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

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I'm joined today by John Rick MacArthur, who is the publisher of Harper's Magazine and

somebody who has written frequently for the spectator about Bernie Sanders

and the Democratic Party. And Rick, I just want to ask you, we've got the Iowa caucuses coming up

tonight. It looks as though Bernie Sanders is going to win, although the poll suggests there's a lot

of undecideds, and Iowa is notoriously

unpredictable. But do you think he's going to do it? Yeah, I think he's probably going to win. I don't

know by how much. On the point of undecides, they've changed the rules this year, which you may or may

not know, so that if you come into the caucus room

and you commit to undecided, you can't change your vote later. In the past, you could come

out of the undecided pool and throw your support to somebody else. And that's the great

unanswered sort of question about the Iowa caucuses, is are they

really democratic or not? Because in theory, a lot of peer pressure comes into play. If you're in a

small town and you come into the caucus room and you're up against the local oligarchy, let's say,

...