#91 Heather Cox Richardson (replay): Rewriting the Politics of the American Dream

With the mid-term election underway in US this week, we feature a replay of our interview with Heather Cox Richardson, as heard on episode 8 in July 2020. 

Heather Cox Richardson is Professor of History at Boston College and an expert on American political and economic history. She is the author of six books on American politics and is a national commentator on American political history and the Republican Party. She is also a leading #Twitterstorian, explaining the historical background of modern political issues through Twitter threads, the co-editor of We’re History, a web magazine of popular history, and the author of Letters from an American, a chronicle of the Trump presidency since the Ukraine Scandal broke. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Chicago Tribune.

Heather addresses the question of What Could Possibly Go Right? with a political focus. Her insights include:

- That the current condition is waking people up from autopilot and creating the realization they need to pursue change personally to create the society in which they want to live.

- A reminder that the beauty of a democratic system is getting to choose which direction to go.

- That the desire for equality of opportunity and access should no longer be pushed to the narrative of special interest in politics.

- The potential to innovate and create change through crowdsourcing government and society.

- That the American dream needs to be rewritten and move away from the heteronormative nuclear family as its centerpiece, to a more community-centered and diverse view.

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Complete Show Notes