Brian Lehrer Weekend: The American Dream; Gas Utilities and the Tobacco Playbook; Dear Prudie
The Brian Lehrer Show
WNYC
4.6 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 28 October 2023
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Three of our favorite segments from the week, in case you missed them.
David Leonhardt traces the history of the American Dream and offers a path to reclaiming it for future generations (First) | How natural gas utilities borrowed from the tobacco playbook to downplay the health risks of gas stoves (17:26) | Advice Reprise: With Slate's Dear Prudie and Brian (35:45)
If you don't subscribe to the Brian Lehrer Show on iTunes, you can do that here.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi, Brian Lair here. Up next, Brian Lair Weekend, three of our favorite segments from the week, |
| 0:04.8 | Package Together, for you to listen to on the weekend. So enjoy, and I'll see you back on the |
| 0:09.5 | radio Monday at 10 a.m. on WNYC and WNYC.com. |
| 0:31.2 | Brian Lair on WNYC. Now the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter, columnist, and these days |
| 0:37.7 | morning newsletter writer, David Lee and Hart. He has a new book called, |
| 0:42.1 | Hours Was the Shining Future, the story of the American Dream. It's just out today. As usual, |
| 0:48.7 | with David Lee and Hart, this both tells many people stories, and is also very data rich. David |
| 0:54.0 | was an economics reporter, steeped in the numbers, as well as the people, and you can see it again |
| 0:58.8 | in this book. David, congratulations on the book. Always good to have you on the show. Welcome back |
| 1:03.0 | to WNYC. Thank you so much, Brian. It's great to be on the show. How old is the term the American |
| 1:08.6 | Dream, and where did it come from? So it is nearly a century old, and what I find most striking about |
| 1:16.8 | it is that it dates from the Great Depression. So there is a book in 1931 called, The Epic of |
| 1:23.6 | America, by a historian named James True Slow Adams, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his first book. |
| 1:29.2 | But this was the best-selling book he wrote, and it's really remarkable to think about the fact |
| 1:33.5 | that in the midst of the Great Depression, 1931, so he's writing it in 1930, he writes a book where |
| 1:41.2 | he says the American Dream is the, is this country's greatest contribution to world thought, and he |
| 1:46.9 | defines the American Dream is the notion of a better, richer, happier life for all citizens of every rank. |
| 1:55.2 | And he acknowledges all the challenges to that dream, but he says that is the fundamental American |
| 2:01.6 | idea, the American Dream, and that's when it dates to. But why then? I mean, it's ironic, at least, |
| 2:08.6 | that the American Dream, as an idea, grew out of the American Nightmare, that was the Great Depression. |
| 2:16.3 | Yeah, and so I think part of what he wants to do is sort of pull back the lens, |
| 2:22.3 | broaden the lens, right? And essentially argue that it is not just, it's not a short-term situation, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WNYC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of WNYC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.