Happy New Year, pitchfork listeners. Here's a great conversation that we originally aired in July

2020 with Duke University professor Nancy McLean, author of one of my favorite and most

distressing books, Democracy in Chains, the deep history of the radical right stealth plan for America.

If it seems to you like the ultimate goal of the most extreme conservatives is to undermine

democracy and cripple democratic institutions, well, according to her, you're right. McLean

unpacks the meteoric rise in popularity of the radical right's ideas and offers a way forward

for progressives based on lessons from successful social movements throughout American history.

How did we end up with a political system in a set of economic policies in a democracy that

benefit the few and crush the many? You can and ideas have been weaponized by the Koch donor

network to undermine the model of 20th century government in the US. But the great advantage we have

is it for every Charles Koch, there's literally a million people who are not. There's 300 and some

million people are not. From the home offices of civic ventures in downtown Seattle,

this is pitchfork economics with Nick Hanauer, the best place to get the truth about who gets what

and why. I'm Nick Hanauer, founder of Civic Ventures. I'm David Goldstein, senior fellow at

Civic Ventures. So Goldie, we're going to talk today to Nancy McLean, who wrote one of your

favorite books. Well, I want to qualify. It's a great book, democracy and chains, the deep history

of the radical right, stealth plan for America. Great book, everybody should read it. I hated it.

I mean, it just makes me so mad. It's depressing and it is not over the top to say that the

world we're living in today politically and economically is the consequence of a multi-decade plot

against America, against American democracy. And it's not an accident. I mean, I sound like a

paranoid lunatic here. Yes, I do. But it's a, I mean, it's real. What she uncovers is this very

detailed and specific plan to basically undermine our democracy and impose the rule of a select

...