Woocast's Politics & Polls

Music has long been an important avenue for political discussion. This episode features Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers, a Southern rock band whose music has tackled a number of contentious political issues from class to race and even partisan politics. Cooley and Hood co-founded the Drive-By Truckers in 1996, and the band has produced nearly a dozen albums since. For decades, their hard-driving sound has blended the classic sounds of the South with literary skill and sonic power. Their latest album, “American Band,” is perhaps their most explicitly political yet, capturing the many tensions America faces in the age of Trump. Cooley and Hood chat with Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang about rock-and-roll, progressive politics and the dirty South in this episode.

Is President Donald Trump a threat to American democracy? This is explored in a new book by The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne Jr., a regular on MSNBC, NPR’s All Things Considered and ABC News’ This Week. He joins this week’s episode to discuss this new era of politics and what it means for American democracy. Currently a syndicated columnist for The Washington Post, Dionne started his journalism career in 1975 at The New York Times before joining The Post in 1990 as a political reporter. He has been writing his column for The Post since 1993 — it appears in more than 240 newspapers. Dionne is the author of six other books, including “One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet-Deported,” “Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism – From Goldwater to Trump and Beyond” and “Why Americans Hate Politics,” which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was a National Book Award nominee. He has edited or coedited seven volumes, including most recently “We Are T

President Donald Trump’s recently passed tax bill included a sizable tax break for many American corporations, slashed from 35 percent to 21 percent. While the tax cuts have increased cash flow for businesses, they also raise questions about the power of corporations in Washington through lobbying, campaign finance and political mobilization. Author and academic Gordon Lafer joins this episode of Politics & Polls to discuss the corporate tax cut and his new book, “The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are Remaking America One State at a Time.” Lafer is a political economist and is an associate professor at the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center. He has written on issues of labor and employment policy and is author of “The Job Training Charade” (Cornell University Press, 2002). Lafer has served as an economic policy analyst for the Office of the Mayor in New York City and has testified as an expert witness before the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, and state legislature

Today, the nation faces a series of major policy challenges revolving around immigrants and refugees. In this episode, Julian Zelizer talks to NPR veteran Deborah Amos about how President Donald Trump has used executive power to move the country rightward on these issues and what the impact has been on local communities. Amos also talks about the state of journalism in 2018 and its future. Amos covers the Middle East for NPR News. Her reports can be heard on NPR's award-winning “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered,” and “Weekend Edition.” Amos travels extensively across the Middle East covering a range of stories including the rise of well-educated Syria youth who are unqualified for jobs in a market-drive economy, a series focusing on the emerging power of Turkey and the plight of Iraqi refugees.

As the earth continues to warm, life - both in cities and rural areas - will undoubtedly change. Urban centers, which contribute the lion’s share of carbon into the atmosphere, are at a greater risk, especially those in coastal zones where sea levels are rising. In this episode, Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang discuss the future of cities in an age of climate change with eco-justice scholar and author Ashley Dawson. Dawson is the 2017 Barron Visiting Professor in Environmental Humanities at the Princeton Environmental Institute. His book, “Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change,” offers an alarming portrait of the future of our cities. Dawson also is a professor of english at the CUNY Graduate Center, and at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York. He specializes in postcolonial studies, cultural studies, and environmental humanities with a particular interest in histories and discourses of migration.

2018 has started off with a bang under President Trump, especially with the release of a controversial memo about the Russia investigation by Rep. Devin Nunes (R- Calif.) The three-and-a-half-page memo, written by Nunes' congressional aides, accused the F.B.I and Justice Department of using their surveillance powers to spy on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser suspected of being an agent of Russia. The news has led some to wonder whether the memo is skewed and misleading. Others say the Russia investigation is corrupt. A classified Democratic memo is expected to soon rebut the Republican memo, though President Trump may redact parts of it. Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang discuss the memos and their influence on the country’s government institutions in this episode.

Best-selling author and radio host Charlie Sykes is among the leading conservative voices standing in opposition to President Donald Trump and the alt-right. His latest book, “How the Right Lost Its Mind,” presents an impassioned, regretful and deeply thoughtful account of how he believes the American conservative movement lost its values. In this episode, Sykes discusses his book and the state of conservatism with professors Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang. Sykes visited the Princeton University campus in December 2017 through the Woodrow Wilson School’s Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation Leadership through Mentorship Program. One of the most influential conservatives in Wisconsin, Sykes is a contributor and analyst for MSNBC. Previously, he was the host of WNYC’s “Indivisible.” He is the author of eight additional books, including “A Nation of Victims,” “Dumbing Down Our Kids,” “Profscam,” “The Hollow Men,” “The End of Privacy,” “50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School,” “A Nation of Moochers,” and “Fail U.:

Intense partisanship. Rampant wealth and inequality. Racial divisions. While they sound like the issues of today, they were also prevalent during the Gilded Age, an important time in American history. It was during these years — between 1865 and 1896 — that many of the foundations of modern society were set into place. In this episode, Professors Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang discuss this era and how it compares to today with award-winning historian Richard White, author of “The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896.” White is a historian of the United States specializing in the American West, the history of capitalism, environmental history, history and memory, and Native American history. His work has occasionally spilled over into Mexico, Canada, France, Australia and Ireland. He is a MacArthur Fellow and a recipient of the Mellon Distinguished Professor Award. His work has won numerous academic prizes, and he has twice been a finalist for the Pu

President Donald Trump’s election stirred up what some call a resurgence of white nationalism. But is this a new phenomenon outside of mainstream America? Or has white nationalism been more part of American culture than we’ve been willing to admit? Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang untangle this issue in this episode, which features historian Linda Gordon, who recently published “The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition.” Gordon is a professor of history and a University Professor of the Humanities at New York University. Her early books focused on the historical roots of social policy issues, particularly as they concern gender and family issues. More recently, she has explored other ways of presenting history to a broad audience, publishing the microhistory “The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction” (Harvard University Press, 1999) and the biography “Dorothea Lange: A Life beyond Limits” (W.W. Norton, 2009), both of which won the Bancroft Prize. She is one of onl

A panel of federal judges rejected a congressional district map in North Carolina, calling it a partisan gerrymander. Never before has a court overturned a Congressional districting plan on grounds of partisanship. The panel ordered the state legislature to redraw the map. Gerrymandering, a practice which manipulates district boundaries for political gains, is a much-debated topic in the political sphere. In this episode, Professors Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang discuss what’s next for North Carolina and the practice of gerrymandering in general.

From smart phones to social media, digital technology has changed the way we live —allowing for new explorations of human behavior. Big data now enables scientists to process data about human behavior on a scale never before imaginable. In this episode, Professors Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang interview Matt Salganik, a professor of sociology at Princeton University. Salgnik’s new book, “Bit by Bit: Social Research in the Digital Age,” explores these concepts, detailing how the digital revolution is transforming how social scientists observe behavior, ask questions, run experiments and engage in mass collaborations. Salganik is also affiliated with the Center for Information Technology Policy and the Center for Statistics and Machine Learning at Princeton University. His research has been funded by Microsoft, Facebook, and Google, and has been featured on NPR and in such publications as the New Yorker, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

What’s going on in the mind of President Donald Trump? Journalist Ellis Henican provides a humorous, illustrated look into the president’s psyche in a new book, “Trumpitude.” He discusses this and more with professor Julian Zelizer in this episode.

Democrat Doug Jones won a pivotal Alabama Senate seat Dec. 12, a victory carrying with it significant national consequences. Jones, a former U.S. attorney, defeated Republican Roy S. Moore, a former chief justice who’s been ensnarled in claims of sexual harassment. Professors Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang discuss the race results in this episode of Politics & Polls.

How the media covers race remains a palpable concern in today’s America. In this episode, award-winning journalist Tanzina Vega chats with Professors Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang about the many issues related to race and the media. Vega is speaker on issues of race, media and inequality in the United States as well as a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University and an Eisner Fellow at the Nation Institute. Her forthcoming book is titled, “Uppity: Women, Race and Class in America.” Vega has worked for and contributed to CNN, CNNMoney, WNYC Radio, Reuters, Billboard magazine and The New York Times, where she won an Emmy award for outstanding new approaches in documentary media and various awards from the National Press Photographers Association. NPR’s Code Switch included her in their “Journalists — Of Color! — To Watch” list and The Huffington Post listed her as one on of the 40 top Latinos in American media.

Photographers are often on the front lines of war, risking their lives to document deadly conflict zones. One such photojournalist is Jonathan Alpeyrie, a French-American photographer who was captured and held hostage by Syrian rebels in 2013. In this episode, Alpeyrie describes his 81 days of being bound, blindfolded and beaten — an experience that forced him to question the value and risks of his career. He explains why, despite the violence thrust upon him, he chose to see the humanity in his captors, immersing himself in their culture, language and traditions. This and more is explored in his new book, "The Shattered Lens: A War Photographer's True Story of Captivity and Survival in Syria,” published by Simon & Schuster in October 2017.

Democrats triumphed in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races Nov. 7, which some say is a strong rebuke to Republican President Donald Trump. Are the democratic victories a predictor of what’s to come in the midterm results next year? Joining this episode are Larry Sabato and Geoffrey Skelley of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a website run by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics known for being a leader in the field of political predictions. The Crystal Ball keeps tabs on presidential elections, along with every Senate and gubernatorial race, as well as the tightest campaigns for the House.

In this episode, Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang take a look back at the past year and analyze all that has unfolded since Donald Trump was elected president of the United States.

Given the news consistently coming out of Washington, it can be easy to forget what’s happening at the local level. In this episode, Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang turn their attention toward Alaska, a state whose budget has been especially affected by steep drops in oil prices. They discuss this and more with state Rep. Bryce Edgmon (D-Dillingham), Speaker of the Alaskan House of Representatives. An Alaskan native, Edgmon represents the 37th District since 2006. He is the first Alaskan native to hold the position. He is currently serving as co-chair of the Health & Social Services Committee and chair of the Committee on Committees. He is also a member of the Commerce, Community & Economic Development; Legislative Council; Arctic Policy; and Economic Development, & Tourism committees for the 30th Legislature.

There are 468 seats up for grabs in Congress for the 2018 election, with the Republican Party currently holding a majority in both the Senate and the House. But will this hold after election day?   Joining today’s episode to discuss the congressional races is Levi Tillemann, the democratic candidate for Colorado’s 6th Congressional District. Tillemann is a Colorado native and expert on technology policy, renewable energy and autonomous cars. Raised in a working-class Latino community in North Denver, Tillemann has kept in touch with his roots over the years by tutoring math, english and ESL in public schools and community centers.   While in graduate school, Tilleman founded IRIS Engines, Inc. to develop a more efficient engine -- a design for which he holds multiple patents. Later he shifted his focus to electric vehicles as a better solution to climate change.   He has served as a policy advisor to the Department of Energy under President Barack Obama and is currently managing partner at Valence Strategic.

Leading conservative thinker David Frum was one of the earliest and most prominent conservative voices to come out in opposition to President Donald Trump. A CNN contributor and senior editor at The Atlantic, Frum said in a public radio interview that Trump “is shattering the safeguards that protect democracy.” In this episode, Julian Zelizer interviews Frum about being a conservative in the age of Trump. In 2007 and 2008, Frum was a senior policy adviser to the presidential campaign of Rudy Giuliani. From 2001 to 2002, he served as a special assistant and speechwriter for President George W. Bush. He is the author of nine books, including the first “insider” book about the Bush presidency: “The Right Man: An Inside Account of the Bush White House.” After leaving the White House, Frum was a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. In 2005, he formed and led the group Americans for Better Justice, which spearheaded the opposition to the nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court. Frum is a memb