Joshua Cohen on Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, and Attention

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Mike talks to novelist and essayist Joshua Cohen about his latest book, Attention: Dispatches from a Land of Distraction. In this talk, Mike and Joshua discuss:

  • Donald Trump and the Fall of Atlantic City
  • What people who have worked with Donald Trump have to say about him
  • Ethnic whites and the Trump coalition
  • Contrasting Donald Trump and Barack Obama
  • The appeal of Bernie Sanders
  • Distraction and Attention

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. If you’re interested in supporting the show, go to politicsguys.com/support.

Behind the Scenes in the Obama (and Trump) White House with Beck Dorey-Stein (Politics Plus)

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(There was a very short period in Mike’s life where he thought he could handle his teaching job, write a book, host The Politics Guys, and start a new podcast – Politics Plus. It soon became evident to Mike how insane trying to do all this at once was, and so he quickly shut down Politics Plus. But before he did, he’d posted four interviews – all of which he thinks are pretty good and are worth sharing with you as Politics Guys bonus episodes.)


Mike talks with Beck Dorey-Stein, who worked as a White House stenographer from 2012 – 2017. She’s written about her experiences in the recently released book, From the Corner of the Oval. They discuss:

  • What White House stenographers do
  • How being in the White House changed how Beck felt about politics
  • If the White House is anything like the TV show The West Wing
  • The insane hours and workloads of White House staffers
  • What happens behind the scenes during crises
  • ‘Living the dream’ in the Obama administration
  • Her view of President Obama
  • What it was like to come to work the day after Donald Trump was elected
  • What it was like working in the Trump administration
  • And lots more

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. If you’re interested in supporting the show, go to politicsguys.com/support.

Democratic Diversity, Pulling Security Clearances, Strzok Fired, Predator Priests, For-Profit Schools

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Mike and Jay open the show with a look at the recent primary elections in Vermont, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Kansas. Mike is pleased to see his Democrats nominating diverse candidates, while Jay points out that while diversity is a good thing, being well-qualified, regardless of race, creed, or color is what’s most important.

Next is a look at President Trump pulling former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance, with the administration planning more security clearance revocations in the future. Mike argues that this politicizing of security clearances is essentially unprecedented and is yet another example of how President Trump’s disregard for custom and unwritten law is damaging the United States. Jay doesn’t disagree, though he points out that what the president has done is not legally impermissible.

After that, the Guys discuss the sickening revelations concerning predator priests coming out of a Pennsylvania grand jury report. Mike hopes there will be similar investigations in every state that shake the Catholic Church to its core and force a change in what many say is a deeply corrupt culture of cover-up. Jay agrees that the Church’s culture needs to change, but he feels that some of the legislative proposals aimed at helping victims may have serious unintended consequences.

The show closes with a look at Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ plan to rescind a rule that forces for-profit colleges and vocational schools to demonstrate that graduates are able to get decent-paying jobs. Mike argues that this rule has gone a long way to cleaning up the fraudulent excesses of for-profit education and should be maintained. Jay counters that there should be one rule to cover both for-profit and not-for-profit schools.

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. If you’re interested in supporting the show, go to politicsguys.com/support.

Libertarians, Medicare for All, GOP Racism, 3rd Parties, Obama Spying Scandal

In this listener comment episode Trey and Mike discuss:

  • Trey’s take on what a Libertarian is
  • How Democrats could pay for Medicare for all
  • Why the GOP has trouble with racism
  • How Mike would run Trump and Trey would run a Democratic opponent
  • Why 3rd Parties struggle in the U.S. even when people seemingly hate the two major political parties
  • Why we  haven’t covered the Obama spying scandal

Listener Support helps make The Politics Guys possible. If you’re interested in supporting the show, go to politicsguys.com/support.

Neuroscientist Tali Sharot on Political Influence, Persuasion, and Donald Trump (Politics Plus)

(There was a very short period in Mike’s life where he thought he could handle his teaching job, write a book, host The Politics Guys, and start a new podcast – Politics Plus. It soon became evident to Mike how insane trying to do all this at once was, and so he quickly shut down Politics Plus. But before he did, he’d posted four interviews – all of which he thinks are pretty good and are worth sharing with you as Politics Guys bonus episodes.)


Mike talks to Tali Sharot, director of the Affective Brain Lab and an Associate Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the department of Experimental Psychology at University College London. Dr. Sharot’s research integrates neuroscience, behavioral economics, and psychology to study how emotion influences people’s beliefs, decisions and social interactions. She’s the author of The Optimism Bias and, most recently, The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals About Our Power to Change Others.

Mike and Dr. Sharot discuss:

  • how some information is like sex and plum pie
  • why Donald Trump was so much more influential than his Republican presidential rivals
  • how our attempts to persuade others can actually boomerang on us, leaving them less persuaded than they were to start with
  • how to go from getting someone to agree with you to getting them to act
  • when crowds are wise and when they’re not
  • and lots more

Follow the Affective Brain Lab on Twitter

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. If you’re interested in supporting the show, go to politicsguys.com/support.

The Ohio 12th, Missouri and the “Right to Work” Law, the Manafort Trial, Insider Trading and Representative Collins, Nunes’ Private Remarks

Trey and Mike open this week’s show focusing on the recent Ohio 12th District’s special election. Both Trey and Mike agree that the 12th District looks like trouble for Republicans. This year, statistically, Democrats should do better and both agree the evidence suggests they might do a bit better than that. Specifically Trey points to the shifting demographics for Republicans where suburban voters are leaving Republicans as rural voters increase.

Next is a discussion of Missouri’s recent strike down of a “right to work” law. Trey and Mike disagree over whether such laws — which do not allow employment to be dependent on union membership — help or hurt workers. They do agree that the law’s failure to pass is evidence that there is a structural shift taking place in American politics.

After that Trey and Mike return to the trial of Paul Manafort — again — and investigate how this might or might not effect President Trump. At this point it doesn’t seem there is much connection to Trump and Mike takes the depressing view that nothing seems to shake Trump supporters.

Then it is time to discuss Representative Collins and his alleged insider trading. In a broader take on the issue Mike offers that members of Congress ought to be paid more and not allowed to sit on publicly traded boards.

Mike and Trey finish the show by putting Nunes’ comments in context. Mike thinks it shows the widening gap between discourse communities and Trey contextualizes the issue by suggesting such comments are not too far from par in private fundraising situations.

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. If you’re interested in supporting the show, go to politicsguys.com/support.

Antitrust, Occam’s Razor, Bad Candidates, Lines in the Sand, Farmer Payments, Russia Investigation

In this listener comment episode Mike and Jay discuss:

  • Google and antitrust
  • Mike’s inconsistent use of Occam’s Razor
  • Why there aren’t more good candidates
  • Jay’s ‘line in the sand’ on Trump
  • The $12 billion in payments to U.S. farmers hurt by the trade war
  • The information release fight between the Department of Justice and House Republicans
  • President Trump’s calls to halt the Mueller investigation

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. If you’re interested in supporting the show, go to politicsguys.com/support.

Mona Charen on how Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense (Politics Plus)

(There was a very short period in Mike’s life where he thought he could handle his teaching job, write a book, host The Politics Guys, and start a new podcast – Politics Plus. It soon became evident to Mike how insane trying to do all this at once was, and so he quickly shut down Politics Plus. But before he did, he’d posted four interviews – all of which he thinks are pretty good and are worth sharing with you as Politics Guys bonus episodes.)

Mike talks to Mona Charen, one of the most prominent conservative voices in the United States. She writes a syndicated column that appears in more than 200 newspapers, she’s a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and is the author of the books Useful Idiots, Do-Gooders,and the recently released Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense.

Topics they cover include:

  • differences between pioneering feminists and the ‘second-wave’ feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s
  • feminism and the Marxist concept of ‘false consciousness’
  • what science tells us about biological differences between the sexes
  • whether women can ‘have it all’
  • how sexual empowerment was a wrong turn for the feminist movement
  • the rise of ‘no-fault’ divorces and the damage they’ve done
  • whether ‘my body, my choice’ and ‘safe, legal, and rare’ is a reasonable approach to abortion
  • the ‘Campus Rape Industrial Complex’
  • the transgender movement

Follow Mona Charen on Twitter

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. If you’re interested in supporting the show, go to politicsguys.com/support.

Manafort Trial, 3D Printer Guns, Fuel Efficiency Standards, Another Blow to Obamacare

Mike and Jay open this week’s show with a look at the trial of Paul Manafort, who’s accused of tax fraud, bank fraud, and bank fraud conspiracy. Both of the Guys agree that things look pretty bad for Manafort. While the charges aren’t directly related to Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, Mike and Jay say that Mueller couldn’t simply ignore evidence of crimes discovered as part of his investigation into Russian interference.

Next is a discussion of 3D printed guns, in the news due to the Trump administration settling with the gun blueprint creator which would have allowed posting of the design specifications on the Internet. Mike and Jay both have big problems with the ruling of a federal judge that prohibited posting of the designs, seeing it as unconstitutional prior restraint.

After that, Mike and Jay consider two big Trump administration regulatory changes: freezing automotive fuel efficiency standards and expanding ‘short term’ health insurance policies that can legally circumvent Obamacare minimum coverage standards. Mike sees both of these moves as bad policy. Jay likes them from a policy standpoint, but argues that the Trump administration may not be entitled to get all of what it wants through the regulatory process.

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. If you’re interested in supporting the show, go to politicsguys.com/support.

John Sides on Public Perceptions of Muslims in the Trump Era

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Mike talks to political scientist John Sides about his Democracy Fund Voter Study Group report, ‘Muslims in America: Public Perceptions in the Trump Era‘.

Dr. Sides is an associate professor of political science at The George Washington University, co-author of the books Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America (coming out in September of 2018) and The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election, as well as a founder and the editor-in-chief of the political science blog, The Monkey Cage.

Topics Mike and Dr. Sides discuss include:

  • How favorably Americans rate Muslims.
  • Differences in how Republicans and Democrats rate Muslims.
  • How education affects Muslim bias.
  • Public support for a Muslim ban.
  • Americans’ views of Muslims compared to Muslim Americans’ own views about themselves.
  • Mainstream media’s role in perpetuating anti-Muslim bias.

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. If you’re interested in supporting the show, go to politicsguys.com/support.