1 https://arkansasadvocate.com/2022/10/05/study-more-republicans-than-democrats-likely-died-of-covid/ Researcher Max Taves closes his analysis in David Cay Johnston’s DC Report by asking a very important question: “Republican politicians can talk all they want about how pro-life they are, but these data defy and belie their rhetoric. Facts are stub…

As soon as Heather Cox Richardson’s new book Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America came across my algorithm I reached out and invited America’s favorite academic back onto the show. HRC’s newest book lays out how a small group of wealthy men financed and developed a right wing propaganda machine that 54+ years later, stands to topple A…

Like all good lefties, I cut my teeth in progressive politics learning all about the horrors of America’s massive military industrial complex. In one of my very first college classes ever at the local community college, a passionate instructor who spent his spare time organizing peace marches against the Iraq War made sure each of his students left…

Throughout 2024 I plan on highlighting core grassroots organizations working on the frontlines of the Democratic Party’s messaging revolution. Now, maybe you think the word “revolution” is too strong, but trust me, moving a party away from approaching voters with wonky policy appeals and achievements to focusing on making sure regular Americans kno…

The first time I posted about the harsh reality of America’s collapsing democracy, it seemed like many folks were genuinely surprised to see that America is not actually the Greatest Democracy on Earth. According to the democracy index compiled by the EIU and published annually by The Economist, America is actually a “flawed” democracy. The United …

What if I was to tell you the Republican Party’s villain-in-chief, the main protagonist in the Republican Party’s “Democrats are socialists” Big Lie, Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is an ideological moderate serving in a likewise still moderate Democratic Party? Understandably, you wouldn’t believe me, so I would have to present some pretty…

I first learned about Way to Win when they published an analysis after the 2020 cycle empirically demonstrating the weakness of the Democratic Party’s messaging strategy against the GOP’s in the 2020 cycle. While Republican’s focused on branding Democrats as dangerous socialists intent on destroying America, Democrats were branding Republicans as g…

If you want to get someone out of a cult, Dr. Steven Hassan is your man. Inspired to a career focused on cults by his own personal experience being tricked into joining one, Dr. Hassan has spent decades researching, writing, and talking about cults and is skilled at getting folks out of them. In fact, he literally wrote the manual on understanding …

Two years or so again I began an extensive research project into the totalitarian movements of the 1920s and 1930, with a heavy emphasis on Germany and Italy whose totalitarians regimes hailed from the political right. When I started this research project I knew very little about the process by which the National Socialists actually rose to power, …

Leigh McGowen, of IamPoliticsGirl and The Politics Girl pod fame, intrinsically gets the purpose, the proper forms, and the distribution realties of modern messaging. That’s why I was jazzed to bring my fellow messaging (and messy bun) aficionado onto The Cycle to talk about her rise as one of the Democratic Party’s brightest and best messaging sta…

If you find polling interesting or frustrating (or both!) this is the episode for you! U-Mass Amherst pollster and Associate Professor Alex Theodoridis is on the pod to talk about challenges facing modern polling and how to properly conduct and present survey results given the impacts on mass behavior of hyperpartisanship, which you should think of…

When you have to google the spelling of “cuckold",” you know you’re about to drop a hot pod! The Liberty Way reads like some kind of modern Footloose, forcing students to adhere to a moral code so strict, you expect the punishments to include stoning. That’s why the revelation that when “America’s largest Christian university’s” President Jerry Fal…

Did you know that in order to advance in ‘degrees’ in the Proud Boys you have to vow to stop jacking off so you can unleash your pent-up violence on your innocent victims?! That’s why you NEED a copy of Andy Campbell’s new book: We Are Proud Boys: How A Rightwing Street Gang Ushered In A New Era Of American Extremism. I haven’t had a chance yet to …

In this short, but spirited conversation, Tom Bonier of Target Smart and Simon Rosenberg of NDN and host of the With Democrats, Things Get Better series, joins me on the pod to laugh at the Republican Party’s red tinkle. Target Smart, it is the Democrat’s premier voter targeting firm and creator of the incredible Target Early tool, which allows use…