Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen

Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen


Latest Episodes

The Crucial December 12th British Election Explained
November 26, 2019

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
November 19, 2019

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
November 14, 2019

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
November 12, 2019

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
November 07, 2019

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
November 05, 2019

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
October 24, 2019

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”
October 22, 2019

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
October 17, 2019

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
October 15, 2019

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