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Best of 2022: Celebrating 100 Episodes: Past, Present and Future | Our Body Politic Dec 19, 2022

Show notes

We continue our Best of 2022 episodes with an episode from the Our Body Politic podcast, hosted by Farai Chideya.

Our Body Politic celebrates its 100th episode. Host Farai Chideya reflects on some of the show’s most impactful moments of news and political coverage over the past two years with OBP regular contributors Karen Attiah, columnist for the Washington Post and Tiffany Jeffers, associate professor at Georgetown University Law Center. The trio examines the current political atmosphere, its origins, and reflect on how issues like reproductive rights, the COVID-19 crisis, and the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Insurrection could impact this year’s midterms elections and why cultivating hope and safeguarding democracy is more important than ever.

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Our Body Politic Podcast

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Best of 2022: Kim Lane Scheppele on Hungary, Viktor Orbán, and its Democratic Decline | Democracy Paradox Dec 14, 2022

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We continue our Best of 2022 episodes with an episode from the Democracy Paradox podcast, hosted by Justin Kempf.

So, I came back from that trip and said to one of my good friends back in Budapest, ‘I think I've met the most dangerous person I've ever met personally.’ And she said, ‘Oh Viktor, he's nothing. He's like a kid. He's in his thirties.’ I mean, he was an aspiring politician at this point. His party was at the bottom of the polls. It didn't look like he had any future. And I said, ‘No, this guy has something. It's hard to define what it is, but we're going to be hearing from him.’

Kim Lane Scheppele
A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com.

Kim Lane Scheppele is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University.

Key Highlights

Introduction - 0:50
Kim Lane Scheppele meets Viktor Orbán - 2:45
Viktor Orbán as Prime Minister 1998-2002 - 9:21
Hungary Changes its Constitution 15:56
Orbán Undermines Democracy Legally - 26:32
Why do Voters Support Orbán and Fidesz - 41:48

Key Links

Learn more about Kim Lane Scheppele

"How Viktor Orbán Wins" by Kim Lane Scheppele in the Journal of Democracy

9/11 and the Rise of Global Anti-Terrorism Law: How the UN Security Council Rules the World edited by Kim Lane Scheppele and Arianna Vedaschi

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Best of 2022: Grand Juries, the Black Box of Justice Reform? | 70 Million Dec 12, 2022

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We continue our Best of 2022 episodes with an episode from the 70 Million podcast, a documentary podcast about criminal justice reform from LWC Studios.

Grand juries are supposed to safeguard against the government charging people with a crime when it lacks sufficient evidence. But because prosecutors control what happens in grand jury proceedings, they almost always get an indictment. That is, unless the accused is a police officer. Reporter Mark Betancourt explores a case of police brutality in Dallas that evaporated after going before a grand jury.

Find a resource guide and annotated transcript at our website here.

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Best of 2022: Francis Fukuyama on the promise and peril of liberalism | Democracy Works Dec 07, 2022

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We continue our Best of 2022 episodes with an episode from the Democracy Works podcast, hosted by Jenna Spinelle, Christopher Beem, Michael Berkman.

Can liberal democracy withstand the challenges its currently facing? Francis Fukuyama is one of America's leading scholars on liberalism and joins us this week for a discussion about the threats its faces and how we might overcome them.

It's no secret that liberalism didn't always live up to its own ideals. In America, many people were denied equality before the law. Who counted as full human beings worthy of universal rights was contested for centuries, and only recently has this circle expanded to include women, African Americans, LGBTQ+ people, and others. Conservatives complain that liberalism empties the common life of meaning.

As the renowned political philosopher Francis Fukuyama shows in Liberalism and Its Discontents, the principles of liberalism have also, in recent decades, been pushed to new extremes by both the right and the left: neoliberals made a cult of economic freedom, and progressives focused on identity over human universality as central to their political vision. The result, Fukuyama argues, has been a fracturing of our civil society and an increasing peril to our democracy.

Fukuyama isthe Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a faculty member at Stanford's Institute on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. His previous books include Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment and The End of History and the Last Man.

Liberalism and its Discontents

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Best of 2022: How the NRA Radicalized America: Ryan Busse | Future Hindsight Dec 05, 2022

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We continue our Best of 2022 episodes with an episode from the the Future Hindsight podcast, hosted by Mila Atmos.

“Democracy cannot exist at the barrel of a gun.”

Ryan Busse is a former firearms executive, Senior Policy Advisor to Giffords, and author of Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry That Radicalized America. We discuss how guns are intricately interwoven through our democratic division and radicalization in our everyday lives and in our politics.

The assault weapons ban helped codify societal norms. In the years after the legislation lapsed, the culture of hatred, division, fear, and conspiracy became widespread. In fact, this culture became useful to the NRA to drive political outcomes. Legislation that re-establishes norms of responsible behavior is critical to controlling radicalization. Busse argues that we can start with outlawing open-carry armed intimidation across the nation.

Follow Ryan on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/ryandbusse

Follow Mila on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/milaatmos

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Unsafe Harbor | Democracy in Danger Nov 30, 2022

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The United States hasn’t overhauled immigration policy since the 1990s, even though most Americans agree the system is failing. And for thousands fleeing violence in Latin America, the consequences of inaction in Washington are treacherous. Will and our colleague Debbie Kang speak this time with a scholar fighting for asylum cases to get a fair shake, especially for women and LGBTQ applicants facing gender violence. With a backlog of nearly 2 million petitions, it’s a mammoth task.

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Democracy in Danger Podcast

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Growing Political Startups with David Slifka of Bluem Ventures | The Great Battlefield Nov 28, 2022

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David Slifka joins The Great Battlefield podcast to talk about his career and running Bluem Ventures where they find progressive political projects that have traction and help them to grow.

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The Great Battlefield Podcast

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Lessons From the 2022 Midterm Elections | Let's Find Common Ground Nov 23, 2022

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Democrats feared and Republicans expected a "red wave" election, but it didn’t happen.

Why was the outcome such a surprise? Who gets the credit and blame? How do results impact the near-term future?

What are the prospects for finding common ground in Congress where both the Senate and House will have razor-thin majorities?

We discuss these questions with two of America’s most experienced political thinkers: Democratic consultant Bob Shrum and Republican strategists Mike Murphy. Both men serve as co-directors of The Center for the Political Future at the Dornsife for the Political Future at the University of Southern California.

Mike Murphy is one of the Republican Party’s most successful political media consultants, having handled strategy and advertising for more than two dozen successful gubernatorial and senatorial campaigns. Bob Shrum was once described as "the most sought-after consultant in the Democratic Party," by The Atlantic Monthly. He was the strategist in over 25 winning U.S. Senate campaigns, eight successful races for governor, and numerous campaigns for Congress and statewide offices.

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This is a war on democracy and democratic principles | Politics is Everything Nov 21, 2022

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“This is a war on democracy and democratic principles,” Dr. Yuna Potomkina, Advisor to Ukraine Minister of Defense tells us. Armed conflict has been raging in Ukraine since early 2014 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea. On February 24, 2022, during a last-ditch UN Security Council effort to dissuade Russia from attacking Ukraine, Vladimir Putin announced the beginning of a full-scale land, sea, and air invasion of Ukraine targeting Ukrainian military assets and cities across the country. Since then, nearly 8 million Ukrainians have been forcibly displaced. An unknown number of Ukrainian children have been forcibly separated and deported to Russia, on top of other war crimes that will cause generational trauma.

Joining Dr. Potomkina in this episode is Sabina Iliasova, Project Coordinator at Crimea SOS, Liubov Rakovytsia, Chief Operating Officer at Donetsk Institute of Information, and our interpreter is Peter Voitsekhovsky.

“Ukraine's success will tell the rest of the world that even a nonnuclear country can come out as a winner against a nuclear state that violated its international commitments and can continue as nuclear free and peaceful,” says Liubov Rakovytsia.

Our visitors said two of the most important things Americans can do are to keep Ukraine in the public discourse and to send a message of support directly to the people of Ukraine. We have created a form to fill out and will deliver messages to them.

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Politics is Everything Podcast

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Jason Brownlee Believes We Underestimate Democratic Resilience | Democracy Paradox Nov 16, 2022

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71% of Americans are concerned about democracy. And apparently that number, roughly 71%, holds for both parties. So, if listeners are concerned about democracy, they can expect that there's someone from the other party who's also concerned about democracy from a different perspective.

Jason Brownlee
Check out the podcast Entitled

A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com.

Jason Brownlee is a professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. Along with Kenny Miao, he is the author of "Why Democracies Survive" and "A Quiet Consensus" in the Journal of Democracy.
Key Highlights