Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen
Latest Episodes
The Crucial December 12th British Election Explained
Consumed with Brexit, the old upper and lower class divisions are themselves divided. According to professor Kenneth Surin, a Brit teaching at Duke, the decision made by voters in the upcoming general election will be of major importance. On one
The Truth On Bolivia//Believing Trumps Lies
Bolivia’s first indigenous president Evo Morales brought better lives to many of the dispossessed, yet he was recently overthrown. What of the role of the US and Brazil’s right wing leader Bolsonaro? On part one Bolivia scholar Nicole Fabricant explains
Deport the Immigrants and Radicals: Trump’s Precedent 100 Years ago
We were all startled by Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant frenzy launched in 2015. But there is solid precedent. In an article in The New Yorker, acclaimed author of many history books, Adam Hochschild tells the tale: When America Tried to Deport
When Political Parties Lose the Consent of the Governed: The Civil War and Donald Trump
Why did so many Obama voters go for Trump in 2016? What happens when party elites don’t know how to react to changes of popular opinion at the ground level? While they may try to do both: keep the elite
A New Deal That’s Also Green
The New Deal aspect of the Green New Deal often gets forgotten. The goal now as in the 1930s is to make the state the instrument of the popular will. Democratizing the economy, making it work for the common good,
The Blues: Education for the Liberation of Black and Brown Girls
All too often, schools function as a pipeline to prison for troubled kids. Kicking out troublemakers, punishing for bad attitudes leaves kids feeling they are disposable. Authoritarian models too often make schools feel like locations for punishment,
“How Ya Gonna Pay for Medicare for All?” Here’s How
The public is way ahead of politicians on this. Frightened of looking “soft on defense,” elected members of both parties duck and cover when polls show wide support for giving a serious haircut to the wild and woolly lands of
The Psychological Base of “Powerarchy”
We traditional Americans are doing what we can to take on oligarchy, plutocracy, and patriarchy.But our effectiveness is limited if we do not figure out the whys and hows of what our guest Melanie Joy calls “powerarchy.” Her new book
Democrats Took The Wrong Lessons from McGovern 1972
Conventional Democratic Party wisdom is that McGovern lost to Nixon because he was too liberal, and as a result of that belief, ever since that loss party insiders have trended steadily to the right. But if today’s measuring tools had
Cruelty Steers the New Supreme Court Docket
It’s not only Trump who is pushing cruelty. Since right wing Republicans have very successfully gained control over the third branch of government, the judicial branch, we should expect to see many examples of cruelty dictating decisions by the Supreme





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