Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics, power and prejudices.

We are doing a US election special event at the Emanuel Centre in central London on October the 24th.

And I almost don't need to do this announcement because tickets are selling so fast.

But I want Americano listeners to take advantage of this opportunity and to get themselves a ticket.

The special guest, who I wasn't allowed to announce before,

is Nigel Farage, the leader of the Reform Party, a friend, I think we can say, of Donald Trump.

And so I will be asking him about Trump and about the 2024 election and about the

transatlantic relationship that reform have with the Republican Party.

Do come. We'd like to see you.

You can book a ticket to this very, very special event at spectator.com.

Dot UK forward slash election special.

And I would urge you to do that because I'm pretty sure we're going to sell this thing out.

I am delighted to be joined today by the great Thomas Frank, who is not the football manager of Brentford FC. He is, in fact,

the best, I think, writer on the American left in America and the author of many books,

including most famously What's the Matter with Kansas? And most recently, the people know, which was really a great book about populism.

But we were just saying before, you failed, didn't you, Thomas, Tom, to change the way people understand the word populism now.

Yeah, it's very frustrating.

And I say that because I just gave a lecture about, about the

subject like, oh, a week ago to a group of undergraduates in a swing state, by the way, in Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania. And, you know, and I'm explaining to them what, you know, because if you have to

understand where the word came from, so I'm explaining to them what happened in the 1890s, you know, events in America in the 1890s.

And then I'm explaining academia in the 1950s, these guys who changed the definition of the word.

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