Shows / Political Junkie Podcast
Political Junkie Podcast
Where contemporary history and politics meet the challenge of today.
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Episodes
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 25: Lavender and Red
Born in Kansas City, Leslie Feinberg was raised in a working-class, Jewish home and realized early on that ze was what we would now call gender fluid. Feinberg…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 24: Against Government
The government is taking your hard-earned money. Politicians create inflation through big spending, destroying individual initiative and endangering your…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 23: Creative Fictions
Although creativity sits at the center of many things we value as Americans—art, inventiveness, problem-solving, and all the culture industries—most people…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 22: Hit Them In The Pocketbook
In January 1971, the state of Nevada—following an experiment launched by California governor Ronald Reagan—had slashed welfare benefits, catapulting single…
Political Junkie PodcastA World To Win
This episode begins with an exchange between Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders CNN’s Anderson Cooper during the Democratic Presidential candidates’ debate in Las…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 20: Extremism in Defense of Liberty Is No Vice
It looks like the Dominion trial has been delayed for a day, but your craving for more information about the political right in the United States can be…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 19: The People of New York vs. Donald J. Trump
I have never done two podcasts in a week before today, but rather than describe what I saw yesterday down at Manhattan Criminal Court, I thought I would bring…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 18: No Ivory Tower
Politicians are trying to legislate what is taught in American public colleges and universities—and they want to enforce their own ideological preferences by…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 17: Abortion On Demand
If you enjoy this podcast, you may want to read Pollitt’s book, Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights (Picador, 2014). At the beginning of this podcast, you’ll…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 16: The Sunlit Path of Racial Justice
On a flight from Vietnam in April 1975 were three siblings, two boys and a girl, all fathered by different African American soldiers. Their mother, Mae…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 15: Rumor Has It
An important theme of this episode is gossip about powerful men having erotic relationships with other men. I want to be clear that there is no new evidence…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 14: The Past Is Never Dead
Today, a radicalized Republican party insists that the actual, complex, and often violent American past is not only false but divisive, left-wing, anti-white…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 13: If I Told You, I Would Have To Kill You
On this episode, my guest is here to help us parse the world of government secrecy—its history, practices, and dilemmas—and how the classification system…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 12: All The News That's Fit To Print
Today, conservative critics condemn the so-called “liberal media” for being in cahoots with policymakers and politicians—but there was a time when that was a…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 11: You Are Dead To Me
Content warning: Because this episode is about obituary writing, it contains discussions of death and self-harm. It may not be appropriate for everyone. As I…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 10: A Woman's Place Is in the House
When President George W. Bush spoke the words “Madame Speaker” in his State of the Union address to the 110th Congress on January 23, 2007 he acknowledged one…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 9: I Started Looking Things Up On the Internet
After he wrote an article about conspiracism in both political parties on December 14, 2022, I asked my friend Ryan Girdusky to come on the show to discuss why…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 8: First, Pick the Right Wife
Join me as I talk to Robin Morris, a historian at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia about her book, Goldwater Girls to Reagan Women: Gender, Georgia, and…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 7: You Can Never Be Too Rich or Too Thin
In this episode, I welcome my friend and New School colleague, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, to join me in a conversation about the history of exercise culture in…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 6: The Most Powerful Man in America
In this episode, I talk to Yale University historian Beverly Gage about her new biography of J. Edgar Hoover, just out from Viking Press, "G-Man: J. Edgar…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 5: Verdi, Dante, and Dahlia Lithwick
In Episode 5, I talk to Slate’s legal journalist Dahlia Lithwick about her book, Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America (Penguin/Random…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 4: Bringing the War Home
When I was a kid in the 1960s and `70s, I occasionally accompanied my mother to the post office in the Philadelphia suburb where we lived. While Mom waited in…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 3: Black and White Together
In the last episode, we discussed the aspirations and limitations of the 19th-century Black freedom movement; this week, Black and white Progressives imagine a…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 2: The First Family of Abolition
In Episode 2 of “Why Now?” Kerri Greenidge talks to us about her new book, The Grimkés: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family (Liveright, 2022.)…
Political Junkie PodcastEpisode 1: Pulling Back the Curtain on Political Campaigns
In this debut episode of “Why Now?” I interview Daniel Laurison, Associate Professor of Sociology at Swarthmore College, who studies the connections between…