New Books in Politics and Polemics

What are we to make of the year’s first presidential debate? Listen in as John R. Hibbing, Jonathan Weiler and I discuss this question and others surrounding the 2020 presidential race.Hibbing is a Foundation Regents University Professor of political history and psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He’s been a Guggenheim Fellow, a NATO Fellow and a Senior Fulbright Fellow. He is the author of Predisposed: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Biology of Political Differences (Routledge, 2014). Weiler is the director of undergraduate studies and a professor of global studies at the University of North Carolina. He is the author of Prius or Pickup? How the Answers to Four Simple Questions Explain America’s Great Divide (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018)Topics covered in this episode include:• How well did Donald Trump and Joe Biden each do respectively in attracting undecided voters, who might slightly favor either a liberal/fluid or conservative/fixed innate perspective.• The role of disgust in affirming a fixed perspective, given Trump emoting 10x as much disgust as Biden in this debate.• What are the prospects, if any, for the two sides to reconcile in an election that could be decided by the Supreme Court, Congress, or in a matter of speaking through the Street in the form of protests and militia-style violence.Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of eight books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). To check out his “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

What Black and White America Must Do Now: A Prescription to Move Beyond Race (Hot Books, 2020) explores the complexity of race and culture in the United States. In his third book, renowned conservative entrepreneur, author, and philanthropist Armstrong Williams discusses his prescription for healing and atonement amidst today’s current social upheaval.Race and racism are America's original sin, and four hundred years later, they still plague the nation, pitting groups against each other. Despite how much time has elapsed, many Americans remain befuddled by how to move forward; however, the time for solutions has come.In this book, Armstrong Williams recounts his personal story and journey growing up working on his family farm in rural South Carolina, leading to an unexpected meeting with the late Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, which turned into an unlikely relationship that led him to the halls of power in Washington, D.C.Williams calls for all Americans to stand up to represent America’s highest virtues and ideals, and he challenges us to look beyond the pale of race for something much deeper.Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D. is a psychologist, writer, Middle East television commentator and host of The New Books Network’s Van Leer Jerusalem Series on Ideas. Write her at r.garfinkel@yahoo.com or tweet @embracingwisdom Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

What is it that makes hatred so addicting? In her new book Hatred: Understanding Our Most Dangerous Emotion (Oxford University Press, 2020), Berit Bogaard explains.Berit is a Professor of Philosophy and a Cooper Fellow at the University of Miami. Her areas of research include the topics of perception, emotions, and language. She’s published five books, four with Oxford University Press over the past decade, plus The Superhuman Mind, published by Penguin in 2015.Topics covered in this episode include: The two-fold nature of hatred, which has both a personal dimension and a group dimension to it. Hatred runs hotter and longer than anger, having more intensity and an attitudinal element. How a 6th trait, honesty-humility, is a contender to supplement to the usual Big 5 personality model because it brings into the equation the role of narcissism, and its likely relationship to contempt. How it is that some relatively privileged white men could be so prone to hatred toward women and minorities, with that hatred growing in times of greater economic inequality. Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of eight books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). To check out his “Faces of the Week” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

Gene Ludwig cares. The former banker, government regulator, and serial entrepreneur cares deeply about the hollowing out of the American middle class over the past several decades, not least of all in his hometown of York, PA. So he gathered the country's best and brightest in 2019 for a conference at Yale Law School to come up with specific policy proposals that can reverse that process.The details of what has happened make for difficult but necessary reading. In The Vanishing American Dream: A Frank Look at the Economic Realities Facing Middle- and Lower-Income Americans (Disruption Books) the policy proposals to rebuild the middle class are divided into those at the federal level, and those at the local level.Many readers will find the former typical and expected, but the latter constitute the most engaging part of the book. Both sorts of policies will be hard to implement given the country's current state of division, but Ludwig does not back down from the challenge.Gene Ludwig is the founder of the Promontory family of companies and Canapi LLC, the largest financial technology venture fund in the United States. He is the CEO of Promontory Financial Group, an IBM company, and chairman of Promontory MortgagePath, a technology-based, mortgage fulfillment and solutions company.Daniel Peris is Senior Vice President at Federated Investors in Pittsburgh. Trained as a historian of modern Russia, he is the author most recently of Getting Back to Business: Why Modern Portfolio Theory Fails Investors. You can follow him on Twitter @HistoryInvestor or at http://www.strategicdividendinvestor.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

In 2017, We Charge Genocide: The Crime of Government Against the Negro People, the historic petition authored by William L. Patterson, was published in its third edition. It has been nearly 70 years since Patterson, who passed away in 1980, and Paul Roberson, who passed away in 1976, presented the petition to the United Nations General Assembly, charging the United States government with genocide under the United National Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.William L. Patterson was born in San Francisco on August 27th, 1891. He died in New York City in 1980.Jarvis Tyner, executive vice chair of the Communist Party USA, and active public spokesperson against racism, imperialism and war, joins me to discuss his prologue to the third edition of We Charge Genocide, as well as its history and ongoing relevance today.Jeff Bachman is a Senior Lecturer in Human Rights at American University’s School of International Service in Washington, DC. He is the author of The United States and Genocide: (Re)Defining the Relationship and editor of the volume Cultural Genocide: Law, Politics, and Global Manifestations. He is currently working on a new book, The Politics of Genocide: From the Genocide Convention to the Responsibility to Protect, contracted by Rutgers University Press for its Genocide, Political Violence, Human Rights series. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

Democratic socialism is on the lips of activists and politicians from both the left and the right. Some call it extremism; some call it common sense. What are we talking about?At a time when the capitalist experiment has made fewer people richer than ever before and seems to be well on the way to killing the planet, a new generation is reassessing old-fashioned principles of community. Millions are looking to democratic socialist values-much as they are now championed by the Squad's Green New Deal and once were espoused by FDR's New Deal-to address economic inequalities and environmental devastation.An Inheritance for Our Times: Principles and Politics of Democratic Socialism (OR Books) is a reader that includes original essays in the form of both personal accounts and intellectual arguments from activists and theorists (including Bernie Sanders) advocating a democratic socialist outlook.Gregory Smulewicz-Zucker is managing editor of Logos: A Journal of Modern Society and Culture. He is the editor of seven books, his most recent being Anti-Science and the Assault on Democracy (with Michael J. Thompson) and The Political Thought of African Independence.Michael J. Thompson is Professor of Political Science at William Paterson University. His most recent books include The Specter of Babel: A Reconstruction of Political Judgment as well as the forthcoming, Twilight of the Self: Cybernetic Society and the Eclipse of Autonomy.Kirk Meighoo is a TV and podcast host, former university lecturer, author and former Senator in Trinidad and Tobago. He hosts his own podcast, Independent Thought & Freedom, where he interviews some of the most interesting people from around the world who are shaking up politics, economics, society and ideas. You can find it in the iTunes Store or any of your favorite podcast providers. You can also subscribe to his YouTube channel. If you are an academic who wants to get heard nationally, please check out his free training at becomeapublicintellectual.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

The European Union is arguably facing the greatest existential threat in its history. One of its big four member states has left and the main opposition parties in France and Italy flirt with leaving, while Hungary and Poland drift away from liberal democracy, and the Russian and US presidents openly seek the union’s destruction.In The Tribalization of Europe: A Defence of our Liberal Values (Polity), Professor Wind identifies a common theme: tribalization, and a common remedy: an end to defeatism among liberal democrats. The majority isn’t always right, she says, and minorities need protection. Europeans – people as well as politicians – should stop taking the peace, prosperity and freedom they enjoy for granted and fight back against the populists.Marlene Wind is Professor of Political Science, Director of the Centre for European Politics at Copenhagen University, and is currently advising the European Commission of rule-of-law issues.Tim Gwynn Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Global Advisors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

Today's guest is Christopher Robertson, Associate Dean for Research and Innovation and Professor of Law at the University of Arizona. His background and research interests overlap several academic disciplines, including bioethics, health law, incentives, behavioral economics and more. His CV includes a PhD in philosophy and a law degree from Harvard.His newest book is Exposed: Why Our Health Insurance is Incomplete and What can be Done About (Harvard University Press, 2019).Colin Miller and Dr. Keith Mankin host the popular medical podcast, PeerSpectrum. Colin works in the medical device space and Keith is a retired pediatric orthopedic surgeon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

It is 1969 and Jody A. Forrester is in her late teens, transitioning from a Sixties love child to pacifist anti-Vietnam War activist to an ardent revolutionary. Guns Under the Bed: Memories of a Young Revolutionary (Odyssey Books) revolves around her three years in the Revolutionary Union, a Communist organization advocating armed overthrow of the ruling class. In readiness for the uprising, she sleeps with two rifles underneath her bed.One of millions protesting the war, what sets Jody apart her from her peers is her decision to join a group espousing Mao Tse Tung's ideology of class war. But why? How does she come to embrace violence as the only solution to the inequities inherent in a capitalist empire? To answer that question, Jody goes into her past, and in the process comes to realize that what she always thought of as political is also deeply personal.More than a coming-of-age story, this memoir tells universal truths about seeking a sense of belonging not found in her family with themes of shame, pride, secrecy, self-valuation, and self-acceptance explored in context of the culture and politics of that volatile period in American history.Jody A. Forrester was born and raised in Los Angeles during the uneasy Fifties and tumultuous Sixties. Her essays and short stories have appeared in the Sonora Review, Two Hawks Quarterly, WriteRoom, Dreamers Writing, Citroen Review, Gazelle and several others.Kirk Meighoo is a TV and podcast host, former university lecturer, author and former Senator in Trinidad and Tobago. He hosts his own podcast, Independent Thought & Freedom, where he interviews some of the most interesting people from around the world who are shaking up politics, economics, society and ideas. You can find it in the iTunes Store or any of your favorite podcast providers. You can also subscribe to his YouTube channel. If you are an academic who wants to get heard nationally, please check out his free training at becomeapublicintellectual.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

The title of Harvard historian Alexander Keyssar,’s new book poses the question that comes up every presidential election cycle: Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College? (Harvard University Press, 2020). Keyssar presents the reader with a deep, layered, and complex analysis not only of the institution of the Electoral College itself, drawing out how it came about at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, but of the many attempts over more than two centuries to reform it or get rid of it. This is an historical subject with keenly contemporary relevance, as we move into the final stretch of the 2020 election cycle, and we consider how the political landscape, party platforms, and the shape of the presidential race all look the way they do because of the Electoral College. Keyssar unpacks the discussions and debates at the Constitutional Convention about how to elect a president, and then dives into the immediate response to the Electoral College as it was implemented in the new system.In going through the history of the Electoral College itself, and the points of contention between the popular vote tallies and the Electoral College results, as well as the many, many attempts to reform or eliminate the Electoral College, Keyssar highlights the two points in American political history when we came closest to doing away with this means of electing the president. The Era of Good Feeling (1815-1825)—when there was really only one functioning party, and the party system itself was in flux as party competition shifted—saw a significant effort to revise the Electoral College and the contingent election system that had been used when no candidate received a majority of the votes and the House of Representatives must designate a winner. Keyssar also maps out the efforts in the 1960s and early 1970s to pass an amendment to the Constitution to replace the Electoral College with direct popular vote. This legislation was filibustered in the Senate by senior Southern Democratic and Dixiecrat senators who saw the disproportional voice that the Electoral College gave to the Southern states—states where the Black vote had been significantly diminished because of regulations and threats that made it extraordinarily difficult and dangerous for African Americans to vote. Keyssar explains that this was known as the “5/5 rule”—in contrast to the 3/5th rule in the Constitution—whereas the southern states were able to count all Black citizens are part of their populations and preclude all of them from voting.Why Do We Still Have The Electoral College also traces the internal shifts within the states as they moved from their initial approach to the distribution of electoral college votes to the establishment of the “unit rule” or “general ticket” that allocates all of a state’s electoral college votes to the winner in that particular state. Not only have there been attempts to amend the Constitution to get rid of the Electoral College, but there is a long history of the efforts to reform or eliminate the general ticket/unit rule. Keyssar brings the reader forward to the contemporary period through a number of different threads as he outlines multiple dimensions of reform attempts and their failure, all while providing the reader with a deep history of debate about the structure and function of the Electoral College. This unique aspect of the American constitutional system also reflects the continuing impact of the role of race in American politics and political institutions. For those interested, curious, or confused, this book is truly a tour de force on the Electoral College.Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics