Episodes

In a decade that is no stranger to political 180s, the stance America's left and right have taken on the subject of internet censorship fits right in. The Republicans, the party that supported a ban on flag burning and derided professional athletes for kneeling during the national anthem, has taken...

One of the areas where America's left and right can find common ground is in their hatred of big tech. One of the ironies is that they often use the same companies they're railing against as a platform to complain about them. The spread of disinformation during the 2016 and 2020 elections, around...

Right before the election, I had the chance to speak with a Trump supporter who defied many of the stereotypes popular media has conveyed about the MAGA movement. He was college-educated. He worked in the tech industry in one of America’s more liberal urban enclaves. He was an immigrant who had...

In the late 1960s, America appeared to be a country coming apart at the seams. The split over the US presence in Vietnam and the Civil Rights Movement was disrupting the traditional political coalitions that existed within the Democratic Party and created an opening for the Republicans - a party...

As a year, 2020 was a decade in and of itself. What began with wildfires in Australia and a near war with Iran and ended with an American president refuting the results of an election for the first time in history contained a pandemic that changed how we work, educate our children, and communicate,...

The 117th Congress (that would be the current one, for those of you who've lost count) has been lauded as having the highest percentage of women in history. This would be a cause for celebration, if that historical high weren't 27%. Jennifer Lawless, Professor of Politics at the University of...

The filibuster and Electoral College are often grouped together as institutions necessary to prevent swings in popular opinion having undue influence over federal policy. On the surface, they both seem to fit into America’s unique brand of federalism, where laws governing the whole of the country...

Many of the past 86 episodes of YDHTY have been dedicated to railing against America's two party duopoly as the main source of today's polarized political climate. After recording this episode, I may need to issue a few qualifiers to that statement.  Raymond La Raja, Professor of Politics at the...

The For the People Act (colloquially known by its very official name, H.R. 1) passed the House on a predictable near-party line vote. To the right, H.R. 1 represents an attack on electoral integrity on the part of a Democratic-led federal government. To the left, the bill represents a response to...

In 2018, Americans learned data-analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica, micro-targeted millions of voters in the 2016 election with campaign messaging built around specific personality traits, such as neuroticism and openness to new experiences. More surprising, was the fact this information was...