber-funded newsletters, and independent journalists fill the hole left behind by corporate media?

In an in-depth, no-holds-barred conversation, Sirota and Smith seek to answer these questions, among other media matters. Smith is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the digital start-up Semafor, and co-host of the podcast Mixed Signals. He also worked as the editor-in-chief of Buzzfeed News and covered the media industry for The New York Times.

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