The Dilemma Democrats Face in How to React to Trump’s Insults and Lies

We begin with the dilemma facing Democrats about how to react to Donald Trump’s relentless barrage of insults and lies without stooping to Trump’s level of gutter politics and hateful rhetoric. An historian of American political discourse, Jennifer Mercieca, a Professor in the Department of Communications at Texas A&M where she teaches courses on political communication and presidential rhetoric joins us. We discuss how much public shaming and protests against Sarah Sanders and Stephen Miller only serve to make these otherwise unsympathetic henchmen of Trump’s, sympathetic. And while Democrats are entitled to righteous anger at Trump’s inhumanity and immorality, how do they avoid the trap of playing into Trump’s hands by reacting in a way that Congresswoman Maxine Waters advocated as opposed to following Michelle Obama’s advice of “when they go low, we go high”?

The Correlation Between the Intolerance of White Americans and Their Support for Authoritarians Rule

Then we speak with Nicholas Davis, a Research Scientist at the Public Policy Research Institute at Texas A&M who is currently at work on a book about the popular meaning of democracy and is the co-author of a study “White Outgroup Intolerance and Declining Support for American Democracy”. As the Republican Party moves from family values to white nationalism, we explore the correlation between the intolerance of white Americans and their support for authoritarian rule as intolerant white people appear to be abandoning their commitment to democracy while their perceptions are shaped by Trump and Fox News to believe that undeserving minorities are benefiting more from democracy than they are.

Addressing the Root Causes of the Immigration Crisis