In 2024, Republicans won the popular vote for only the second time since 1980. After the worst four years of his life, Trump, running against the best administration for labor in years, won bigger numbers than 2020 among working class voters – including Blacks & Latinos. Hartmann’s new book, THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN DREAM: The Demise of the Middle Class – and How to Rescue Our Future, supplies the backstory to that damaging development. Biden finally dumped neo-liberalsim but voters didn’t know.

As we have for the last few elections, ROB JOHNSON – Executive Director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) and host of podcast ECONOMICS & BEYOND – and I offer our post-mortems. Biden’s late withdrawal meant the Dems skipped primaries, debates, and a convention that would have tested candidates and messages. 2024 was another “change” election and they didn’t get the memo. Bad time to be an incumbent. Trump’s message: If you’re angry, vote for me. Turns out a lot of voters were angry. 

LAUREN WINDSOR calls herself an “advocacy journalist”. Her biggest scoops usually come when she goes undercover among right-wing pols and donors to secretly record things they don’t want us to hear. Her accidental truth-tellers include Sam Alito, Rudy Giuliani, Roger Stone, John Eastman, and Ted Cruz. Executive producer of The Undercurrent and executive director of American Family Voices, we talk about her new documentary, GONZO FOR DEMOCRACY. You can learn more at laurenwindsor.com

Windsor Lauren-10-23-2024-transcript

 

STEPHEN UJLAKI’s documentary BAD FAITH opens with the following text: “Christian Nationalism is a political movement that believes America was founded as a Christian nation privileging Christianity over all other faiths. Masquerading as religion, this ideology exploits scripture and sacred symbols to achieve extremist objectives.” The film lays out the timeline, connects the dots, and makes clear that 1) Christian Nationalism is a political movement first, not a religious one. 2) Since the 1970s, it has been relentless, well funded, absolutely cynical, and frighteningly successful. 3) Christian Nationalists have achieved much of what they set out to do, and, if Trump wins again, have dark plans for more.

I’ve been talking about voter suppression with GREG PALAST since 2002. Known for his investigative reports for BBC, The Guardian, and Rolling Stone, his new documentary, VIGILANTES INC: America’s New Vote Suppression Hitmen, narrated by Rosario Dawson and produced by Martin Sheen, reveals that in 43 states individual citizens are able to challenge and remove fellow citizens from voter rolls. You can donate to watch it at gregpalast.com where you can also find Greg’s other documentaries, and his articles and books, including The Best Democracy Money Can Buy – or stream it for free at saveyourvote.org.