Category: Interviews

Harvard’s Gary King on Gerrymandering, Big Data, & Chinese Social Media Use

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Mike talks to Harvard’s Gary King, author or co-author of over 150 scholarly journal articles, 20 open-source software packages, eight books, and winner of more prizes, awards, and honors than you can shake a stick at. Dr. King is a fellow in eight honorary societies, including the National Academy of Sciences. He is unquestionably one of the preeminent political scientists of the last half century.

His work encompasses a broad range of issues including demographic forecasting, legislative redistricting, Chinese government censorship & social media use, bias in Social Security Administration forecasts, analysis of ‘Big Data’, and numerous publications in the area of what statistics and modeling.

Mike and Dr. King discuss gerrymandering, partisan symmetry, bias in Social Security predictions, how the Chinese government uses social media, and lots more.

– Follow Gary King on Twitter
– Dr. King’s jaw-droppingly impressive page at Harvard

This show is sponsored by Brooklinen.com. Mike is super-picky about bedding, and he thinks Brooklinen’s sheets are the best he’s ever slept under. Brooklinen is so confident that you’ll love their sheets that they offer a risk-free 60-night satisfaction guarantee and a lifetime warranty on all of their sheets and comforters. Politics Guys listeners get $20 off AND free shipping by using promo code tpg at Brooklinen.com.

Brooke Gladstone On The Media

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Mike talks to Brooke Gladstone, co-host and managing editor of WNYC’s On The Media. Ms. Gladstone has won multiple awards for her reporting, including a National Press Club Award and two Peabody Awards. She’s also the author of two books: The Influencing Machine, a media manifesto in graphic form and, most recently, The Trouble With Reality: A Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Time, which came out in May.

Brooke Gladstone’s Recommended News Sources
– Talking Points Memo
– Vox
– Commentary
– The Weekly Standard
– National Review
– The New York Times
– The Washington Post
– National Public Radio

Follow Brooke Gladstone on Twitter
https://twitter.com/OTMBrooke

We hope you’ll check out this show’s sponsors:
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Kurt Schlichter Explains How Hillary Clinton is Evil & Listener Mail

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There was so much intense listener response to Mike’s recent interview with Townhall.com columnist Kurt Schlichter, that Mike and Jay decided to devote the first part of this listener mail episode to addressing those responses and explaining why Mr. Schlichter was invited on the show. Mr. Schlichter himself appears in this episode, to explain what he meant when, in the interview, he repeatedly referred to Hillary Clinton as evil.

After that, the Guys answer listener mail, including questions about climate change, reasons for opposition to normalizing relations with Cuba, and their thoughts on a Politics Guys ‘Cheers’ analogy.

We hope you’ll check out the sponsors of today’s show:
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An A+ For Donald Trump

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Mike talks to Kurt Schlichter, an attorney, retired Army infantry colonel, and Senior Columnist for Townhall.com. His commentary on political, military, and legal issues has been featured in numerous national outlets, such as Fox News, CNN, and the Hugh Hewitt Show.

They discuss why Hillary Clinton has less respect for democratic norms than Donald Trump, scuzzy bureaucrats in the intelligence community hoping to destroy the Trump presidency, why he gives Trump a grade of A+ so far, the complete lack of evidence in the Russia probes, and lots more!

– follow Kurt Schlichter on Twitter

Kurt’s Recommended Sites
– Townhall
– Instapundit
– American Greatness
– American Thinker

Moneyball for Politics: Sasha Issenberg’s ‘The Victory Lab’

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Mike talks to Sasha Issenberg, a political journalist whose work has appeared in Slate, Washington Monthly, The Atlantic, and lots of other places. He’s a contributor to Bloomberg Politics and the author of multiple books, including the widely praised The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns which Politico called ‘Moneyball for Politics’.

Follow Sasha on Twitter

The Economist’s Ryan Avent on The Wealth of Humans

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Mike talks with Economist senior editor and columnist Ryan Avent, author of The Gated City and, most recently, The Wealth of Humans: Work, Power, and Status in the Twenty-First Century.

In addition to The Economist, Mr. Avent’s work has appeared in outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Republic, the Atlantic, and the Washington Examiner. Prior to coming to The Economist, he worked as an economic consultant and an industry analyst for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He has an economics degree from North Carolina State University, and an Masters of Science in economic history from the London School of Economics.

Mike and Ryan talk about where the jobs are going, who’s at risk, the effects on economic inequality, the social and psychological effects of a largely jobless future, and lots more.

Ryan Avent Recommends
– EconTalk
– FT Alphachat
– The Weeds
– Marginal Revolution University

Follow Ryan Avent on Twitter

Fighting Trump State by State & Mapping Police Violence

Mike talks to Samuel Sinyangwe, co-founder of OurStates, an initiative that connects communities to actionable information and tools to reject the Trump / GOP agenda in every state and protect communities from harm.

Mr. Sinyangwe is a policy analyst and data scientist who also co-founded Mapping Police Violence, which collects and analyzes data on police violence in the United States. He’s been featured on MSNBC, CNN, BBC, LA Times, the Forbes ’30 under 30′ and The Root 100.

– Follow Samuel Sinyangwe on Twitter

Show Links
– Vox.com
– FiveThirtyEight.com

Die-Hard Independent Matthew Dowd on ‘A New Way’

Mike talks to author, ABC News chief political analyst, and die-hard independent Matthew Dowd. Mr. Dowd has extensive experience in politics where he’s worked for candidates and officeholders on both sides of the aisle, including Democrats Dick Gephardt & Lloyd Bentsen and Republicans George W. Bush – on whose campaign he was chief strategist – and Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s co-author of the bestselling book Applebees America and his latest book, which just came out this spring, is A New Way: Embracing The Paradox as we Lead and Serve. He’s also founded multiple companies, including ListenTo.us, a community of independent minded people sick and tired of gridlock and the lack of common-sense leadership and dedicated to putting the ‘united’ back in United States.

Follow Matthew Dowd on Twitter

Donald Trump: Threat to Democracy?

Mike talks to journalist and researcher Dr. Sarah Kendzior about the threat posed by the Trump presidency, media elites & ‘flyover country’ and lots more.

Dr. Kendzior is a columnist for Canada’s Globe and Mail, and her work has has appeared in multiple national outlets in the U.S. including Politico, Slate, The Atlantic, and the New York Times. She’s also the author of the best-selling essay collection, The View from Flyover Country.

Dr. Kendzior has a PhD in anthropology, with her academic work focusing on the authoritarian states of the former Soviet Union and how the internet affects political mobilization, self-expression, and trust.

She also maintains an always-fascinating Twitter account and was named one of “the 100 people you should be following on Twitter to make sense of global events” by Foreign Policy magazine.

Follow Dr. Kendzior
– Twitter | her website

Show Links
– Evan McMullan
– Rick Wilson

Daniel Drezner Interview

Mike talks with Dr. Daniel Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Dr. Drezner is the author of multiple books, including Theories of International Politics and Zombies, The System Worked: How The World Stopped Another Great Depression, and most recently, The Ideas Industry: How Pessimists, Partisans, and Plutocrats are Transforming the Marketplace of Ideas.

In this interview, Mike and Dr. Drezner discuss public intellectuals, thought leaders, TED Talks, self-promoting academics, why economists are more popular than political scientists, ‘Trump vs. The Blob’, North Korea, and lots more!

Dr. Drezner’s Recommended Reading
– Realpolitik: A History. Jon Bew
– The Death of Expertise. Tom Nichols
– The Age of Anger. Pankaj Mishra
– From the Ruins of Empire. Pankaj Mishra
– The Perils of Privilege. Phoebe Maltz Bovy