Episode 67: The Gate-Keeping, Power-Serving Tautology of "Electability"
Citations Needed
Citations Needed
4.8 • 4.1K Ratings
🗓️ 27 February 2019
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
"How to Choose the Most Electable Democrat in 2020," advises Politico. "Amy Klobuchar's best argument for 2020: Electability," CNN reports. "Is Electability The Only Thing That Democratic Voters Want?" WGBH, the Boston NPR affiliate, wonders. These articles, all from a one-week stretch this February, speak to a prevailing compulsion in our politics, boosted by our media.
Time and again we hear about the primacy of "electability," a nebulous but self-evidently important criteria, when selecting a candidate. But what does "electability" mean exactly? How can someone have, in effect, been elected in our minds before an actual election takes place?
This week, we will drill down the origins of the term "electability": how it's a concept embraced by brain-dead, horse-race-obsessed pundits, why it has inherently racist and sexist implications, and how it's designed to draw voters away from candidates they actually agree with to ones more in line with the agenda of the corporate wing of the Democratic party party.
Our guest is Anoa Changa, host of the podcast The Way With Anoa.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is Citations Needed with Nemeshirazi and Adam Johnson. |
| 0:09.2 | Welcome to Citations Needed, a podcast on the media, power PR and the history of bullshit. |
| 0:14.3 | I am Nemeshirazi. |
| 0:15.3 | I'm Adam Johnson. |
| 0:16.3 | Thank you everyone for listening this week. |
| 0:18.2 | You can follow the show on Twitter at CitationsPod Facebook. |
| 0:21.4 | Citations Needed and support the show through patreon.com. |
| 0:25.2 | Citations Needed podcast with Nemeshirazi and Adam Johnson. |
| 0:28.6 | All your help is so appreciated. |
| 0:30.5 | The show will always be free and available for those listening to the full length episodes. |
| 0:34.8 | But we do have a lot of extra content for our supporters. |
| 0:38.4 | So if that is somehow an incentive to you to help us out, please do support the show. |
| 0:44.7 | In addition to keeping the show sustainable, it helps keep the show free. |
| 0:48.4 | And the support we get from patreon helps make that possible. |
| 0:50.7 | Please do if you can rate and rank the show on iTunes or wherever you listen to the show. |
| 0:56.1 | That also really, really helps us. |
| 0:57.7 | We always appreciate that. |
| 0:58.7 | Now that we're done, humiliating ourselves and groveling free to do things, we will now |
| 1:02.5 | move on to the show itself. |
| 1:04.4 | How to choose the most electable Democrat in 2020? |
| 1:07.8 | Advises, Politico. |
| 1:09.2 | Amy Klobuchar's best argument for 2020? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Citations Needed, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Citations Needed and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.