This is Jackamon Radio, I'm Susan Weizmann. We begin today with Alex Sammon, staff

writer at the American Prospect, whose latest article, The Vanishing Case for Liberal

Inaction, makes the case that when Democrats in Congress have power, they act as placeholders

until handing it back. Acting is best defensively, ostensibly fearing the future which Alex

maintains is the present. In other words, that their fear of bold action to implement

their program is actually the worst case scenario now, not in 2022, 2024 or beyond.

The Republicans, on the other hand, push their strategic goals using whatever tactical

means available. We get Alex's take. We then turn to Brazil, teetering on another constitutional

crisis as the increasingly unpopular President Jair Bolsonaro is mobilizing his base and

laying the groundwork for a coup. Pedro Palo's Aluth Bastos is back with us to unpack

the complex Brazilian political scene. Bolsonaro is botched handling of the pandemic and is actively

using the Trump playbook to undermine confidence in elections, the media, the judiciary, and

to all democratic institutions. We'll get Pedro Palo's astute understanding of this process

still underway in Brazil. All this when our program returns in just a moment.

This is Jacobin Radio. I'm Suzy Weisman and very pleased to have Alex Salman with us for

the very first time. Alex is a staff writer at the American prospect and he was also a former

writer at the New Republic and his work has been published in a lot of different places including

Wired Mother Jones, Pacific Standard, and plus one, all your favorite go to places. He has a new

piece. It's almost a week old now, not quite, at the American prospect which you can find online,

which is called the vanishing case for liberal inaction. He says in it that the Democrats who believe

we should keep the filibuster think the current situation is the best they can do and that

offensively, essentially, they're at their limit and they need to keep the filibuster to prevent

...