December 27 - Bernie Sanders on Entering the Primaries; Populist Anger on the Left and the Right; How Deep is the Well of Populist Anger?

Full Program

Part 1

Today we examine the rise of populism in our politics on both the Right and the Left. We begin with a program broadcast on March 29, this year when Senator Bernie Sanders, the longest serving independent member of Congress in American history, joined us to discuss a number of issues including the 2015 Democratic presidential primary debates which at that stage looked more like a monologue involving one candidate Hillary Clinton than a dialogue. With Bernie on the cusp of deciding to put his foot into the presidential waters, we discuss his concerns about running and his reasons for considering a run as a Democrat. Let’s now go to Bernie Sanders on Background Briefing, on March the 29th of this year.

Part 2

And now we  go to a program broadcast on October the 26^th in which we examined the lack of a serious debate about America’s economy as income inequality rises and populist anger on the right and the left emerges in this elections season. The author of “Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States”, Michael Lind, the co-founder of the New America Foundation and Policy Director of New America’s Economic Growth Program joined us. As Wall Street thrives and Main Street languishes, we discussed the Republican obsession with tax cuts for the rich and how the Democrats are blinded by the orthodoxy of balanced budgets while globally there is an overabundance of capital looking for somewhere to invest as consumers run out of purchasing power because jobs pay less and wages have not risen since the 1970’s. 

Part 3

Now we are moving forward to December the 10^th of this year to discuss the right wing populist Donald Trump’s Islamophobia and immigrant-bashing which is gaining more and more traction among Republican primary voters. We discuss how ideas that used to be on the outer fringes of Republican discourse have now entered the GOP mainstream with Timothy McCarthy, a lecturer on History, Literature and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and author of “The Radical Reader: A Documentary History of the American Radical Tradition” and “Protest Nation: Words that Inspired a Century of American Radicalism”. We look into populist discontent on the left and right and assess how deep is the well of anger, hate and paranoia that Donald Trump is tapping into. So now to background Briefing broadcast on December the 10^th of this year…