August 16 - Realism Versus Trumpism in Foreign Policy; A Russian and Iranian Alliance Over Syria; The Growing Racial Wealth Divide

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with an analysis of Donald Trump’s much-heralded speech on foreign policy that was supposed to be about “foreign policy realism” but, according to our first guest Daniel Drezner, was really about Trumpism and should have realists clamoring to publically distance themselves from Trump. A Professor of International Politics at Tuft’s University, Daniel Drezner joins us to discuss his latest article at The Washington Post “The Last Foreign Policy Letter That Needs to be Written This Election Cycle”. On top of today’s letter by 100+ Republican officials to the head of the RNC asking Reince Priebus to dump Trump, we look into the series of letters signed by foreign policy experts so far who see Hillary Clinton as a flawed but superior choice for president even though many realists have argued that her liberal interventionist foreign policy has damaged U.S. interests.

Part 2

Then we speak with Nader Hashemi, the Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver and author of “The Syria Dilemma” about Russia’s use of an airbase in Iran and the growing cooperation between the two countries led by staunchly anti-American leaders who are resolutely committed to keeping the Assad regime in power in Syria. We explore the paradox that the U.S. is poised to, in effect, join the Russian/Iranian initiative in the hope of getting Assad to sign onto a peace deal that many in Washington, including the Secretary of Defense, oppose.

Part 3

Then finally we examine a new report by the Institute for Policy Studies “The Ever-Growing Gap: Failing to Address the Status Quo Will Drive the Racial Wealth Divide for Centuries to Come”. An author of the report, Chuck Collins, a Senior Scholar at IPS and the co-founder of the Patriotic Millionaires, joins us to discuss how over the past 30 years, the average wealth of white families in America has grown by 84%, 1.2 times the rate for Latinos and three times the rate of growth for the black population.