Radio Atlantic

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Are We Living in a Different America? Nov 07, 2024

Show notes

In the last few months of his campaign, Trump was free and open with his dictatorial impulses, as he talked about punishing “enemies from within.” Now that he’s won, have we crossed the line into a different kind of country?

Staff writers AnneApplebaum and McKay Coppins help us learn how to find the line. Does this resounding win mean the electorate gave Trump a mandate to act on all his impulses? Will he make good on his campaign threats? And how will we know?

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Does America Want Chaos? Nov 04, 2024

Show notes

One thing tomorrow’s election will test is Americans’ appetite for chaos, particularly the kind that Donald Trump has been exhibiting in the last few months of his campaign. After weeks of running a disciplined campaign, Trump’s advisers lost control of their candidate, the Atlantic staff writer Tim Alberta reported this week. Trump grew restless and bored and drifted off script in his campaign appearances. During a summer interview with the National Association of Black Journalists, for example, he mused aloud about Kamala Harris, “I don’t know. Is she Indian or is she Black?” From the perspective of his advisers, Trump’s string of offensive public statements needlessly alienated potential voters. Members of Trump’s campaign staff told Alberta that they became disillusioned about their ability to rein in their candidate and left the campaign.

Will this unleashed version of Trump affect the election outcome? In this week’s episode of Radio Atlantic, we talk with Alberta and another Atlantic staff writer, Mark Leibovich, about how candidate Trump transformed over the summer, how Kamala Harris’s campaign reacted, where each campaign stands now, and what it means for the election. Alberta and Leibovich also offer tips on how to manage your inner chaos while watching the election results.

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Is Journalism Ready for a Second Trump Administration? Oct 31, 2024

Show notes

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump has mused, a few times, about throwing reporters in jail if they refuse to leak their sources and taking away broadcast licenses of networks he’s deemed unfriendly.

These last couple of weeks, we’ve had clear signals that maybe his threats are having an impact when both The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times pulled their endorsements of Kamala Harris.

We talk to Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, about navigating both pressures from owners and threats from the administration. And we discuss the urgent question of whether the media, pummeled and discredited for years by Trump, is ready for a second Trump administration.

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Trump and the January 6 Memory Hole Oct 24, 2024

Show notes

The way Donald Trump talks about January 6 has evolved over time. Directly after the insurrection, he condemned the rioters, although he added that they were “very special.” For the next few years, he played around with different themes, implying the protests were peaceful or that the people jailed for their actions that day were “political prisoners.”

But these descriptions are mild compared to the outrageous ways he’s been talking about January 6 in these weeks leading up to the election. Recently, he described the day as “love and peace” and upped the metaphor from political prisoners to Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II. Why is he leaning so hard into the political revisionism? And what exactly should we be afraid of?

In this episode of Radio Atlantic, we talk to Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who has a unique view of that day. Raskin explains what January 6, 2025, might look like and what is historically unique about Trump’s claims. And I ask Raskin the question I’ve been wondering: When might it be appropriate to let January 6 go?

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Autocracy Is in the Details Oct 17, 2024

Show notes

Autocrats often dare their followers to believe absurd claims, as a kind of loyalty test, because “humor and fear can be quite close together sometimes,” says Peter Pomerantsev, a Soviet-born British journalist and co-host of Autocracy in America, an Atlantic podcast series.

In this episode of Radio Atlantic, we talk to Pomerantsev and Atlantic staff writer and co-host Anne Applebaum about how to detect the signs of autocracy, because, as they say, if you can’t spot them, you won’t be able to root them out. We also analyze the events of the upcoming election through their eyes and talk about how large swaths of a population come to believe lies, what that means, and how it might be undone.

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It Could All Come Down to North Carolina Oct 10, 2024

Show notes

North Carolina has voted for a Democratic president only once since the 1970s. But the party’s dream to flip the state never dies—and in fact, could be realized this year. Polls show the presidential race in North Carolina is dead even, and Democrats are making a massive effort to reach more rural voters. “Doug Emhoff should just get a pied-à-terre here, at this point,” says David Graham, an Atlantic political writer who lives in Durham, North Carolina. Donald Trump can’t win without the state. And if Vice President Harris loses Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania, she’ll need North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes.

In this week’s Radio Atlantic, we do a deep dive into North Carolina politics, culture, and scandals with Graham and Atlantic senior editor Vann Newkirk, who grew up in Rocky Mount. If the state goes for Harris, will it feel more solidly new South? And could our national election really turn on a local scandal and a tragic flood?

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The Fight to Be the Most “Pro-family” Oct 03, 2024

Show notes

The American family continuously evolves. People are marrying later, and having fewer children. Gay people get married. People can publicly swear off marriage altogether without being ostracized. But in politics the attachment to the traditionally nuclear family seems unwavering, and especially this year.

As Republicans are losing support among women, more candidates are leaning on their wives and daughters to soften their image. So strong is the pressure that one candidate in Virginia posed with his friend’s wife and daughters and left the impression he was married.

Why is there this enduring notion that there is just one version of the “ideal marriage”?

We talk to Jessica Grose, a New York Times columnist and author of Screaming on the Inside. Grose pinpoints the origin of the American fixation on the nuclear family. And she explains how the candidates’ evoking of this ideal gets in the way of supporting policies that might actually help families

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The Modern Political Assassin Sep 26, 2024

Show notes

One prevailing stereotype of a political assassin is someone with strong convictions. Another stereotype conjures up James Bond, a professional with a silencer acting on higher orders.

But Thomas Matthew Crooks and Ryan Routh, the two men who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump earlier this year, represent an evolution in the idea of this kind of attacker. Nothing in their backgrounds turned up consistent themes about their political beliefs. Neither left behind a manifesto or seemed to have connections to any group or movement.

We talk with Atlantic staff writer Tom Nichols about the nature of these modern would-be assassins. Why would this era of seemingly more prevalent political violence produce an apolitical would-be assassin? What’s the difference between an individual and a government attempting an assassination? Why are assassination attempts more common in certain eras of history? And have the stereotypes about assassins simply reflected a desire to impose a taxonomy on chaotic minds?

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A Campaign-Song Nightmare Sep 19, 2024

Show notes

Rachel had a hit song. Then it became inextricably linked with a failed presidential campaign.

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Trump, Triggered Sep 12, 2024

Show notes

Kamala Harris expertly manipulated Trump. It won her the debate. Can it win her the White House? Staff writers Elaine Godfrey and Mark Leibovich to explore the potential long term effects of Tuesday's drama.

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