The Nation Podcasts

On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Alex Shephard discusses why Ron DeSantis and other rivals are faltering.Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is the preferred Trump foe of the Republican establishment. Both the donor class and media outlets (notably those owned by Rupert Murdoch) have rallied around DeSantis as a figure who can unite the party by adopting the policies of Donald Trump but without Trump’s embarrassing personal flaws. But their theory of Ron Santis isn’t working out: he’s faltering in the polls and some of his major supporters are starting to waver. Other Trump rivals, like former vice president Mike Pence, are also having trouble gaining traction.Writing in The New Republic, Alex Shepard cogently noted that De Santis and other would-be Republican presidential nominees face the same difficulty as candidates like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz did in 2016: they're afraid to alienate Trump’s passionate base of support, so they can’t fully challenge him. This makes them look weak when Trump attacks them in the most lurid and contemptuous ways imaginable. In this podcast, Alex and I survey the GOP primary race with a focus on why Trump remains the man to beat.  Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

American women in 2023: the news is bad, but it’s not all bad. Katha Pollitt is on the Start Making Sense podcast to explain.Also: the largest anti-war demonstrations in American history were the protests in the fall of 1969--with more than two million people in the streets demanding “End the War in Vietnam.” But did those demonstrations help end the war? Historian Chris Appy comments on the new documentary, “The Movement and the ‘Madman,’” out on PBS American Experience March 28.Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Last year, the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision. This has only emboldened the anti-choice movement. Those who hoped that abortion would at least be safe in blue states and kept available in red states via mifepristone are waking up to a world where the anti-choice movement is using legal warfare to move towards its goal of a nation-wide abortion ban. As Moira Donegan notes in a recent column in The Guardian, a right-wing Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas is hearing arguments for rolling back FDA approval of mifepristone. Elsewhere, pharmacists and doctors are being intimidated by legal threats so that even legal abortion services are getting harder to come by. A novel legal argument is being used to raise the possibility that anti-abortion laws can be applied retroactively, again creating a chilling effect.I talked with Moira about these and other trends. As she notes, they raise a fundamental question about not just reproductive freedom but also the future of American democracy. It’s no longer clear whether there is a federal rule of law that can protect reproductive freedom even in blue states. We also take up the urgency of Democrats making reproductive freedom a top issue. Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On this episode of the Edge of Sports podcast, we speak to Daily Memphian columnist Chris Herrington about the personal troubles of Memphis Grizzlies point guard and budding icon Ja Morant. We talk about the Grizzlies, the city of Memphis, and what’s next for the superstar point guard.We have Choice Words about the MVP debate going on between Embiid, Jokic, and Giannis. We also have a Just Stand Up award to Lamar Jackson for standing on his principle, and a Just Sit Down award for the NFL owners that are seemingly colluding against Lamar. All that and more on this episode of the Edge of Sports podcast!Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Since the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank last week, we need to understand how and why medium-sized banks have been allowed to avoid strict supervision from federal banking authorities and avoid safety requirements. John Nichols comments.Also: Do masks work to help stop the spread of COVID-19? A New York Times columnist recently said that they don’t, and cited an authoritative review of research as his source. But it turns he was wrong about that study. Gregg Gonsalves is on the show to explain.Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The good news is we have one less thing to worry about: so-called Havana Syndrome turns out not to be caused by a mysterious super-weapon to harm American diplomats and military personnel, despite numerous press reports warning of a hypothetical ray gun created by a foreign foe (Cuba? Russia? China?). Instead, an assessment by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) concluded that the symptoms of Havana Syndrome, reported by hundreds of government officials working all over the world) likely had “medical, environmental, and social factors that plausibly can explain.” In less polite terms, this was an example of a mass psychogenic illness, a product of hysteria and over-active imaginations. Writing in Jacobin, Branko Marcetic links the Havana Syndrome frenzy to other examples of national security paranoia such as the false reports of Russians paying for Taliban bounty hunters and the recent meltdown over Chinese surveillance balloons. I talked with Branko about both the Havana Syndrome, and the reasons – political and psychological–that the military-industrial complex is going into over drive conjuring up imaginary or overhyped threats.Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On this episode of the Edge of Sports podcast, we speak to author and sports opinionist Kate Fagan about her new illustrated history of the women in basketball, Hoop Muses: An Insider’s Account to Pop Culture and the (Women’s Game). The book is illustrated by Sophia Chang and curated by the legendary hoopster Seimone Augustus. Fagan and I talk about her inspiration, creative process and what it was like working with Seimone Augustus.We'll have Choice Words about the effort to ban trans athletes from youth sports. We give a Just Stand Up award to the New York Knicks for looking like a legitimate, joyous playoff contender down the home stretch of the season. We also have a Just Sit Down award for Texas Tech basketball coach, Mark Adams for the wild comments he made to members of his team.Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Ron DeSantis has written a political autobiography, “The Courage to be Free.” The Nation's DC Bureau Chief, Chris Lehmann calls it “a paranoid rant disguised as campaign memoir.” Chris joins us on this episode of Start Making Sense to discuss it.Also: Sunday is Oscar night in America and, as usual, we have a lot of complaints about the nominations. So does John Powers, Critic at Large on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. We talk about this year’s films we didn’t like – and some we thought were wonderful.Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The ongoing defamation suit launched by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News for its coverage of the 2020 election has already resulted in the release of an eye-opening tranche of documents that give an unprecedented window into the inner workings of the TV network. As National columnist Chris Lehmann has noted, the major revelation is how completely beholden the network is to its right-wing base, to the extent of knowingly pushing false stories to please that audience.On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Chris and I talked about what the Fox News revelations say not only about the powerful media site but also the state of journalism and American democracy. The problem is not just that Fox News lies but that millions of viewers have grown addicted to those lies, so much so that they’ll look for any source to bolster their worldview. More than a media problem, this is a democracy problem; one with few obvious answers. Using the Dominion lawsuit as a starting point, Chris and I talk about the broader problem of a post-truth society.Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Israel’s new far-right government, headed, again, by Benjamin Netanyahu, is working to undermine democracy for Israelis and advance Israel’s annexation of Palestinian land. Provocations by Israel in the West Bank have been followed by settler pogroms against Palestinian villages. Saree Makdisi provides comment and analysis of how Israel is “destroying the fantasies of liberal Zionism.” https://www.thenation.com/article/world/israel-liberal-zionism/Also: the worst thing that happened to Black History during Black History Month was not Ron DeSantis banning critical concepts and approaches - it was the College Board revising its new African American Studies curriculum to meet all of his demands. But now scholars in Black History, Black Studies and related fields are fighting back. Kimberlé Crenshaw will explain. She founded the African American Policy Forum.Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy