Year in review: Media, mental health, and threats to democracy

Democracy Works

For our final episode of 2023, we revisit some of our episodes from throughout the year and reflect on what’s in store for democracy in 2024. We talk about:

• Mental health and media consumption
• Bureaucracy and the prospect of Project 2025
• The Republican party and threats to democracy

Plus, we share some recommendations of the books and TV shows we loved in 2023. Recommendations include:

TV: For All Mankind, Fargo, The Gilded Age, and Slow Horses

Books: The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War by Jeff Sharlet; Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody, Why We Did It by Tim Miller

Thank you to all of our listeners for another great year. We’ll see you in 2024!

Episode Transcript

Michael Berkman
From the McCourtney Institute for Democracy on the campus of Penn State University, I’m Michael Berkman.

Chris Beem
I’m Chris Beem.

Candis Watts Smith
I’m Candis Watts Smith.

Jenna Spinelle
I’m Jenna Spinelle and welcome to democracy works. So great to have all three of you here. For our final episode of 2023. It’s hard to believe we’ve come to the end of another year already. But we’ve had a lot of great episodes this year. And what we’re gonna do today is take a listen back through some of them, I’ve pulled out a couple of clips from our guests. And we’ll both reflect a little bit on what we heard, and also how what our guests shared this year will have ramifications as we look ahead to 2024. So the first set of topics that we’re going to talk about here is all about media and mental health. We began this year with two episodes about how political news and the way that we consume it impact our mental health. We’re going to hear first from Penn State’s Matt Jordan, who is doing some work on news avoidance. And then from Christopher, Ojeda, from the University of California, talking about some of his work on how politics impacts depression and other aspects of our mental health.

Matt Jordan
News avoidance is something that people have been studying now for a while, because there’s a significant swath of the population that just because of the anxiety that news creates, the way that it’s framed the way that it’s kind of always kind of one bouncing from one crisis to the next, as kind of a wellness technique, what people tend to do is just to avoid it, right? That they’re really managing their own feelings and effect level by just avoiding this kind of tumultuous day illusion of bad news, we should be striving for a kind of a more holistic approach or kind of a balanced approach to the things we do, we should work out a little bit, we should maybe check the news a little bit we should eat, eat good food, et cetera, et cetera. And part of that mindfulness that comes to being wanting to be more realistic is also recognizing that the news is not the only important places that we’re getting stories about what makes people in a democracy work, right we’d from art, we get stories about what good virtue is, and what not. And I think the, the, the danger is that when we think that the only way we can be engaged in democracy or politics is by being a news junkie, then we get pulled into only one kind of story and attempts to send tends to only have the same kind of characters, villains, and people who are doing this bad or that bad. And so we’re talking about in a way, the worst people in the world, and not talking about those people who we see as helpers, or people who are going to help us be better news consumers.

Christopher Ojeda
One story might make us feel anxious, or might make us angry. But when we consume that sort of intense emotional story over and over and over again, it becomes depressing, because we start to think there are too many problems. There are so many problems that even if we solved one of them, a million other problems would exist. How could we possibly tackle all these issues? And so I think it’s the totality of media that we consume, that can be really depressing, rather than any one story. Now, of course, any one story can itself be depressing. We, you know, war, natural disasters, like these kinds of things. Make us feel sad, but but I think it is that sort of nonstop new cycle that really gets to our psyche. So there’s a lot of discussion about how echo chambers are not good for democracy, because we want people talking to people who think differently from them. We want people to be exposed to different ideas and engaging in informed debate with other people. But what happens if that in debate is really stressful, in damaging to our mental health in what is actually good for our mental health is being around people who are like us. And so these are serious conflicts that I think we need to think about as we think about how to make democracy work.

Jenna Spinelle
So my questions for for all of you to get things started here is, you know, these guests seem to be suggesting that we need to be more mindful about how much news we consume, what kind of news we consume. I’m wondering how realistic that is in an election year when political news is seemingly going to be wall to wall.

Chris Beem
You know, when I when I first saw this question, I remember talking to Matt completely outside of the podcast and, and I said that I found myself watching a lot more sports than I usually do. And he said, Yeah, me too. So so we are all guilty of this news avoidance. And I don’t think there’s anybody who really isn’t, though the world is in bad shape right now. And it’s scary and threatening, and it’s not likely to get better in 2024. So yeah, it’s totally understandable that that people are avoiding this and looking for other outlets.

Candis Watts Smith
I will say that it’s worth noting that there was, I was, I would say that it is worth noting that since 2021, I have perhaps, consumed less news, not out of avoidance, but because there are some, well, not, not recently, but over the past couple of years, there’s just been a level of normal miss. So you know, I’ve in comparison to the Trump era, where there was just something bizarre, something absurd, something ridiculous, something unheard of, on a regular basis, in comparison to where we’ve been over the past few years. And I’ll say, you know, let’s say before you, the Ukraine War started that, you know, I wonder if there’s a way that we can remember what the normal feels like. And, you know, how would How do you consume news in a normal space, versus when there’s just pure chaos? I think one of the things and I’ll just start really quickly, one of the things I’ve noticed and the in the past couple of years is how much news in the media is actually not newsworthy. And so I always think to myself, like, oh, there must be enough. If we’re talking about like, Sam Altman getting fired from open AI, like, why was that a huge story? But I think it’s perhaps because we don’t have a president who does unheard of things on a on a daily basis. So okay, so what’s the lesson here? Oh, not elect this person that is going to put us into a state of chronic stress in the media.

Michael Berkman
Yeah, well, for the record, I thought the open AI news was huge.

Candis Watts Smith
At first, not Sam Altman, like the reason why we were talking about Sam Altman had to do with what, what we know about AI and its capabilities, but the whole kind of politics of the guy who got fired, and the personalities involved was not important, in my opinion.

Michael Berkman
Yeah, well given. Right. So that’s, that’s the part that I just really don’t agree with you on Candis. Because I think that, that AI is huge, and will have profound implications for the world. And what was going on at open ai ai was a unique kind of arrangement, where they tried to have this sort of nonprofit board, really keeping an eye on the dangers of AI, I find it not only sort of fascinating, but also profoundly important. So that open aI mean, that company is billions of dollars worth of value. And a technology that, you know, could eat us all up alive. So I just just a difference of opinion on on that. But but but canvas, it does sort of play into sort of my sense of now I, I agree with you completely about Trump and the way that he dominated the news cycle with constant chaos. And I think it was a deliberate strategy, actually, to keep us from being able to focus on anything was going on because everything was being thrown. And Biden really does restore things to normality. But what I mean, my first thought when I was reading, like these, thinking about these clips, and the notion of news of whites is that I sort of feel like we’re at a sort of inflection point in not only this country, but maybe the world. There are, like profound things going on right now. So not paying attention feels sort of risky, to me, not not to the election, necessarily, because the Election coverage is awful. You know, it’s all these polls. And it’s all of these outrageous, ridiculous things that are said at these silly debates that they’re holding. Amen. And yeah, just focusing on the election like that does seem like a kind of unhealthy waste of time. But I don’t know the you know, the possible end of American support for Ukraine. The fact that hostages, including American hostages are still being held. And then, of course, some of the plants that Trump has talked about, and I know that we’ll get to some of them for, for his next term. It says to me that people really ought to be paying attention, not avoiding it. But that doesn’t mean to me watching CNN and MSNBC, I mean, people have to figure out their own ways of staying informed.

Chris Beem
I actually think that’s, I mean, I want to make sure that we’re fair to Matt’s point. It’s not merely about how you how much news you consume. But what is your what is your stance towards this, and his argument is that it’s we’re watching news as if it’s a spectator sport, and that that’s how we’re engaging politically. And I am reminded of Jenna’s podcast how the people decide or when the people decide, sorry, the last episode of the second season two is Eric Liu. And he said something that, you know, that I’ve said, as well that, you know, if you want to engage politically, one way to do it is to engage in your community to become, to engage on a real basis with real people. And if you can do that with people who you disagree with all the better. So part of the issue here is how we understand ourselves, as citizens as political actors, and all the stuff you’re talking about Michael, especially, you know, the cable news channels, frames these things, as, you know, interesting competitions that are fun to watch. And let’s hope our team wins, when, you know, a, the stakes are significantly higher. And be you know, your, the demands that are put on you, as a demo democratic citizen, are much more robust than that.

Jenna Spinelle
So something else that we talked about we as you all know, we love a good bureaucracy episode around here. And we did several of those this year one with Jennifer Pahlka, who talks about the ways that technology can improve the government and how the government can streamline its use of technology. And then we also talked with Jamila Michener, who studies administrative burdens and the way that people particularly poor communities and communities of color, interact with or maybe don’t interact with government services like Medicare and Medicaid, those those kinds of things. So, to refresh your memory about the state of our bureaucracy, let’s hear from Jennifer Pahlka and Jamila Michener.

Jennifer Pahlka
I think that the connection between the public’s experience with government services and the public’s willingness to engage in democracy as we think of it on sort of the electoral side, like do they vote? Are they engaged in public dialogue? You know, do they believe that government can be even if they don’t feel it is today a force for good those things are much more deeply connected than we tend to talk about. Every public servant has many, many experiences in their life, where when someone finds out they work for the government at any level, you know, somebody they know will complain to them about being at the DMV or trying to get their SNAP benefits or they have a cousin who’s on probation. And these just terrible things are happening to people as they get stuck in the bureaucracy. And they hear from them that that experience, even if it’s second hand, makes them believe that our democracy isn’t working and they the public who has his periences don’t tend to distinguish between the bureaucracy and electoral politics. And I think that when we fail to make that connection, we are inviting greater populism.

Jamila Michener
During the pandemic, there were a lot of things that sort of were further invested in that were ramped up. And that were extended in ways that helped a lot of people. And because I was interviewing people all throughout the pandemic, this really became clear to me people know, people don’t know the nitty gritty of policy. They’re not like this bill and that bill, you know, but they know that suddenly, they’re getting more benefits, food benefits, that the amount of SNAP assistance they’re receiving increases, and they can get some more food for their family, or at least offset the growing cost of food. And they know that they’re not having to do as much there’s not as much administrative burden associated with getting help from the government. But it’s worth pointing out that many of these folks are not sitting around at home, like I want the largesse of the government. They’re working really hard, getting paid not great wages, dealing with rising food costs, rising housing costs, rising costs of everything that aren’t keeping up with rising wages trying to survive. And during the pandemic, the government, federal state, local help, and more.

Jenna Spinelle
So, as we heard in those clips, there were some some bright spots here, especially what Jamila talked about, during the pandemic, about the ways that, you know, the government was really able to do more to tangibly help folks in their day to day lives. I know that the work that Jennifer is doing, as well as is trying to strengthen some of these systems so that the government can be less bureaucratic and provide better services, and that she argues, will increase trust in in government moving forward. But on the flip side of this, there’s something called Project 2025. I will link in the show notes, a post from Don Monahan, one of our previous guests, he wrote about this in the New York Times, and I think he even touched on it a little bit when he was on the show. But that kind of threatens to undermine not just this work that Jennifer and Jamila talks about, but the entire way that that the government operates more broadly.

Michael Berkman
When the Affordable Care Act was being developed and proposed, and one of the Obama team’s proposals, there were to have navigators, who would help people to become aware of the benefits that were available to them through the ACA, how to how to work their way through the exchanges, things of that nature, basically, to bring people into the affordable care. And man did people not like that on the Republican side? And you know, in some states, I remember, I didn’t go back and look this up. But my recollection is that in Florida, for example, they were just adamant that there’d be no navigators in their states. And what occurs to me I think about this whole question of, you know, government taking pride and what it does, and bringing people into the programs. It depends how you feel about government. And, you know, that remains one of the underlying conflicts within American society or between American political parties. And, you know, seems to be Democrats like what government does, and they want to bring people in and and, and promote what they do. But you know, this kind of, that’s a democratic idea. Republicans for the most part, or at least Republican elites, don’t like to talk about the good things, government does a much prefer to undercut it as much as they can. So it seems unlikely that they would promote programs like this. And I mean, I hope I’m not unfairly painting them there. But that really does seem over many, many years, my sense of how the party’s differ towards government.

Chris Beem
Reagan said, Ronald Reagan, this was in the early 80s, maybe even the in the 70s. He said, The nine most terrifying words in the English language are I’m from the government, and I’m here to help. You know, so it is a long standing notion, and I only think it’s it’s gotten more extreme with the, you know, decline of any respect for any kind of institutions in society and the denigration of any kind of authority. Right. So it hasn’t improved from those words of Reagan.

Candis Watts Smith
You know, I think just to say that I think both parties understand that policy, Telegraph’s messages to the public, it tells them who belongs who can play, how you know the extent to which your representatives believe that certain people should have a higher quality, citizenship and bundle of rights than others. So I am In, you know, like, we’re we’re making a broad brush statement about whether Republicans want to use government. They want to use it in a certain way. Right? So we can think about bureaucracies and areas of the government that are bolstered. Under, you know, conservative governments are under government. Think about exactly anything about policing, we can think about education, we can increase some we can decrease others, we can think about incarceration, we can think about public parks, we can think about national parks that, you know, there’s all sorts of things. So I think that both parties recognize that they can use the government to get right to to message what it is and who it is that the government works for how easy is it to get a concealed weapons license versus to get TANF? Right, it just, you know, it just these things right can be the government can be made more available or less available, depending on what it is that you want to get to the question about Project 2025. I think we can just think about Maya Angelou, when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time, you know, Trump, you know, we can say like, oh, this is so crazy with this ever happened. And yet, uh, yeah. You know, will the cords let it happen? Will Congress let it happen? I mean, Trump has been very clear about his intentions. And we know now in a way that we didn’t know in 2016, the number of people who would be willing to be a part of, you know, a project that takes 10s of 1000s of Trump supporters to undermine the bureaucracy or or weaponize it for for the benefit of for the benefit of Trumpism. So, yeah, we should be we should be worried.

Michael Berkman
But you know, I don’t think one thing that has got nearly enough attention, in my view is Nikki Haley calling saying that she wants to put a five year term limit on bureaucrats, which is nothing that I could think of would I can’t see anywhere in the world that happens. But but just the idea is so antithetical to the way bureaucracy is supposed to work effectively, which is that people are in a position, they learn how to do it, they develop expertise, they develop routines and procedures, they work with clients and get used to doing what it is they do. And what she wants to do is to just wipe that out. Every time somebody learns their job, replace him with somebody else. And there’s just nothing in that idea that is meant to strengthen government services or make them better, make them possible to be administered better or develop more wisely. And then 20, you know, the ideas in in some of this project 2025 really would have a significant impact on the federal bureaucracy. I mean, keep in mind already, that the United States has a much how I put this as a weaker civil service in most other bureaucracies that our, you know, our the extent to which we have political appointees extends much deeper into the bureaucracy than it does in other countries. This will just do that even further turning more and more people into political appointees, and therefore just sort of serving at the whim of the President and doing what the President wants. I think it’s a dangerous idea.

Jenna Spinelle
Well, that maybe leads us into our next topic. We did also talk this year about threats to democracy. In particular, we’re going to highlight two guests. One is Tim Miller, the former Republican strategists Well, you may know from his work now with a bulwark or on this, the circus on Showtime. The other is Barbara Walter, who wrote the book how civil wars starts. And she in her clip will introduce us or at least she introduced me in our interview to the concept of an autocracy and America’s status as one. So let’s hear first from Tim Miller, and then from Barbara Walter,

Tim Miller
On the Republican side, you saw a lot of people that like we’re really almost nihilistic, you know, the chose to go into that because it was like, I like politics. I like the competition. And, you know, whatever I never had in the book about a guy who revealed to me during the interviews that they’ve never voted for a Republican for president and I visit the high level have power, but he just likes the rush of it. All right. So I think that that’s something a little different. Now, I think that that is getting exacerbated to a great degree. If you look at the type of people that are self selecting in to the Donald Trump party, like think about, you know, I don’t I don’t want to insult any students at Penn State that think about the type of person who’s 2022 is like, I like politics. Maybe I’m maybe kind of ideal, you know, I’m ideologically I’m forming my ideology. You know, I’m not talking about the kids that come that are super, you know, already ideologically foreign, but I want to go work in Washington, I want to go work in campaigns, the type of person that’s gonna say, Yeah, I’ll go take a job for the RNC. Like during the Trump era, after Trump, it’s a different type of person I get it is somebody that has that has accepted that they like that, that they’re cool with the trolling and the mocking, and the cruelty? And so I worry deeply about, like the self selection of who is who’s choosing to enter, you know, right now, and I think that that’s true as bait from like, the entry level jobs all the way through candidates, right, like what kind of candidate wants to run? You know, I would say I get calls, frankly, from from people who are conservative mainstream, like, Should I run in a Republican primary, and I basically have to tell them now, yes, and you should do what you want, I’ll support you. But I, there’s just not a path for you, unless you, you know, are willing to debase yourself, for Donald Trump, that has an effect on what kinds of people are going into Washington. So this is an ongoing thing that I think is actually getting a little worse over time.

Barbara Walter
So we were officially classified as in an autocracy in December of 2020. That happened after the sitting President refused to accept the results of election and tried to overturn them. But when Trump did peacefully leave office, and we had a new administration, and that new administration, has been honoring the rule of law and and clearly supports democracy, our score was raised, we went from a positive five to a positive eight, we’re not back at 10. This happened after the after the original book came out. So the paperbacks coming out this month, and it will have updated data. And and so so we’ve kind of dodged a bullet. But but a really important point to make is our democracy score improved, not because any of our democratic institutions were strengthened, our our institutions are as weak today, as they were on January 21, there have been no reforms of the system. Since Biden came into office, the only reason we’re a little bit on unsteady ground, is because we have an individual who honors democracy. Boy, you know that that means that we’re putting a lot of, you know, we’re asking that individual to to hold up democracy. And if somebody else is elected, who who doesn’t want democracy, our system is is still vulnerable to rapid backsliding.

Jenna Spinelle
So this year, our guests, not just Tim and Barbara, but I think across the board, we heard concerns about what’s at stake based on the outcome of November’s election. Think I know the answer to this based on what we’ve talked about so far. But do you share their concerns or other things that our guests maybe haven’t talked about? That you’d like to introduce his other concerns or things that you’re keeping an eye on?

Candis Watts Smith
One thing I think is worth emphasizing, that Barbara Walter mentioned is that one, so many of our ways of doing things is based on norms, and is based on people doing the right thing, and sometimes even just one person doing the right thing or the wrong thing. But also to know that there haven’t been any major reforms, please correct me if I’m wrong, that would prevent any of the things that we’ve seen before and the fact that I don’t know I guess I would be interested to hear your thoughts Michael and Chris, about whether the prosecution’s and the insurrection were is enough of a deterrent for people to try to use violence in the future. I just I’m not sure I get a sense that we have kind of reset or leveled up our expectations for our behavior in the future. If anything, they declined and have stayed on the decline.

Michael Berkman
Yeah, well Well, I think the No, I don’t think that the prosecution’s in the insurrection are going to stronger as a standard as a strong deterrent, at least not to people how to answer that question.

Candis Watts Smith
I mean, the idea, right, is that I mean, the idea around punishment is that it’s supposed to deter people from doing similar behaviors in the future. Now, we know in crime that, for example, that the death penalty does not prevent people from I don’t know, shooting at schools, or whatever, you know, it doesn’t it like harsher penalties don’t seem to do it to what’s what’s the word I’m looking for, um, you know, prevent people deter, deter people from doing heinous things. And on some level, we’re like, you know, we want people to be held accountable. That’s one thing. But on the other hand, we also are hoping that people don’t do this again. And I’m not really sure that we are, there’s been a major signal or a major change in policy and rhetoric. And in much of anything that would deter a future insurrection, if the election doesn’t go the way some number of people think it ought to go. On some level, it seems like insurrection and violence has on some way become, it’s not normal. That’s happened once, but it’s like, we’re kind of in a situation where it, we might expect it. And we would maybe be surprised if it doesn’t happen that way.

Michael Berkman
I think the comments from Tim Miller are valuable here, because as he’s pointed out, there just seems to be an endless pool of people that are willing to kind of do whatever it needs to do to be close to power, or to Close to close to Donald Trump. And, you know, we have seen in many state legislatures around the country that election denialism runs really deep and remains. And we’ve seen this with some with many of the local many of the state political parties as well, that they’ve been kind of completely taken over. So I’m not, you know, I’m skeptical that it’s going to be operated as a deterrent.

Chris Beem
It’s hard to like, you know, put your hands around all the dimensions of this. But Trump gets indicted 91 times, and his fundraising goes up. And his number, his polling numbers go up. And I have no reason to think that’s not going to be the case. Well, you know, I hope it’s not but I don’t know, if and when the man is convicted, I don’t know that that’s going to change. And even the people that have been have pled guilty in the Georgia case, have then come back and said, Oh, well, it was an extorted confession. And so there is this, there is this, you know, argument that there is no rule of law outside of partisanship, that it’s only a matter of who gets control and who is able to employ the law in the service of their partisan ends. And so, you know, I’m not saying that’s true, but I’m saying that is how it is presented over and over and over within the Trumpian circles of the Republican Party. And so I don’t see how this changes. I mean, I don’t see how it changes.

Michael Berkman
I don’t know, I still think that prosecuting these cases is extremely important. I agree. I think it’s very important that the courts are one way remember back to our Jonathan Rauch podcasts and visit they are an important part of the constitution of knowledge and institution that helps us understand what has happened and what the facts are around certain matters. And the courts are doing a pretty good job of that. Right now. It does feel though, like these prosecutions at the federal level just started too late. We just have never been there before. I mean, it has all the recipes. It seems to be a recipe for a constitutional crisis down the line as they kind of wrestle with Well, what do you what happens when the guy is in jail, but he’s elected president, but I also think it’s possible I continue to think it’s possible that it all just falls apart for Him. Once these once these trials begin could just be you know, I could could be just totally crazy of me. But, you know, we just don’t know how things are going to change because the same sort of argument I use with people that really pay a tremendous amount of attention to some of the polls right now, when we know that you can’t really pay any attention to presidential polls until after the Iowa, Iowa caucuses and maybe New Hampshire primaries because everything gets shaken up, and everything changes.

Chris Beem
Well, and as you know, Tim Miller framed it. I have been, you know, continually surprised and disheartened at the degree to which Republican politician to absolutely no better continue to debase themselves to, you know, turn themselves into I shouldn’t say that. I really want to, though, continued to debase themselves for and, and for swear their oath to the Constitution for the sake of their seat of, you know, maintaining their seat. I, I don’t know, these people sleep at night, and I don’t say that facetiously I genuinely don’t. I mean, I assume they love their country. And I assume they, you know, they believe that when they, you know, so affirmed vowed their support for the Constitution. And yet, here we are, again, and I don’t you know, I mean, the latest I will pull, it would just be astonishing at this point. If Trump doesn’t walk away with it, and you know, the idea that something is going to intervene before say February to make people think, well, maybe he’s maybe I should look at Nikki Haley or Rhonda Santas again. I, you know, I would be thrilled if that happened, but I don’t think it’s gonna happen.

Michael Berkman
Yeah, you may be right. I mean, it seems it seems difficult, it’s difficult to imagine. I think we also still have to remember that a lot of people don’t pay much attention, this URL we do, and hardcore partisans do. And, of course, the media does with their constant fixation on polls, which in itself, I think is pretty dangerous for coverage of elections, because it means that they’re not covering what the implications of electing one candidate rather than another actually are. But there are a lot of people that are really not all that focused yet. And I take as an example of that these crazy polls that came out.

Candis Watts Smith
You think they’re gonna pay attention before they before primaries? I mean, well, before caucusing. Yes, yeah, attention are the people who vote in primaries, and those are the people who have who are making the choice for the rest of us later.

Michael Berkman
True. True. But still, I mean, when it comes down to time to caucus, you have to really sit down and think about it. And you have to do it in front of, you know, in front of your fellow caucus, mate. I don’t know. Maybe he’s gonna walk away with the whole thing. I he may well, I just think it’s a little early to be so sure of that. And especially given where we might be in some of the trials. But I don’t know. Well, just walk away with it.

Candis Watts Smith
I will just circle back to your previous point about Project 2025 Not being specifically about Trump. So he’s still may not be out of hot water.

Jenna Spinelle
So we have a few minutes left. And I thought that we would just talk about the other things that we liked this year that weren’t related to politics. Clearly, there’s not much to like about politics right now. So let’s talk about some of the other things they other books, movies, TV shows that you might recommend. I was telling you all earlier that that my students really enjoyed playing their Spotify wrapped in class and looking at those. So for me, I really got into the show for all mankind on Apple this year, which is a alternate history of what would have happened if Russia or the Soviet Union had been the first to the moon and the space race had continued. It’s a little bit sci fi but also has some really interesting geopolitical ramifications. They look at how the continued space race might have impacted American politics and cooperation between countries around the world and also just some really great writing and characters. So it’s in its fourth season now. So lots to go back and catch up on. And then on on my Spotify wrapped. My Top Artists this year was a guy named Corey Huang, who is a guitar player and leads a band that’s kind of a mix between Steely Dan and tower power or Earth, Wind and Fire, some kind of funk groups, but he’s incredibly talented, and also very good on social media. He put out this comedy series on YouTube. So just really multifaceted. So those are some of the things that helped me. Keep my news consumption in check this year, was focusing on things like that.

Michael Berkman
Well, I like that show to Jenna. Three. Oh, my God. Yeah, it’s really clever. And I mean, it’s not the best show on TV, but it’s it’s very clever and, and your suggestion had me thinking about a TV show as well. I think Jon Hamm playing a constitutional constitutional Sheriff on Fargo this year is just beautiful. I mean, the show is not everybody’s taste, I realized that but they did set up Jon Hamm as a constitutional sheriff and especially when he gives a speech right at the beginning all I can think about was the show that Candice and I did talking about constitutional sheriffs. They had it down I had it down pretty well my my Spotify revealed that that I have been listening repeatedly and by different artists to the Bob Dylan 2000 Song things have changed, which has a line that I just absolutely love these days. And a goes something goes like this. People are crazy. And times are strange. And every time I hear somebody sing that song, I think, Boy, you really had it in 2000 Imagine if you were writing that song today. And I had a book but I’ll save it because I’ve taken enough time.

Candis Watts Smith
So the TV show that I am living for right now is the Gilded Age is yeah, like, there are I mean, I’m really not into like period pieces, but this one I like because they’re, you know, it’s it’s between, you know, the Gilded Age. So right after Reconstruction right before that progressive era. And there are black characters who are central to the plotline in a way that other pieces around around this time are not and so, you know, there are some ways that are very romanticized like we don’t see. Anyway, we, anyway, I really like it. And I like that, like, they’re the, you know, it’s historical fiction. So there’s elements of real events and real people that you kind of want to like, look more into, right, so Thomas fortune shows up who is a black journalist. Why Frederick Douglass hasn’t shown up? I don’t know, but Booker T Washington has anyway. I accidentally read over Thanksgiving, this book called coming of age in Mississippi by Anne moody. And it is about a foot soldier in the civil rights movement. And it’s one of those, it was written in 1968 is written in vernacular, more or less. And it’s about one of those people that we just don’t know, despite the fact that we’ve benefited from her labor, her insight, bravery, she was exiled from her hometown in Mississippi, as a teenager, because she wanted to help people register to vote and to get access to better schools. And so, you know, it’s just one of those, you know, a story about a person who we don’t hear enough about, though the fact that their work changed our society.

Chris Beem
Well, I you know, reading or listening to that, Tim Miller quote, remind me that it his book, why we did it is real really good. It’s really engaging and seriously honest, and, and introspective, which is, which are words that are not commonly associated with politics these days. So that that I would recommend. So I have two TV shows. One is Slow Horses on an Apple TV, Gary Oldman, I don’t know what it is about Brits and their ability to act, but damn, it’s good. The other thing I wanted to say is I am embarrassed how much of a Star Wars geek I am. But if you haven’t seen Andor. Oh, my God. I mean, it’s it’s really good. Not if you’re just the Star Wars geek, but it’s just really, really good. And so if you haven’t seen that I would really recommend it to.

Jenna Spinelle
All right. Well, I’ll link all of those in the show notes, so folks can check them out, as well as the episodes that we play clips from today, if you want to go back and listen. And while we are on winter hiatus, the show will be off until mid January or so dive back in in 2024. But I hope everybody has a happy holiday season enjoys a little bit of rest at this time of year. Thank you as always to our partners at WPS you for making the show happen. Thank you to all of you, Michael canvas and Chris, for the whole team. I’m Jenna Spinelle. Thanks for listening.