4.7 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 21 January 2022
⏱️ 54 minutes
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Researcher Ted Boettner of the Ohio River Valley Institute outlines West Virginia’s political shift from blue to red through the history of coal mining and discusses why the Left can’t win without rural and working-class voters. Matt Bruenig explains the pandemic baby boom in the Nordic countries, and Jen Pan discusses a surprising increase in the number of self-identified Republicans in the US.
The Jacobin Show offers socialist perspectives on class and capitalism in the twenty-first century, the failures of liberalism, and the prospects of rebuilding a left labor movement in the US. This is the podcast version of the show from January 19, 2022 with Jen Pan hosting.
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0:00.0 | You are of course watching the Jacobin Show. I'm your host, Jen Pan. Welcome back. Good to see you. Thanks for tuning in. |
0:26.0 | For today's show, I will be talking to Ted Betner. He is a researcher with the Ohio River Valley Institute, which is a think tank of sorts in West Virginia. Ted, of course, also is a West Virginia. |
0:40.0 | And the reason why I wanted to bring him on today is really to look at this question of whether the left needs West Virginia. |
0:49.0 | So what do I mean by that? West Virginia, you know, let me put it this way. Could the left win a national election without literally winning the state of West Virginia? Yes, theoretically, I think that's that that is possible. |
1:04.0 | However, I also think that West Virginia is a really interesting state and a really interesting case study for the left because West Virginia, of course, is very poor and working class. |
1:14.0 | It was hit really hard by de-industrialization and the opioid epidemic. It's very rural and of course West Virginia is very white. I think it's something like over 93% white. |
1:25.0 | So all of that together, I think, is a very interesting constituency. And I would argue that the left can't really win without this constituency or has to win at least a significant part of this constituency. |
1:39.0 | So we will be talking to Ted Betner a little later about all of that. |
1:45.0 | And also on the show later, I will be myself talking about a new Gallup report that has come out. This Gallup report basically shows that there are more self identified Republicans than there are self identified Democrats in the US right now. |
2:01.0 | And it's really interesting. So I'm going to dive into that. The report also covers, well, the report doesn't really cover but the report kind of points to the rise of self identified independence. |
2:14.0 | So that's really interesting as well. So I'm going to be diving into that. And last but not least, we are going to have our friend Matt Brunig on in just a moment to talk about the Nordic baby boom. |
2:27.0 | I don't know if you guys saw there was an article that came out at the end of the year about how birth rates in birth rates across the world have basically been in decline and have been declining specifically over the course of the pandemic. |
2:40.0 | The big one that was in the news this week was China. I believe their birth rate plunge something like 15% during the pandemic. The you the birth rate in the US is also down. It's been going down during the pandemic. |
2:51.0 | And it seems like a rare exception to this trend in the world is the Nordic countries. So Matt, of course, is our unofficial Nordic state and welfare state correspondent. |
3:02.0 | You know him as the founder and president of the people's policy project. Matt, good to see you. |
3:07.0 | Thanks for having me. |
3:09.0 | So you probably saw or you're probably familiar with the fact that over the course of the pandemic. |
3:16.0 | Most most countries or a number of countries around the world saw birth rates fall. I was saying earlier China's birth rate fell something like 15% the birth rate in the US is down as well. I think the same goes France. |
3:29.0 | There was an interesting article in the National Geographic that came out at the end of last year that showed that the Nordic countries actually experienced the opposite. They're having a baby boom. |
3:39.0 | So I want to quickly read just a line from the article and then get your thoughts on it. So the author writes. |
3:45.0 | Let's see Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland have all maintained their birth rates and some are puzzled to find themselves in the midst of a pandemic baby boom. |
3:55.0 | After a staggering 16.5% more births than normal in the second quarter of 2021, Iceland has struggled to increase capacity in its maternity words. |
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