Episode 238: The Third Estate Rising

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Politics in America comes down to the DEMs vs. the GOPs, right? One represents wealth, and the other claims the hearts of regular people, right? Well, it’s more complicated. I'll explore this complicatedness in this Episode 238: The Third Estate Rising.

In this episode, I read from: a 2018 RAND Corporation paper titled "Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life"; William Rosen's 2010 book, The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention; Joel Kotkin's 2020 book, The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. I shared from memory the origin of the word "churl," something I got from The History of English Podcast.


An image from the James Galbraith article mentioned below.

I also shared a James Galbraith article, "Inequality and the 2016 Election Outcome: A Dirty Secret and a Dilemma."

I played: Jimmy Fallon and his band backing and slow jamming the neoliberal utterances of Barack Obama. KMFDM backed an opening with Martin Luther King, Jr. in honor of Black History Month, and I'm closing today with Julie & Rolf & The Campfire Gang doing "Over the Rainbow".