Background Briefing: October 10, 2021
The Continuing Fallout From the Pandora Papers
We begin with the continuing fallout from the release of the Pandora Papers from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and speak with Frank Vogl, a former senior World Bank official and foreign business and economics correspondent for The Times of London who currently teaches at Georgetown University. He is the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Partnership for Transparency Fund, and the co-founder and former Vice Chair of Transparency International, the global non-governmental anti-corruption organization and the author of the forthcoming book, out next month, The Enablers: How the West Supports Kleptocrats and Corruption – Endangering Our Democracy. We discuss whether the White House “Summit on Democracy” scheduled to take place in December will be a victory for U.S. leadership in fighting corruption abroad as well as a forum to address the urgency of containing enablers at home.
The Less Discussed Elite, Trump’s American Gentry
Then we speak with Patrick Wyman, who holds a PhD in history from the University of Southern California. He previously worked as a sports journalist, covering mixed martial arts and boxing from 2013 to 2018, and his work has been featured in Deadspin, The Washington Post, Bleacher Report, among others. Currently the host of the podcast, Tides of History, and previously the host of Fall of Rome, he is the author of the new book, just out, The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World and we discuss his article at The Atlantic “Trump and the American Gentry” which explores a less exalted and less discussed elite group, one that sits at the pinnacle of the local hierarchies that govern daily life for tens of millions of Americans. Among the January 6 crowd there were people who had flown to the event on private jets since Trump had courted the support of this American gentry, the salt-of-the-earth millionaires who see themselves as local leaders in business and politics, the unappreciated backbone of a once-great nation.