Background Briefing: December 31, 2023
Politics in the Year Ending and the Critical Year About to Begin
We begin on this New Year’s Eve with an analysis of the year we are ending and the critical year about to begin as the political realignment in this country changes with the previously sought-after center all but disappeared as the GOP is now a far-right party. Joining us to discuss this and the headwinds Biden is facing in 2024 is Richard Parker, who teaches economics and public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and is a Senior Fellow at the Shorenstein Center. He is a former managing editor of Ramparts, was a cofounder of Mother Jones magazine, and serves on the editorial board of The Nation. His books include, The Myth of the Middle Class and John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics.
A Recovering Republican on the GOP’s Embrace of Fascism
Then we speak with a recovering Republican about his party’s embrace of fascist language and a leader who admires Hitler and the worst dictators on the planet like Putin and Kim Jong Un. Joining us is Mike Lofgren, who has spent twenty-eight years working in Congress, the last sixteen as a senior analyst on the House and Senate Budget committees. He is the author of the New York Times Bestseller, The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless and the Middle Class Got Shafted and we discuss his article at Common Dreams, “Stolen Elections – Then and Now.”