Free Forum with Terrence McNally

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.

I believe minority rule to be one of the most dangerous challenges facing American society with enormous impact for the fate of the world. I’m excited to engage with Daniel Ziblatt, about his latest book, TYRANNY OF THE MINORITY:Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point, co-authored with Stephen Levitsky. Their previous book, How Democracies Die, was described by The Economist magazine as "the most important book of the Trump era." You can learn more at scholar.harvard.edu/dziblatt. This episode was recorded as a LiveTalksLA event September 21, 2023 - link to video.

JONATHAN TAPLIN’s new book THE END OF REALITY picks up where MOVE FAST & BREAK THINGS left off. It documents how - rather than confront and solve the critical challenges we face - some of our wealthiest and most powerful men are plotting their escape - from transparency and regulation with crypto, from real life with the metaverse, from planet earth with colonies on Mars, and from death itself with transhumanism and cyborgs. This fantasy/nightmare is being sold by four billionaires - Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Marc Andreeson, and Peter Thiel.

JONATHAN TAPLIN is former tour manager for Bob Dylan and The Band, producer of two Martin Scorsese films, MEAN STREETS and THE LAST WALTZ, and Director Emeritus of the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab. Next week I’ll talk with him about his new book, THE END OF REALITY: How Four Billionaires Are Selling a Fantasy Future of the Metaverse, Mars, And Crypto. How better to warm up for that than by replaying our 2018 conversation about his earlier book MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS: How Facebook, Google and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy. You can learn more at jontaplin.com

July 2023 was the hottest month in recorded history, June ranks #2. All time high temperatures hit the US, Europe, and China. Phoenix recorded at least 110F for 20 days in a row. I speak with JEFF GOODELL about THE HEAT WILL KILL YOU FIRST: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet. Biggest takeaway: “The assumption that we will do what we need to do in time and things will go back to normal is a profound misunderstanding of this moment.” CO2 is not like smog. Recent extremes and disasters are here to stay. Learn more at jeffgoodellwriter.com

There’s little doubt we face critical challenges and serious doubt about whether we have the vision, the culture, the systems, or the will to successfully deal with them. I’ve been asking lately, “How did we get here?" and focusing a lot on the generations, in particular the Boomers and the 1960’s. I’m excited to speak with PHILIP BUMP, a national columnist for The Washington Post, about his first book, THE AFTERMATH: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America, an assessment of how the baby boom created modern America, and where power, wealth, and politics will shift as the boom ends. You can learn more at pbump.com.

In her new book THE FIGHT TO SAVE THE TOWN: Reimagining Discarded America, MICHELLE WILDE ANDERSON, Professor at Stanford Law School and Stanford School of Sustainability, explores vicious cycles in Stockton CA, Lawrence MA, Detroit MI, and Josephine County OR - four communities left behind by the modern economy. As local economies shrink, government is underfunded. As government delivers less to citizens, they lose faith in government and in each other. Coming back gets harder and harder, but it is not impossible. She tells the tough and inspirational stories of “People who” - in her words - “are working their asses off on some of the most important issues in the country.” 

I speak with ERWIN CHEMERINSKY, Dean of Berkeley Law School, about the Supreme Court’s recent term. I see ethical challenges and radical rulings - the law of the land interpreted through their religious and moral lenses, overturning legislation and precedent - hardly conservative behavior, stretching and distorting the law in their decision defending arguments, imposing their agenda on the nation with little regard for real world consequences, the common good, or the future. We’ll also talk about  his latest book, WORSE THAN NOTHING: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism. Learn more at law.berkeley.edu – search for Chemerinsky.

I speak with talk show host, THOM HARTMANN, about the newest book in his “hidden history” series. THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY. I’d heard the Founders drew inspiration from political systems of Native Americans, to which Hartmann adds, so did Europe’s Enlightenment thinkers. He quotes Thomas Paine: “To understand what the state of society ought to be, it is necessary to have some idea of the natural and primitive state of man; such as it is at this day among the Indians of North America. There is not any of those spectacles of human misery which poverty and want present to our eyes in all the towns and streets in Europe.” In addition to these revelations, Hartmann clarifies myths of the Constitution and offers a 21-point agenda to restore US democracy. Learn more at thomhartmann.com