Category: Interviews

Trey talks with Becca Block, author of Can You Help Me Give a Sh*t, in which she discusses the surprising policy implications of listening to student’s voices in public education.

Topics Trey and Becca Cover Include

• are we asking too much of the public school system?
• what it means to listen deeply to student voices
• the competing policy desires of parents, teachers, and students
• the intersection of race and gender on educational policy
• are libertarians right when it comes to public education?

Follow Becca on her website, and check out Can You Help Me Give A Sh*t

The Politics Guys on Facebook | X 

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo we’re @PoliticsGuys.

The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Castbox | PocketCasts | Overcast

Mike talks with Tulsi Gabbard, a military veteran and four-term member of Congress who was Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee. She caused a major stir when she left the party, which she’s written about in her recently released book, For Love of Country: Leave the Democrat Party Behind, which is the focus of their conversation.

Topics Mike & Tulsi Discuss Include:
– what drew Tulsi to the Democrats in the first place
– how she realized she no longer was a Democrat
– if Democratic Party elites are warmongers
– foreign policy and isolationism
– the ‘wokeism’ of contemporary Democrats
– the Democratic Party and free speech

Check out Tulsi’s Website and follow her on X

The Politics Guys on Facebook | X

Mike’s other podcast is Sustainable Planet.

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo we’re @PoliticsGuys.

The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Castbox | PocketCasts | Overcast

Mike talks with Allen Guelzo, the Thomas W. Smith Distinguished Research Scholar in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. Professor Guelzo is a three-time winner of the Lincoln Prize, awarded annually for the finest scholarly work in English on Abraham Lincoln, the American Civil War soldier, or a subject relating to their era. They discuss his latest book, Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment.

Topics Discussed Include:
– why Lincoln had such faith in democracy
– if Lincoln saw Blacks as truly equal
– Lincoln’s constitutionally questionable actions
– what current-day politicians could learn from Lincoln
– Lincoln’s cosmic optimism

Check out Mike’s other podcast, Sustainable Planet.

The Politics Guys on Facebook | X

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo we’re @PoliticsGuys.

The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Castbox | PocketCasts | Overcast

Kimberly Weir, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Northern Kentucky University and co-host of Sustainable Planet talks with Akshat Rathi, award-winning senior reporter for Bloomberg News and the host of Zero, a climate-solutions podcast for Bloomberg Green and author of Climate Capitalism: Winning the Race to Zero Emissions and Solving the Crisis of Our Age.

Topics Kimberly & Akshat discuss include:

• How a misinformed campaign marketing slogan about ‘clean coal’ led Akshat into the year-long pursuit of uncovering the truth about climate technology
• Why economists feel the way to address climate change is to put a price on carbon
• How to achieve negative carbon emissions since zero emissions alone isn’t enough
• Why, when it comes to electric cars, you’ve never heard of Wan Gang, though Elon Musk is a household name
• Why the very industries that created lithium-ion batteries, solar cells, and carbon capture and storage are so resistant to employing that technology
• How private capital from billionaires like Bill Gates and anyone with a 401K plan is a key part of pursuing climate technology
• That climate justice is both ethically the right path but also reaps global economic benefits
• The need to shift from ‘shareholder’ to ‘stakeholder’ if we’re going to meet the less-ambitious Paris Conference climate change goals

Akshat Rathi on X

Listen to Part 2 of the interview on Sustainable Planet.

The Politics Guys on Facebook | X

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo we’re @PoliticsGuys.

The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Castbox | PocketCasts | Overcast

Mike welcomes back to the show Bryan Caplan, a Professor of Economics at George Mason University, prolific author, and blogger at Bet on It. They discuss his latest essay collection, You Will Not Stampede Me: Essays on Non-Conformism.

Topics Mike and Bryan Discuss Include
– disobedience to authority
– why the world is wrong and the weird is right
– herding and hysteria
– the ubiquity (and danger) of crusades
– what the world got wrong about COVID
– combining cynicism and idealism

Bryan Caplan on X

The Politics Guys on Facebook | X

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo we’re @PoliticsGuys.

The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Castbox | PocketCasts | Overcast

Trey talks with author Sasha Issenberg  about his new book The Lie Detectives: In Search of a Playbook for Winning Elections in the Disinformation Age, in which he talks about the left’s campaign strategies to combat “disinformation” and “misinformation.”

Topics Trey and Sasha Cover Include
– why the left is primarily interested in disinformation
– the campaign strategies of Democrats online
– the focus on engagement in political persuasion
– how overseas democracies have faced similar disinformation strategies
– Brazilian cautions for some leftwing approaches to disinformation

Follow Sasha on X, and check out The Lie Detectives

The Politics Guys on Facebook | X

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo we’re @PoliticsGuys.

The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Castbox | PocketCasts | Overcast

Mike talks with historical anthropologist Nicholas Dirks, Chancellor of UC Berkeley from 2013-2017, about his book City of Intellect: The Uses and Abuses of the University.

Topics Include:
– the public’s decline of faith in higher education
– if higher ed is focused on the right kind of diversity
– free speech as privileging dominant views
– what elite institutions are doing with their massive endowments
– rising education costs and administrative bloat at universities
– if public universities should take positions on political issues

The Politics Guys on Facebook | X

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo we’re @PoliticsGuys.

The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Castbox | PocketCasts | Overcast

Trey talks with constitutional law professor Maxwell Stearns about his new book Parliamentary America which argues the U.S. needs to adapt the U.S. House to include proportional representation.

Topics Trey and Max Cover Include
– how the median voter theory is inaccurate
– why American parties are tending in extreme directions
– proposals to double the size of the House of Representatives
– proposals to transform the selection of president and vice president
– proposals to change how to remove a president
– the historic necessity of convincing relevant actors to agree to these changes.

Follow Max on X, and check out Parliamentary America

The Politics Guys on Facebook | X

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo we’re @PoliticsGuys.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Castbox | PocketCasts | Overcast

Mike talks with George Laws Garcia, a former acting director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration and Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Statehood Council.

Topics Mike and George Cover Include:
– how Puerto Ricans are second class US citizens
– Puerto Rico and federal income taxes
– independence as opposed to statehood
– how Puerto Ricans feel about statehood
– US domestic political considerations
– what making Puerto Rico a state might cost
– short and medium-term prospects for statehood

Follow George on X, and check out Puerto Rico 51st

The Politics Guys on Facebook | X

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo we’re @PoliticsGuys.