This is the 99% invisible breakdown of the power broker. I'm Roman Mars.

And I'm Elliot Kalin.

Today we'll be covering pages 283 to 401 in my book, chapters 16 through 20, and this is the middle section of part 4 the use of

power and our special guest for today's book club is representative Alexandria

Ocasio Cortez.

She represents the New York 14th Congressional District, which is home to a number of Robert

Moses infrastructure projects and atrocities, and it is also the congressional seat once held by Fiorella LaGuardia who makes

his first appearance in this section of the book. We have a long fun

enlightening discussion with AOC after we do the book summary.

So when we left off last episode in a stunning turnabout, young idealist reformer Robert

Moses has turned around and embraced corruption and dirty dealings

to get things done.

And this is the freight train that has been coming at us from page one.

The heel turn is taking place. And as a result

in three years with the backing of Governor Al Smith, he massively expanded the

amount of public park space in New York State. He turned Jones Beach into the

world's greatest weekend spot and built expressways leading to all that stuff and

he has become this absolute hero to New Yorkers. He's seen as this man who stands up to the wealthy and he can get stuff done, he creates parks for the people,

even though we've seen that he will totally get in bed with these powerful people to make his projects possible and he will ruin some small-time farmers.

He does some dastardly stuff, but the public doesn't see that, they just see these beautiful parks he's made.

And this public idea of

Robert Moses and the private reality of how Moses gets things done are really

...