March 8 - Why African Americans Aren't "Feeling the Bern"; Trump Has Mobilized a Constituency with Legitimate Grievances He is Taking For a Ride; Why All of a Sudden There are Millions of Socialists in America?

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with an assessment of why Bernie Sanders is not connecting with African/American voters compared with Hillary Clinton who has swept the Southern Democratic primaries and is expected to win big in Mississippi today. Chris Parker, a professor of Social Justice and Political Science at the University of Washington who is the principal investigator of the Multi-State Survey on Race and Politics and is the author of “Change They Can’t Believe in: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America,” joins us to discuss why African/American voters are not “feeling the Bern”.

Part 2

Then we examine the underlying reasons why Donald Trump is winning over angry white working class voters which, in a word is, Globalism, the economic basis of voter anger that has been building for forty years. Thomas Edsall, a professor of Journalism at Columbia University, whose column on demographic and strategic trends in American politics appears every Wednesday in The New York Times, joins us to discuss his recent article at The New York Times “Why Trump Now?” and how Trump has mobilized a constituency with legitimate grievances but is taking them on a fool’s errand.

Part 3

Then finally we look into why all of a sudden, there are millions of socialists in America and speak with Harold Meyerson, an editor-at-large of The American Prospect and a weekly columnist for The Washington Post about his latest article at The Guardian “Why are there suddenly millions of socialists in America?” We discuss a 2011 Pew poll that indicated 49% of Americans under 30 have a positive view of socialism while just 47% have a favorable opinion of capitalism, findings that suggest Bernie Sanders did not push young people towards socialism, but that they were already there.