Jacobin Radio w/ Suzi Weissman: John Nichols and Eric Alterman

Suzi speaks with John Nichols on Trump, the GOP & Impeachment and Eric Alterman on the fundamentals that define our current media ecosystem.

John Nichols discusses President Trump’s second impeachment for inciting a seditious mob to attack the US Capitol, after failing to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. John makes the case that it is not just Trump, but also his Congressional backers who have to be held accountable. They continue to embrace Trump’s lies, and largely refuse to sanction him. Nichols argues against the developing consensus that the Republican Party is fracturing, and insists that despite a handful of defections, the Republican Party is still Trump’s Party.

Eric Alterman has covered the media in The Nation for nearly 25 years and his latest column focuses on the main ideas he has been trying to get across overall. He writes that the titanic changes that have taken place in the media ecosystem make it easy to get lost in the frenzy and miss what is really essential: the underlying structures of power that are generally not seen, and which ensure that the system is the opposite of democratic. Eric calls these the “structural failings that underlie our politics” and says we have to Look Beyond the Media Frenzy and Focus on the Fundamentals -- the title of his last column – and we get him to explain.