America's Worst Year Ever

The Gist

Peach Fish Productions

Daily News, News

4.5 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2020

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On the Gist, sorting out how undemocratic of our democracy is. In the interview, the Atlantic's James Fallows contends that while 2020 has been bad, 1968 was actually quite worse. The Vietnam War was raging, young men were being drafted, and in 1968 the North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces launched their Tet Offensive. Not to mention, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were both assassinated. Fallows and Mike discuss how the assassinations compounded on the stress of the war, how shooting targets have shifted from politicians to schools, and compare the civil unrest of 1968 with 2020. Fallows' piece in the Atlantic is "Is This the Worst Year in Modern American History?" In the spiel, we're not getting those $2,000 checks...which leads to a Remembrances of Things Trump where the president likes a certain phrase about talking and action. Email us at thegist@slate.com Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder, Margaret Kelley, and Cheyna Roth. Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now. Editor's note: This episode mistakenly identifies Martin Luther King Jr. as having been assassinated "when he was in his early 40s." King died at the age of 39 on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today on Good Different News, reality TV star admits it's nothing like reality, and more
0:06.5	good news just in at Suzuki.
0:08.7	With tech packed in and two years free servicing until the 31st of March, get great cars
0:13.3	like the Swift, S-Cross and Vitara at prices you wouldn't expect.
0:17.2	Join us next time for more good news, hopefully.
0:20.2	Search Suzuki Cars, Suzuki, Good Different.
0:23.4	And for a prize to UK Private Retail Purchases from participating Suzuki dealer terms and exclusions
0:36.9	of lcars.susuki.co.uk.
0:38.9	It's Tuesday, December 29th, 2020.
0:40.9	From Slate, it's the GIST I'm Mike Peska.
0:43.5	One question that I always find fascinating in examining American politics is, are we in
0:48.7	trouble because we have too little democracy or too much?
0:53.2	Frankly, especially if you're a Democrat, the answer is clearly too little.
0:57.8	But for long periods of time, it has been too much.
1:01.0	We haven't protected the rights of minorities because the majority can trample them.
1:05.6	Even if we add wise forward thinking plans regarding, say, the environment or criminal
1:10.3	justice, it's hard to get those plans passed because they are unpopular, have always been
1:17.1	unpopular, changing a little on the environment, but not greatly.
1:21.8	If experts agree, let me give you one example, most experts agree that the mortgage deduction
1:27.0	is bad policy, but even politicians who pride themselves on favoring good policies dare
1:33.0	not propose ending it because they will get defeated essentially by democracy.
1:38.5	On the other hand, the Senate is made up in an undemocratic way, and Senate's big problem
	...

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