Political Scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson on ‘How the Right Rules’

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KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 21 July 2020

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Republican party has increasingly relied on incendiary appeals from the social right to win over voters, while advancing policies that cater less to the average voter and more to wealthy donors. That’s according to political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson. In their fourth book together, "Let Them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality," they break down the GOP’s strategy of acquiring populist voters through fear-mongering and race-baiting. And now, during the Trump administration, the authors write that “the ‘dog whistle’ invoking racialized themes has given way to the bullhorn.” Hacker and Pierson join us to discuss their latest book and why the GOP continues to advance unpopular policies -- and stall popular ones in the Senate -- even in an election year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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1:00.0	From KQED Public Radio in San Francisco, I'm Nina Kim. Coming up on forum, how do you keep winning elections despite embracing policies that work against the interests of your party's own voters?
1:05.7	You lean into race-baiting tribalism and disinformation, according according to political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pearson,
1:12.6	and you do the bidding of your moneyed elites, even as their demands become more extreme
1:17.8	and actively undermine democracy. That's especially how the Republican Party has been able to
1:23.0	maintain power in an age of soaring income inequality, hacker and Pearson say. And for those,
1:28.9	including conservatives with disdain for this shift and direction, there are ways to fight back.
1:33.8	They join us after this news.
1:42.8	This is Forum. I'm Mina Kim. We often hear something to the effect of Donald Trump didn't create the divisions in America. He exploited or is a manifestation of them. In their new book, Let Them Eat Tweets, How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality, political scientists, Jacob He Hacker and Paul Pearson look at what that
2:02.5	means, what emerged in the decades before Trump that they call plutocratic populism.
2:08.7	As Republicans sought to deliver for corporations and the super rich and still win elections,
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