Background Briefing: July 27, 2023
Netanyahu’s Path of Autocratic Legalism Following Orban, Erdogan, Bolsonaro, Modi and Putin
We begin with an article written in 2018 “Autocratic Legalism” which has been translated into a book in Hebrew and has become a must-read in Israel to explain the movement by Netanyahu and the Israeli right from democracy to autocracy. Joining us is the author of the article Kim Lane Scheppele, a Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at 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, and studied the emergence of constitutional law in Hungary and Russia. She is the author of 9/11: The Rise of Global Anti-Terrorism Law and had a prescient article in The New York Times, “What Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis Are Learning About the Politics of Retribution.”
The Attempt Underway to Give Republicans and Independents Who Can’t Vote For Trump an Alternative to Voting For Biden
Then we examine the attempt underway to help elect Trump by appealing to moderate Republicans and Independents offering an alternative to Biden via a phony bi-partisan front funded by Republican dark money calling itself No Labels. Joining us is Harold Meyerson, one of the nation’s best-known progressive columnists and editor-at-large of The American Prospect. He also writes regularly about California politics for the Los Angeles Times and other national publications, and we discuss his latest article at the American Prospect, “The Plutocratic Policies of No Labels.”
Senator McConnell Freezes Then Senator Feinstein Has to be Told Repeatedly to Vote “Aye”
Then finally, with 81 year-old Senate Minority Leader McConnell freezing during a press conference yesterday and 90 year-old Senator Feinstein having to be told repeatedly to vote “Aye” today in a Senate vote on the NDAA, we speak with Jill Quadagno, an award-winning author and Professor Emerita of Sociology at Florida State University, where she held the Mildred and Claude Pepper Eminent Scholar Chair in Social Gerontology. She is the author of more than 50 articles and 12 books on aging and social policy issues including The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty, and her latest, Aging and The Life Course: An Introduction to Social Gerontology.