Background Briefing: October 11, 2022
The Pernicious Polarization Gripping Our Politics As We Head For Electoral Autocracy or a Democratic Collapse
We begin with a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll that finds 47% of Republicans want Trump to be their nominee in 2024 and if he will be running against Biden, the same poll has Trump beating Biden 48% to 46%. One of the experts who contributed to the Washington Post article, “What Will Happen to America if Trump Wins Again? Experts Help Us Game It Out” joins us. Jennifer McCoy, is a professor of political science at Georgia State University and a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She recently was a senior core fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Budapest, Hungary and her areas of expertise include democratic resilience, partisan polarization, crisis prevention and conflict resolution, democracy promotion and Latin American Politics. She is the author, most recently, of Polarizing Polities: A Global Threat to Democracy and she has a recent study at The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “What Happens When Democracies Become Perniciously Polarized?” and we discuss the pernicious polarization gripping our politics as we head for electoral autocracy or a possible outright democratic collapse.
The Ohio Senate Race as a Contest Between an “Ass-kicker and an “Ass-kisser”
Then we assess the heated and lively debate between JD Vance and Congressman Tim Ryan for the key US Senate seat in Ohio and speak with Robert Alexander, a professor of political science and the Founding Director of the Institute for Civics and Public Policy at Ohio Northern University. He has published four books, the most recent of which is Representation and the Electoral College published by Oxford University Press. A frequent op-ed contributor, having written articles for USA Today, CNN, Real Clear Politics, and The Hill among others, we discuss what Tim Ryan called a contest in which “Ohio needs an ass-kicker, not an ass-kisser.”
Zelensky Expresses Concern to the G7 That Putin is Pressuring Belarus to Enter the War
Then finally we examine the pressure Putin is putting on the dictator of Belarus to enter the war against Ukraine which is a concern President Zelensky expressed by video today to a meeting of the G7, saying “Russia is trying to directly draw Belarus into this war, playing a provocation that we are allegedly preparing an attack on this country.” Joining us is David Marples, the Distinguished University Professor in the Department of History & Classics at the University of Alberta where he teaches Russian and East European history and is a Research Fellow with the Contemporary Ukraine Program. He is also Honorary President of the Belarusian Academy of Arts and Sciences in Canada and the author of seventeen books, the latest of which include Stalin: His Life and Works, The War in Ukraine’s Donbas, and Understanding Ukraine and Belarus. We discuss his article at Engelsberg Ideas, “Belarus: the state built by the Second World War.”