Paul Star on Trumpism, Revolution, and Revenge

The Politics Guys

Michael Baranowski

News, Politics

4.4 • 783 Ratings

🗓️ 15 October 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mike talks with Paul Starr, a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University and the author of multiple books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Social Transformation of American Medicine. His latest book is American Contradiction: Revolution and Revenge from the 1950s to Now, which they discuss in this episode Topics Mike & Paul cover include: Trumpism as ‘total revenge’ why American politics is a ‘tie game Democrats have been losing’ America as a new people in an old nation the illusion of past consensus the rise of conservative counter-institutions the Democrats ‘demographics is destiny’ myth immigration, identity, and the limits of tolerance The Politics Guys on Facebook | X Check out the excellent Sustainable Planet podcast. Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo, we’re @PoliticsGuys. The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Atheists, agnostics, long-haired widows, short-haired widows, vandal,
0:04.9	Oolagulligan.
0:05.2	I'm the government, hug the government, hug the government, love, the government, hug the government,
0:09.8	love the government, hug the government.
0:12.0	Welcome to the politics, guys, a place for bipartisan, rational, and civil debate on
0:16.6	American politics and policy.
0:18.7	I'm Northern Kentucky University political scientist Michael
0:21.4	Baranowski. My guest today is Paul Starr, Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton
0:26.7	University and the author of multiple books, including the Pulitzer Prize winning the Social
0:31.9	Transformation of American Medicine. I have been a huge fan of his work for my entire academic career, and so it's
0:39.3	really an honor for me to have the opportunity to talk with him about his latest book,
0:44.2	American Contradiction, Revolution and Revenge from the Northeast to Now. Paul Star, welcome to the show.
0:50.3	Glad to be with you, Mike. So I always like to start with titles, as listeners know, and the title of your book, American Contradiction.
0:58.2	So why contradiction?
1:01.4	That title works two ways.
1:04.9	So first, you mentioned the subtitle, Revolution and Revenge from the 1950s to now.
1:11.8	And the first half of the book is called American Revolutions of the 20th century, by which I mean the rights revolution, the revolution in racial and gender relations.
1:25.5	And then the second half of the book is called
1:27.7	Sleepwalking into Revenge.
1:30.0	And it is about all the ways in which that those changes
1:35.9	from the mid-20th century on have been undone,
1:40.3	nullified, reversed, contradicted.
	...

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