Jacobin Radio w/ Suzi Weissman: John Nichols and Eric Alterman

Jacobin Radio

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🗓️ 19 January 2021

⏱️ 61 minutes

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Summary

Suzi speaks with John Nichols on Trump, the GOP & Impeachment and Eric Alterman on the fundamentals that define our current media ecosystem.

John Nichols discusses President Trump’s second impeachment for inciting a seditious mob to attack the US Capitol, after failing to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. John makes the case that it is not just Trump, but also his Congressional backers who have to be held accountable. They continue to embrace Trump’s lies, and largely refuse to sanction him. Nichols argues against the developing consensus that the Republican Party is fracturing, and insists that despite a handful of defections, the Republican Party is still Trump’s Party.

Eric Alterman has covered the media in The Nation for nearly 25 years and his latest column focuses on the main ideas he has been trying to get across overall. He writes that the titanic changes that have taken place in the media ecosystem make it easy to get lost in the frenzy and miss what is really essential: the underlying structures of power that are generally not seen, and which ensure that the system is the opposite of democratic. Eric calls these the “structural failings that underlie our politics” and says we have to Look Beyond the Media Frenzy and Focus on the Fundamentals -- the title of his last column – and we get him to explain.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Jack of an radio.
0:10.0	On today's program, we look at the. This is Jacobin Radio, I'm Susie Wiseman.
0:13.0	On today's program, we look at the serious threats
0:15.9	facing American governance after the assault on the Capitol
0:19.2	Building and subsequent second impeachment of Donald Trump for engaging in incitement,
0:24.8	never mind trying to overturn an election. The nation's John Nichols joins us and he argues
0:30.3	that despite a handful of defections, the Republican Party is still Trump's party.
0:35.7	But John insists that it is not just Trump, but also his congressional backers who have to be held
0:41.1	accountable, and will get his views.
0:43.5	We then talked to Eric Alterman who just wrote his last column for the nation after 25 years
0:49.5	in which he focused on the main ideas he's been trying to get across in his column and that is
0:54.4	that while it's easy to get lost in the frenzy and miss what is really
0:58.4	essential which is the underlying structures of power that are generally not seen and which ensure that the system
1:05.6	is the opposite of Democratic.
1:07.7	Eric calls these the structural failings that underlie our politics and says we have to look beyond the media
1:14.2	frenzy and focus on the fundamentals and that's the title of his last
1:18.1	column and we're going to get him to explain when we come back in just now.
1:24.0	This is Jack-I-Gee-
1:27.0	This is Jacobin Radio, I'm Susie Wiseman and really pleased to have John Nichols back with us.
1:38.3	He is the National Affairs Correspondent for the Nation and the author of the new book, The Fight for The Fight for the nation and the author of the new book The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic
1:46.0	Party which is the enduring legacy of Henry Wallace's anti-fascist anti-racist
1:51.0	politics that's published by Verso. He's written a ton of other books and I think
	...

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