Background Briefing: June 15, 2022
A History of the Right Wing Grift Machine Now That the “Big Lie” Has Become the “Big Grift”
We begin with a history of the right wing grift machine now that the “big lie” has become the “big grift” and speak with Rick Perlstein, the author of the New York Times bestseller The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan; Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, and Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus. He is currently a contributing editor and board member of In These Times magazine, and his latest book is Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976-1980 and we discuss how the January 6 committee has established the direct connection between the Republican Party’s paramilitary wing and parliamentary wings as Trump’s GOP leads the country towards fascism.
How the American Majority Can Thwart the Tyranny of the Minority
Then with the Supreme Court poised to take away women’s reproductive rights, gun safety rights in blue states, environmental protection to deal with global warming and voting rights empowering voter-suppression by partisan Republican legislatures, we look into how the American majority can thwart the tyranny of the minority. Joining us is Samuel Moyn, the Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School and Professor of History at Yale University. He has written several books in his fields of European intellectual history, human rights history and law, including The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History, Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World. His latest book is Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War.
The Presidential Ambition of Florida’s “Grievance Governor”
Then finally with the richest man in the world about to own an influential social media platform now throwing his support behind Governor DeSantis, we speak with Michael Binder, a professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of North Florida whose research interests include voter decision-making, direct democracy, American politics and public opinion. He is the faculty director for the Public Opinion Research Laboratory at the University of North Florida and we discuss the presidential ambitions of Florida’s “grievance governor.”