Tag: democracy

Briefings

Background Briefing: June 12, 2022

On By gram

 

Coordination Between the Proud Boys and the Mob Trump Sent to the Capitol

We begin and explore the connection made between the far-right militias and Trump’s call on January 6 for the mob to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” that were made in the first hearing of the House Select Committee on Thursday and speak with Joseph Lowndes, a Professor of Political Science at the University of Oregon and an expert on conservatism, social movements, the GOP, race and elections. He is the author of From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism, and co-author of Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity. He has an article at The Washington Post, “The homegrown version of ‘replacement theory’ adopted by the GOP” and we discuss his article at joelowndes.org, “Enrique Tarrio’s Winter Palace” and how Fox News, in counterprogramming against all the other networks carrying Thursday’s hearing, did not take commercial breaks so as to keep their audience insulated from the truth.

 

Trump’s Seven-Point Plan to Undo American Democracy

Then we look into what might emerge from the next hearing on Monday evening which will investigate Trump’s seven-point plan for his coup against American democracy and look into whether the activities in the Willard Hotel War Room were coordinated with the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Joining us is Shane Burley, writer and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It and Why We Fight Essays on Fascism, Resistance, and Surviving the Apocalypse. His work has appeared in Al Jazeera, The Baffler, Jacobin, In These Times and other publications, and he has an article at Real News, “ABORTION FUNDS, TELEHEALTH CARE, BIOHACKED MEDICINES: CRISIS PLANNING FOR POST-ROE AMERICA.”

 

Now That Putin Wants to “Return and Fortify” Russia’s Lost Lands, the Fight is Not Just For Democracy But For Sovereignty

Then finally, with Putin claiming the mantle of Peter the Great and calling on an historic quest “to return and fortify” Russia’s lost lands, we speak with Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is the author of Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy in World War II and we discuss his article in The Atlantic, “The One Key Word Biden Needs to Invoke on Ukraine: He should call it a fight not for democracy, but for sovereignty.”