Category: Briefings

Having Shunned Mamdani, Will the Democratic Establishment Now Embrace Him?

We begin with Zohran Mamdani’s resounding victory in the race for Mayor of New York City which has captured the nation’s attention and mobilized young Gen Z voters to propel him to win big and overcome the hysterical lies of the monied establishment and backers of Andrew Cuomo like Elon Musk. Joining us is Moira Donegan, writer in residence at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University. Her work has appeared in The London Review of Books, Bookforum and The Paris Review. She is the co-host of the podcast In Bed With The Right and a columnist at The Guardian where her latest article is “Mamdani’s victory is a rebuke to the failed strategies of the democratic party.” To bring a fresh perspective from the generation who came out for Mamdani, the young voters the Democrats need to engage, Background Briefing’s new Gen Z reporter Sasha Linden Cohen interviews Moira.

California Governor Newsom’s Warning That Trump Will Do Anything and Everything to Rig the Next Election

Then we examine the warning from California’s Governor Newsom in his victory speech last night celebrating the overwhelming passage of Proposition 50 that Donald Trump will do anything and everything to rig the vote to deny Democrats a win in next year’s midterms and that Democrats, independents and reasonable Republicans have to wake up to that reality if we are to save our democracy. Joining us is Alexander Keyssar, a Professor of History and Social Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School where his current research interests include election reform, the history of democracies, and the history of poverty. His book, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and previously he chaired the Social Science Research Council’s National Research Commission on Voting and Elections. His latest book is Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?

The Republicans Are the Real Radicals and They Have a Nazi Problem

Then finally, as Trump and Miller keep spewing the absurdity that Democrats are radical leftists and Communists when it is clear that Republicans are harboring real radicals and have a Nazi problem, we speak with Michael Edison Hayden, a leading expert on far-right extremism in the United States. His debut book, Strange People on the Hill — a chronicle of a West Virginia town in the five years following a white nationalist group’s purchase of a local castle — will be published early next April. He also co-hosts with Jared Holt the podcast, “Posting Through It,” and we discuss his article at MSNBC, “Nick Fuentes started a MAGA civil war — and it looks like he’s winning.”