The Long Game

Brian Rosenwald is author of "Talk Radio's America: How an industry took over a political party that took over the United States." Rosenwald is co-editor of "Made by History" a daily "Washington Post" history section, and a historical consultant for the Slate podcast "Whistelstop." And he is scholar in Residence at the Partnership for Effective Public Administration and Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania. In his book, Rosenwald traces the rise of talk radio at a time when AM radio was dying, and demonstrates that commercial and financial success was the driver behind it. And he documents the deep impact of talk radio on Republican politics. This phenomenon invited disillusioned and alienated conservatives into politics, he argues, but at a high cost. Talk radio, he argues, has destroyed the Republican Party and poisoned democracy in the U.S. We spend a good portion of the interview talking about how talk radio and cable news hosts have been and are the equivalent of party leaders on both the left and right, but without any of the accountability that party leaders of the past faced. Outro music: "Give the People What They Want," by The O'Jays Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Laura Berlind founded and helps run a think tank that is focused on one state and one state only: Tennessee. She's the executive director of the Sycamore Institute, which on the surface is something pedestrian: a place that does research. But underneath the surface, Sycamore is trying to do something revolutionary in our time. We live in a moment when politics and political debate is often captive to a winner-take-all, facts be damned mentality, where ideology and partisanship are in the driver's seat, and quite frankly power is the highest goal rather than service. Sycamore is a group of people trying to carve out a space in Tennessee politics, which is very conservative, for honest and open fact-based inquiry into what state lawmakers should do about the state's big problems, much of it around health care. They want people from all sides to be able to agree about what the facts of a matter are, what the most likely outcomes of a certain policy might be, and just as importantly, what they don't know for sure. In an age of alternative facts and polarization, this group is focused on establishing shared facts and a way forward for people in their state. Outro Music: "Sooner or Later" by MuteMath Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bryan Mealer is the author of four books: All Things Must Fight to Live — an account of his time in the Congo — Muck City — about a south Florida town with a legendary high school football team but a troubled past — The Kings of Big Spring — about his family's history of surviving through oil booms and busts and leaning on Pentecostalism, and The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, an account of a young boy in Malawi who helps his drought-beleaguered town — that book was a New York Times bestseller and was made into a movie directed by and starring powerhouse star Chiwetel Ejiofor, who also directed 12 years a slave and has starred in numerous major films over the past two decades, starting with Amistad. Bryan grew up in the Pentecostal church in west Texas, left his faith entirely while a war correspondent in the Congo, and then has been writing over the past year or two about rediscovering Christianity in a very different form than the fundamentalism he was raised him. We talk about the ways that his time in the Congo shaped him and changed him, and about how his work on a book about his family's roots in Texas and Georgia, and in the Pentecostal church, primed him to turn back to faith. Bryan wrote about his faith journey for The New Republic last fall, and wrote another piece about it for The Guardian over the winter. He described Rachel Held Evans this way: "To have her embrace the Bible as a tool for justice, and forgiveness and grace instead of this divine hammer against people we don't like was just, it was like my salvation." But Bryan also ended his TNR piece this way: "No matter how angry people like me get at white evangelicals or how many calls to arms we put forth, on its own, it will get us nowhere in the end. To defeat hatred and creeping fascism and begin the healing of this nation, we—all Americans—need a new social gospel, and not just one that makes liberals feel comfortable. It is a gospel forged from the rubble, and it must include everyone. It will be messy and painful, and we must push forward even when our friends ask us, 'What's the point?' When they ask us, 'How can you speak to those people?' Our big tent must shine like a light unto the world, and it must be a home to all—Republicans and Democrats, Jews and Romans, even to the demons that fly out from the debris." Bryan describes his experience covering a migrant caravan from Honduras last fall, and how he and his conservative father discussed their differences over immigration policy in light of that. The piece he wrote on the migrant caravan is incredible. Read it here. Outro music: "U (Man Like)" by Bon Iver Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a story about a group of 12 African-Americans who were arrested and charged with 120 felonies after they shifted control of a local school board in rural Georgia from a majority white board to majority black. This story happened months after Brian Kemp became Secretary of State in 2010, and Kemp kept the case open for six years, even after two mistrials and an acquittal. I have finished a five-month project looking into a fight over these voter fraud allegations that turned out to be what now looks to many like a case of voter suppression and intimidation. It's out today, and here I discuss it with Ariel Hart of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who did crucial reporting on this story a few years ago. My article on the Quitman 10+2, with the video project as well, is here. Ariel Hart's articles on this story are below: 12/13/14 - Voting Case Mirrors National Struggle 12/27/15 - Georgians stung by confusion over voting law 1/4/16 - Georgian stung by voter law gets elected The Vice article from 2014 is here. The Fox News interview with prosecutor Joe Mulholland can be seen here. My article on allegations against Kemp from last December is here. Background on Mary Turner can be found here. Outro music: "Holy Ghost" by Mavis Staples Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Our society has become a conspiracy against joy," writes New York Times columnist and author David Brooks. The thesis of his new book, "The Second Mountain," is that a meaningful life is lived not out of the ego-driven pursuits of the first mountain but out of the soul-driven pursuits of the second. I found it to be a rich feast on topics like vocation and calling. I found it to be sharply provocative on the topic of marriage — both encouraging me to be a better spouse and at times indicting my failures. On the issue of community, Brooks spoke to the core questions of this podcast: how do we find a way through our fractured, distrustful, enraged, superficial time to come together with others to build and heal and overcome in our communities and our nation. And his section on faith and spirituality was my favorite. Reading this book was like food for my soul. We talk here about things Brooks wrote in the past that he now thinks he was mistaken about, his views on marriage the second time around — he remarried in 2017 and that's a big part of this book — his nebulous place in the world of faith and how that's kind of where he wants to be, and we talk a little politics. Brooks describes himself in the introduction to his book as "radicalized" toward the belief that sweeping and dramatic change is necessary to change the course of America and the West. But he believes these changes should be moral and cultural, and even though he might agree with some of the things that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are proposing — though not their most aggressive proposals —he talks about they are looking in the wrong place for a game-changing message. And he mentions that only Marianne Williamson, and to a lesser degree Cory Booker, are seeing to make a deeper critique of Trump in a way that will connect in a powerful way. Outro music: "Side with the Seeds" by Wilco Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 2008, Amy Sullivan wrote a book called "The Party Faithful: How and Why Democrats are Closing the God Gap." A decade later, Amy says the biggest thing blocking that gap from being closed is the Democratic party's handling of the abortion issue. Amy is a journalist, author, host of the "Impolite Company" podcast, and a friend. We talked about a lot in this episode, and I learned things I didn't know about her upbringing and her interesting religious background. We talk about the many problems in American evangelicalism: botched handlings of sexual abuse cases, chauvinism, purity culture, and narrow-minded thinking. But we end up talking a lot at the end about Democrats and abortion. That topic has been in the news a lot lately, from the draconian laws that have been passed in numerous states, to the departure of Planned Parenthood president Leana Wen. Here's Wen's New York Times op-ed. And here's Michael Wear, who worked in the Obama White House, on the issue also in the NYT. Outro music: "Walk Across the Water" by The Black Keys Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week the House of Representatives held its third vote in three years on a procedural motion that would have led to impeaching President Trump if they had passed. None of these votes have been all that serious, but last week's did get more support than in previous years. 95 Democrats voterd for impeachment, up from 58 Democrats in favor in 2017, and 66 last year. The temperature is clearly rising among Democrats, and Trump is stoking outrage and division with his attacks on elected representatives of the House who are women of color, telling them to "go back" to "the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came." My guest this week is Steve Kornacki, a national political correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC, who is in my opinion one of the smartest people on TV. We talk about Steve's book, "The Red and the Blue: The 1990's and the Birth of Political Tribalism." Kornacki dove into the history of the 90's for this book and based on that research he calls it "wishful thinking" to say, as some have, that the impeachment of Bill Clinton helped the GOP win back the White House in 2000, and so Democrats shouldn't be afraid of political consequences if they impeach President Trump. George W. Bush won the presidency in spite of impeachment, not because of it, Kornacki says. Kornacki notes that there are higher levels of support now for impeachment than there were in 1998, and ultimately says that to try to predict the future through the past on this matter is probably a fool's errand. I also enjoyed Steve's perspective on the daily and even weekly news cycle, and his exhortation to keep our eye on the big picture. "I spent all this time watching the old newscasts or reading old newspaper articles or magazine or whatever, you find so many of these moments that dominated news coverage politically, for weeks, for days, weeks, months, and are completely forgotten now and completely irrelevant. They never even led anywhere. But you would find all these deep think pieces and debates about what does this mean for the future of the country, and then absolutely nothing. So I try to remind myself that it's very possible with whatever the eruption of the day is now that it's one of those," he said. Outro Music: "Drift While You're Sleeping" by Trey Anastasio Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I talk with Carl Cameron, who was one of the first people hired at Fox News in 1995 and worked at the right-wing cable news channel for 22 years, about what he's doing now working for Front Page Live, a liberal news site. We talk about what it was like to work at Fox News, and how covering campaigns from the road gave Carl the independence from Roger Ailes and others that he wanted. Carl is unsparing in his criticism of President Trump, and weighs in on whether Kamala Harris has a clear core rationale for her candidacy. I mention during the intro that I don't quite buy the argument that the right wing is ahead of the left in its use of the Internet. But I wasn't thinking at the time that I talked to Carl about the ways that reporters like Charlie Warzel -- who was on this podcast last fall -- have detailed the rise of the online right, both on Twitter and through various websites, which still in many ways revolve around the Drudge Report. Charlie described the online right this way in 2017: "There's really no substantive debate. It's about narratives and it's about the media. It is about the different medium that all these messages go through and about setting agendas in terms of conversations that you have. It's more about playing with the media to get influence." Cameron's site, Front Page Live, is run by Joe Romm, who has a long resume in the world of progressive online publishing, including his role as founder of the "Climate Progress" page at Think Progress. Romm wrote a book last year called "How to Go Viral and Reach Millions," in which he writes on page 23: "An election is not some abstract logical exercise in determining the 'truth' of who is most qualified or who has the best policies. Most voters, especially those who aren't hard-core partisans, do not have the time or interest to assess which policies are superior for various complex social problems, such as health care or poverty or terrorism or the opioid epidemic." Romm advocates, instead, for progressive politicians to have "a message that triggers the right emotions ... by telling a simple, compelling story." So that gives us a bit more context as to what Front Page Live is aiming to do. Outro Music: "To Be" by FoxWarren Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It was a distant echo, but now it's becoming a drumbeat. The big tech companies — Google, Facebook, Amazon — are increasingly the subject of talk about government regulation. And one month ago, Congress held its first hearing about what antitrust enforcement might look like regarding the tech giants. One of the people who testified that day was Sally Hubbard, of the Open Markets Institute, which bills itself as an organization dedicated to fighting "the stranglehold that corporate monopolies have on our country." I wanted to talk more with Sally about the topic. There's a lot of ground that we try to cover, but in essence, I tried in this conversation to sketch out what the case for more aggressive anti-trust enforcement is, what the case for stricture regulation is, and what the intended outcomes would be of these proposals. Here's Sen. Elizabeth Warren's Medium post on breaking up big tech. Hubbard wrote in January about the antitrust argument against Facebook and Google. There is a more in-depth argument for this here. Here's Hubbard's written testimony to Congress. Here's the congressional testimony from David Pitofsky of NewCorp. Matt Stoller of Open Markets wrote recently about Facebooks proposal to create its own currency. Here's the New York Times piece on Google sharing location data with law enforcement. The New Yorker just published a piece on YouTube. From the right, a counterargument against breaking up Facebook. And finally, a piece on "surveillance capitalism" and how Silicon Valley lobbyists are trying to water down the move toward regulation. Outro Music: "Lyla" by Big Red Machine Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mo Elleithee, former Democratic National Campaign spokesman and current Director of the Institute of Politics and Public Service at Georgetown, joins me in the spin room in Miami to talk about the Democratic debate. And Brittany Shepherd of Yahoo News sits in with me to talk about her observations of the debate and how she approaches the use of social media to supplement traditional news coverage. Outro music: "I Get No Joy" by Jade Bird Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.