In the five years since I recorded this conversation with NANCY MAC LEAN about her book, DEMOCRACY IN CHAINS: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, events have confirmed her analysis and her warnings. We now have minority rule, led by Mitch McConnell, Mike Johnson, Donald Trump, and the radical 6-3 Supreme Court. She has been passionately attacked on the Right, and passionately celebrated by those who care about democracy

You can learn more her at scholars.duke.edu – search for Nancy MacLean.

Responding to the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and too many others, millions marched in 2020 to protest police brutality. Though Floyd’s killers faced charges and were found guilty, we learned that it remains extremely difficult to hold police accountable. Decisions of the Supreme Court, state and local governments, and policy makers have made them all but untouchable. In SHIELDED, UCLA law professor JOANNA SCHWARTZ shares the stories of victims, exposes the ways in which our legal system protects police, reveals the weakness of their justifications, and calls for sustained citizen engagement to make change.

Two conversations with warnings of the ’08 crash to come. KEVIN PHILLIPS is best known for his 1969 book The Emerging Republican Majority articulating Nixon’s Southern Strategy which nearly 50 years later delivered us Trump. Phillips in time grew disillusioned with the GOP, and wrote books like The Politics of Rich and Poor; Wealth and Democracy; American Theocracy. In April 2008 we talk about Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism. Phillips died October 9th at 82. Second half, you’ll hear my 2007 conversation with economist Robert Frank on two of his books. The Economic Naturalist: in Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas and Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class,

STEVEN GREENHOUSE covered labor at the New York Times for 19 years. When we last spoke in the early days of the Biden administration, workers’ share of income had slid to its lowest level since the 1940s and the percentage of workers in unions was the lowest in over a century. But unions are winning these days – winning contracts, winning strikes when necessary, and perhaps most critically in the big picture – winning popular support, especially among young people. He’s author of Beaten Down Worked Up: The Past Present and Future of American Labor.

MICHAEL LEWIS’s new book, GOING INFINITE, the story of Sam Bankman-Fried and the rise and fall of crypto exchange FTX, is the #1 Selling book on Amazon. Here’s my 2010 conversation with Lewis about another #1 best-seller, THE BIG SHORT. In telling the story behind the Oscar nominated film, one of the great “explainers” defines a lot of terms – securitization, derivatives, credit default swaps – you remember. I think it’s one of my favorite episodes.