Category: Briefings

Plutocrats No Longer Shape Our Government Behind the Scenes, Musk is Now Giving House Republicans Orders 

We begin with a milestone in American politics in which a plutocrat is not just influencing and shaping the government from behind the scenes but today the richest man in the world is giving orders to the House Republicans to shut down the government and not pass any bills until January 20. Joining us to discuss the antidemocratic politics of having it all as the broligarchs like Musk and Bezos not only can overrule the laws of the land, but plan to escape the planet entirely after leaving the democracy that brought them prosperity in ruins. Joining us is Brooke Harrington, a professor of economic sociology at Dartmouth College, a certified wealth manager, and an advisor to the OECD and European Parliament, among other organizations. She is the author of several books, including the best-selling Capital without Borders. Her latest book is Offshore: Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism.

MAGA Republicans Follow Orban’s Model With Project 2025 While Trump Moves to Control the Media as Orban Did, Turning a Democracy Into a Kleptocracy and Dictatorship

Then we examine Viktor Orban’s Hungary as the model Trump and the MAGA Republicans are following as they implement Project 2025 and Trump moves to control the media following Orban’s first move to do so when he took over Hungary’s democracy and turned it into a kleptocracy and dictatorship. Joining us is Kim Lane Scheppele, a Professor of Sociology and International Affairs and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. She lived in Budapest, doing research at the Constitutional Court of Hungary and teaching at both the University of Budapest and at Central European University, where she was a founding director of the Program in Gender and Culture. Scheppele also studied the emergence of constitutional law in Hungary and Russia, living in both places for extended periods and is the author of 9/11: The Rise of Global Anti-Terrorism Law.