Beyond Politics

In the wake of the January 6 insurrection, a Harvard professor decided, in a matter of days, to teach a course that unfolded in real time and dug deep into what happened on January 6th, the roots of the insurrection, and the still-developing understanding of the events of that day. So what did he and his students learn, and what can we say about the future now that we are a year out?  We wanted to bring the kind of insight that you get in a Harvard course to everybody, so we brought that professor onto the show today. Alexander Keyssar is the Matthew W. Stirling Jr. Professor of History and Social Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and author of “Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?”

Matt joins veteran radio host Howard Monroe to talk about why the insurrection was, yes, an insurrection, where public opinion has gone, and why we are in more peril now than we were a year ago.

As we enter 2022, the biggest question on everyone’s minds – the biggest question in the world – is what will happen with Covid, especially as we deal with the Omicron wave which is continuing to lead to record numbers of cases. So we wanted to check in with one of our favorite guests, Donald G. McNeil Jr. Throughout the pandemic, for millions of readers and podcast listeners in the US and around the world, Donald has been one of the most trusted, thoughtful, and clear explainers on the science of the coronavirus and public health measures to control it. He was the lead reporter on the Covid-19 pandemic for the New York Times in 2020 and since leaving the Times, he’s continued to write and explain the science of Covid to the public. He recently wrote an article titled “Oh, Great. Now I’ve Got Covid.” Donald joins us to explain what happened, why he went with the British approach to quarantining instead of the CDC approach (and what Dr. Anthony Fauci told him about it), and what seems most likely to happen with Covid in 2022 (and why that might be better than you think). 

The most fun show of the year where our panel hands out end of year awards: MVP for Dems and for Republicans, most important news story,  surprising polling finding, under-reported news story of the year, and more. Our panel is Republican political columnist Alicia Preston, former Democratic Congressman Paul Hodes, and host and former Congressional staffer Matt Robison. Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

We call the show Beyond Politics for a reason, and today, we once again step way beyond politics for a fun conversation with astronomer John Gianforte about all of the fascinating news in space and astronomy.  What are we going to see with our new $10 billion telescope? Can we stop killer asteroids with a spaceship, like something out of a movie?  And what can we learn from the brief few days where scientists thought we might have finally gotten a message from extra terrestrial intelligence, and in our own galactic back yard?  Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash

The outstanding think tank The Concord Coalition has its own podcast and radio show called Facing the Future, and recently, they hosted Beyond Politics hosts Matt Robison and former Congressman Paul Hodes for a lively discussion about how screwed up things are, and what can be fixed (and what can't).  There's a little friendly dunking on Congress, plus some practical talk about how to make things work on the side. 

Matt joins legendary West Virginia radio broadcaster -- and expert Senator Joe Manchin analyst -- Howard Monroe to talk about Manchin's weekend stunner, what was really driving it, and whether it's the best thing that could have happened to Democrats.

The recently concluded COP 26 summit in Glasgow was supposed to shine an international spotlight on global warming and charge up the next stage of commitments from countries to reduce carbon emissions. There were only two problems. One: it’s unclear how much progress was actually made. The conference did end with a new consensus about the need for action, and some analysts called that a substantial achievement.  But the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg accused the conference of consisting of a lot of “blah, blah, blah.” Two: nowadays, it’s hard to focus on the fact that the world is on fire when global warming is competing for our attention with immediate problems like the worldwide pandemic, economic instability, and the fact that democracy is weakening around the world, and may not have long to go in the US. So we wanted to take a look at where we really are on climate, COP 26, and the US role in it, and to do that we have one of the very best environmental leaders in the United States. Elizabeth Gore is Senior Vice President for Political Affairs at Environmental Defense Fund. She served as a US Senate Legislative director and chief of staff for 18 years, and 6 years in the House of Representatives before that. We talk climate, progress, whether Congress really is a mess, and why she was invited to be the commencement speaker at UMASS.

More than five and a half million Americans out of work in January found jobs by November. In the same period, the jobless rate fell from 6.3 to 4.2 percent, a drop of one-third. Jobless claims in November hit a 52-year low. Real GDP growth for 2021 is expected to be 5.9 percent. (Between 2000 and 2019, real GDP growth stayed lower than 3 percent.) President Biden’s temporary child tax credit, which provides direct cash payments to poor families, cut child hunger rates from 30 percent to 21 percent. That’s 2 million fewer kids who went hungry. Yet Biden’s popularity, as measured by poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight, remains in the doldrums. At 43 percent approval, his numbers are worse  than any postwar president at this point in his term except for his  predecessor, Donald Trump. Author Noah Berlatsky has written an analysis for The Editorial Board in which he says that all this kind of...makes sense. In fact, it may be a sign of democracy working. On the show, Matt and Noah run through his argument, and talk about whether democracy truly can work in the process of so much media propaganda, misinformation, and voter confusion.

Chris Hill of Motley Fool Money takes stock of the biggest trends of 2021 for business, the economy, and investing, and the biggest questions ahead for 2022.  He awards CEO of the year (there were three), business story of the year, and a nice piece of good news for investors ahead.