Are millennials embracing democratic socialism?
To the Point
KCRW
4.4 • 583 Ratings
🗓️ 4 January 2018
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Millennials helped Democrats to a major upset in Alabama’s Senate race. Will their growing preference for socialism be a threat to party unity in this year’s Congressional elections? Idealists and realists disagree. Added Attraction: Robin Wright on the background and the future of instability in Iran.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Happy New Year. It is January 2018, and that means I've been covering politics for 52 years since Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California in 1966. Like every other veteran reporter, I have never seen anything like the current state of American politics. So what's up for November of this year when all 435 House seats are up for grabs as well as one-third of the Senate? |
| 0:26.6 | Braver people than I are already predicting a great year for the Democrats. |
| 0:30.7 | On this podcast, we'll talk with Joe Trippie, one architect of Doug Jones' upset victory in Alabama. |
| 0:36.9 | Will young people's embrace of socialism make a difference |
| 0:40.3 | at local ballot boxes this year? But first, before that conversation, today's added attraction. |
| 0:46.3 | What to expect in Iran? Where protests and counter-protests are threatening the status quo, |
| 0:51.3 | and there have been threats of capital punishment for |
| 0:54.3 | protesting the Ayatollah. New Yorker writer Robin Wright knows the background. As always, great to |
| 1:00.5 | have you on a program. And it's always great to be with you, Warren. So how serious is this? |
| 1:05.8 | It's the most serious protest by a group inside the Islamic Republic since 2009, almost a decade. The last |
| 1:13.7 | one was about alleged fraudulent elections, and they went on for six months. This, by comparison, |
| 1:21.4 | is still more modest. It's happened in 30 of Iran's 31 provinces, but the protests are not the kind of million-man |
| 1:32.1 | marches that characterize the Green Movement in 2009. |
| 1:35.8 | But it does reflect the growing discontent inside Iran about the basic economic health of the country. |
| 1:44.1 | Prices recently of many staples, including eggs and poultry, have sorded by as much as 40%. |
| 1:52.0 | Among the young, who are now the majority of the population, unemployment is officially 29%. |
| 1:58.0 | Some people believe it's as high as 40 percent. So there are real |
| 2:03.5 | issues, and the government has acknowledged problems. President Rouhani in a conference with his |
| 2:11.9 | cabinet was televised on television, acknowledged there were problems, and also acknowledged that |
| 2:16.6 | people had a right to protest. |
| 2:18.4 | But he warned against violence, and this is where you're beginning to see a confrontation |
| 2:22.7 | between the regime and the demonstrators. |
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