If you tuned into the debate, you may have done what I did —  wince, pace, and try to process the second-hand embarrassment. Even the most hardened partisans are having a hard time continuing to advocate for another four years for our rapidly declining President, even as Biden himself has rarely shown any signs of interest in stepping aside.The argument that Biden should step aside has been refueled by the debate, but well predates it. Even before this debate, Biden was losing.  No matter what comes next, no matter who our candidate will be, we have to understand where Biden went wrong.  Molly Ball, a Senior Political Correspondent at the Wall Street Journal covering the White House and Congress, zooms in on Biden's cross-pressured position between the more left-leaning elements in his voting coalition, and the centrist and swing voters that have decided the last few elections, and are likely to do so again. We discuss Biden's moves and mis-moves on immigration and the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Biden is making a move on immigration — he has to because, as it stands, it's the Republicans issue to win on. Will it matter? For both the election, and at the border, this remains an open question.  It's tempting to think of immigration in black and white terms — or, rather, in terms of the left and the right. But what Hein de Haas, author of "How Immigration Really Works" and a leading researcher in the field, teaches us is that many of our common beliefs about immigration — coded red and blue — could benefit from a hard look at the data. His work shines a light on the connection between migration and the decline of the US middle class, while explaining that we got to where we are not because of the invisible forces of a nameless group of migrants, but because of the very real, very American, policy choice we have made.

Lewis, a notable and long-standing member of the Harvard faculty, worries about the state of American education — what do we want our students to learn? For him, too much emphasis is placed in course catalogs on intersectionality, and too little on a more canonical foundation of understanding.  For Lewis, the campus protests are a mere symptom — we are "reaping what we have taught." Harry Lewis is the Gordon McKay Research Professor of Computer Science at Harvard, and was the Dean of Harvard College for 8 years around the millennium.

As Gallup finds that only 28% of people consider themselves Democrats, the eminent historian Michael Kazin’s fascinating new book What It Took To Win asks if “college educated cosmopolitans in search of a majority” have driven out ordinary working people — the people we need to win.  Michael Kazin is a distinguished professor of history at Georgetown University and Co-Editor of Dissent magazine. While a student at Harvard in the 70s, Kazin led Students For A Democratic Society and today he is a member of Democratic Socialists of America. He is the author of Barons of Labor, The Populist Persuasion, and America Divided.

Michael Kazin introduces the concept of "moral capitalism" while discussing his new book, "What it Took to Win." Kazin is a professor of history at Georgetown University and editor emeritus of Dissent. His books include American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation, The Populist Persuasion, and A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and editor of The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History.

As party loyalty declines, independent voters are becoming a powerful force in politics. In this video, we'll discuss the rise of independent voters and the impact they're having on elections, as well as the impact that extremely polarized or calcified politics is having on the voting public. We also discuss that in 2022 no candidate who lost called for an insurrection to overturn the results.  Is the fever breaking? Our guest is Lynn Vavreck, a political scientist at UCLA and leading researcher into the electorate. We dive into the analysis of the most recent federal election in 2022, to look to the next one: November 2024. We touch on split-ticket voting, polarization and calcification, and most importantly: whether we'll ever have majorities in Congress big enough to confidently govern us all.

Today, politics feels both stuck and explosive, as both parties are becoming increasingly unrecognizable to the majority of voters. According to Lynn Vavreck, a political scientist at UCLA and leading researcher into the electorate, it has to do in no small part with this: Most voters identify as moderate, whether a moderate Republican or a moderate Democrat. She describes the state of our politics as "calcified", and her extensive research and analysis for her book The Bitter End serves as a guide into what the 2024 election has in store.

After Obama was elected, Ruy Teixeira and his co-author John B. Judis were hailed as having gotten it right— in their 2002 book "The Emerging Democratic Majority", they accurately predicted the coalition on the rise to carry Democrats to a majority.  Today, the revered political strategist has a different message, or rather, a question: "Where have all the Democrats gone?" Since Obama's second term, the Democrats have rapidly lost white working class voters; in some crucial election states, Biden is under water by 20 points with this crucial demographic. According to Ruy, Democrats embraced "cultural radicalism", making them unpalatable to the median voter. Now, non-white working class voters are also moving away from the Democratic party; especially hispanic working class voters. In our conversation, as in his book, Ruy shares his insight into why this shift has happened, and what comes next.

"We need a system for deciding who gets in and who does not. That's not cruel, it's just rational." Meet Ruy Teixeira, political demographer, commentator and author of the deeply influential 2002 book "The Emerging Democratic Majority" with co-author John B. Judis. Today, he has a new book out: "Where have all the Democrats gone?" with the same co-author, and a very different message.  Encounters at the border have tripled since Trump left office, and for Teixeira, the reasons why Biden's approval rating on immigration hangs around 23% in some battleground states are obvious: The Democrats have moved too far away from common sense immigration policies that the median voter can agree with.  We get into it in this conversation.

Part 2 of our conversation with Melissa Kearney. Listen to our episode titled "What is happening to marriage and families in the US?" for part 1. Melissa Kearney, a professor of Economics at the University of Maryland, argues that "we can't keep ignoring the fact that the share of kids raised by one parent is rising — especially among lower income families, and that this is having an impact on the economic mobility of those children." Kids who grow up in two-parent households tend to have better outcomes, both in young adulthood and later in life. The New York Times immediately dubbed Kearney's research a blind anti-feminist argument for entering into or staying in a marriage — but this, of course, entirely misses the point. Her research is thorough, nuanced, and clarifying. What is happening to marriage and families in the US? Listen to Kearney's answer.

Melissa Kearney, a professor of Economics at the University of Maryland, argues that "we can't keep ignoring the fact that the share of kids raised by one parent is rising — especially among lower income families, and that this is having an impact on the economic mobility of those children." "Kids who grow up in two-parent households tend to have better outcomes, both in young adulthood and later in life." The New York Times immediately dubbed Kearney's research a blind anti-feminist argument for entering into or staying in a marriage — but this, of course, entirely misses the point. Her research is thorough, nuanced, and clarifying. What is happening to marriage and families in the US? Listen to Kearney's answer.

Rob Atkinson, who has advised George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden on how to promote the high tech industry, just wrote in the Asia Times:  “The Chinese Communist Party has made manufacturing robot adoption a top priority, backing it up with generous subsidies. To the extent US policymakers talk about robots, it is usually to criticize them for taking jobs.”In my conversation with him, Atkinson advocated an aggressive industrial policy to boost productivity and economic growth even if it displaces workers with, yes, robots.  We tussle on that question as well as with the perspectives of impactful economists like Dani Rodrik of Harvard, Daron Acemoglu of MIT and Brad DeLong of Berkeley—now is a great time to revisit their episodes on this podcast.This conversation is part of our ongoing investigation of ways to restore the vitality of our middle class.

Since June, President Biden has campaigned on Bidenomics, making the argument that he's in charge of the economy and things are looking up.He’s right that the economy will play a crucial role in the coming election—but not in the way he currently imagines.Listen to this 15-minute episode that engages with several prominent perspectives, taking stock of the discourse and offering a distinct perspective focused on the voters we need most in 2024: young people.

Remember the trade war with China under Donald Trump? Some argue that Joe Biden started a tech war with China, setting limits on US investments in Chinese technology. Are we headed for a cold war next?  The goal is not to be alarmist, but to understand: what is at play in our relationship with China? What is the best way forward? And how do we avoid accidental conflict—coincidentally, the title of an excellent new book by Stephen Roach. Now at Yale, Roach is the former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia and led the bank into Chinese investments. He has lived these questions, and he has ideas.

Most of us no longer believe globalization is the answer to our economic woes and inequity—perhaps the more interesting question is:  Then what is?  Bernie Sanders has an answer. So does Kevin MCarthy. But I prefer to listen to those with a less politically informed view.  The Hewlitt foundation has given 40 million dollars to the Reimagining the Economy project to power research at MIT, Harvard and other universities. This project aims to examine what works to power the working class, and inform policy.  At Harvard, Gordon Hanson leads this project with Dani Rodrik. He is my guest today.  Website: https://www.thepoliticalconversation.org/  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC3WHXYq8xdsP39DXX2xPBQ

We just survived another debt ceiling crisis. Whew! The media told us this time was different; there was a real chance the government would default on paying its debts. After all, the players were now crazy enough to let it happen. But a deal was passed, extending the ceiling to early in 2025. I spoke to Prof. Frances E. Lee of Princeton about the history of debt limit crises—are we really in unprecedented territory? She lays out patterns of behavior to look for in 2025, and gives us perhaps an antidote to the frenzy.  Website: https://www.thepoliticalconversation.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thepoliticalco

"Democrats should be asking themselves every day: With as crazy as the Republican Party is, and as Trumpified as it is, why can’t you beat them? As opposed to just squeezing through.” The Times recently called him "a liberal heretic"; but these are the important questions Ruy Teixeira—who many consider to have written the manual on the future of the Democratic Party 20 years ago—intends to ask of his party today. Back in 2002, Democrats were in despair. President George W. Bush had an approval rating of 84% as he led the United States in its war against terrorism in the midst of a flourishing economy.  Then, Ruy Teixeira published his book, The Emerging Democratic Majority, which Democrats read as prophesizing that the future held permanent Democratic dominance in elections based on an irresistible tidal wave of demographic change. Teixeira rallied Democrats and became an intellectual hero on America’s left.  Today he has something very different to say. Listen now and as always, let me know your views and recommend guests to be on the podcast at Wally@ThePoliticalConversation.org.

In 2009 this was the cool thing to say about globalization: "Consumers across the globe have benefited from the increased competition, lowered prices and unprecedented availability of goods and services for every socioeconomic stratum." – The Hill.  Today the false promise of globalization is clear: millions of Americans lost their good-paying jobs to cheap foreign competition.  Who won? Big corporations and overseas governments. I speak with Rana Foroohar –a Global Business Columnist and an Associate Editor at the Financial Times, and CNN's global economic analyst– to discuss how it happened. We dive into her plan for American renewal — which she details in her new book Homecoming — on TPC.

We all know where we were the day Trump was elected. To many Democrats – myself included – it was a shock but also a moment of great insight. In her book, "White Working Class", released just four months after the election, Joan Williams describes a Trump voter in the South Carolina election as saying: "We are voting with our middle finger". After all, incomes of the white working class had doubled in the three decades after World War II, but had stagnated since the late 1970s. Williams concludes: "When you leave the two-thirds of Americans without college degrees out of your vision of the good life, they notice." As we stare down the possibility of another Trump-infused election, Joan Williams brings us a sharp analysis: There is a shift underway to the right among the two-thirds of us who don’t have a college degree, and it is now showing across racial lines. Joan C. Williams is an American feminist legal scholar, Founding Director at the Center for WorkLife Law, and a Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings School of Law.

From 2019 to 2020, Dr. Lynn Vavreck –professor of political science at UCLA and contributing columnist to The New York Times– and her colleagues interviewed over 500,000 voters, leading them to conclude that our politics aren’t just polarized, but calcified. According to the authors, “polarization — a blanket term that gets thrown around a lot in the media — doesn’t really do much to explain the situation we’re in. Yes, we're polarized. But talk to three different people, even three different political scientists, and you will get three different definitions of what polarization means. In the book, we use the term “calcification” because it better captures the features of American politics today." In our conversation, Prof. Vavreck's framework helps us better understand what is happening in our politics by, among other things, illuminating the 2022 midterms and finding the difference between moderates and independents. https://www.thepoliticalconversation.org/