Truth, Politics and Power
Summary: THE DEMOCRACY TEST with Heather Cox Richardson and Neal Conan The presidency of Donald Trump has sparked a national conversation .Is our democracy at risk? Across the country, scholars, activists and citizens are taking stock. With an eye on how democracies have failed throughout history, and on the rise of authoritarian leaders across the globe, they ask the question … can it happen here? The Democracy Test gives a broad and diverse national platform to this work as we seek to understand what is truly unique in this moment of our nation’s history, what brought us here, and what it would take to emerge with an even stronger understanding of what democracy means in America and what we can do now to move toward an even stronger expression of its ideals.
- Visit Website
- RSS
- Artist: TRUTH, POLITICS AND POWER
- Copyright: All rights reserved
Podcasts:
The “America First” Edition of Truth Politics and Power explores what this policy means for the network of alliances, institutions and agreements that have supported US interests since the Second World War.
Some Trump supporters claim that progressives burrowed into federal agencies to thwart the new President’s agenda, and even that President Obama stayed in Washington to run a “shadow government.” In this episode: civil service, bureaucratic opposition and the cautionary example of Turkey.
South China Sea: Donald Trump is not the only Nationalist in charge of a major military power and will soon run headlong into a long simmering dispute with another one - China’s Xi JinPing. The South China Sea is the economic lynchpin of the Asia/Pacific and a flashpoint between the US and China. Why a little known waterway is so important to the world’s two strongest powers and how nationalism could lock them into a spiral of aggression.
In February, President Trump escalated his self-declared war with the media when he labeled major networks and newspapers "enemies of the people." Neal speaks with two thoughtful veterans of the adversarial relationship: Scott McClellan, former Press Secretary to President George W. Bush and Ted Koppel, longtime anchor of Nightline on ABC. Why an administration's credibility is vital to its success and what's the cost when it's squandered.
Truth, Politics and Power: An Inauguration Special In this hour-long special timed for Inauguration Week, Host Neal Conan delves into one of the most provocative questions being asked about our next President. Is it fair to compare Trumpism to Fascism? November's election featured a political style new to most Americans - not just bluster and populist demagoguery, but a campaign centered on xenophobia and racism, a candidate who encouraged violence by his supporters at raucous rallies, bullied his opponents and the media and presented himself as the last hope to restore America's lost greatness. "I am your voice, " Donald J Trump said, "Only I can fix it." Beyond the spin and exaggeration common to all politicians, Trump also fabricated his own set of "facts" on issues from immigration to voter fraud to national security that he repeated, no matter how many times he was called out by his opponents and independent fact checkers. While Donald Trump and his supporters ridicule the comparison to fascism, critics on the right and left find troubling parallels. "Truth, Politics and Power" will examine the similarities and differences between the facists of the 1930s and '40s and the 45th President of the United States. It features extended conversations with two distinguished scholars: Volker Ullrich, author of the brilliantly reviewed new biography "Hitler: Ascent 1889-1939," and historian Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of, among many others, "Dangerous Nation: America's Place in the World from its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the Twentieth Century."
