Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen Burt Cohen

Democracy is itself largely improvisation. Pushing back against the powers that be; the mainstream. Our guest Randy Fertel, author of the new book Winging It; Improv’s Power and Peril in the Age of Trump, says rationality alone is not enough; improvisation is needed to enrich rationality.There’s a lot to learn from Trump’s successful use (and abuse) of improvisation if we want to save American democracy.

Truman was down and nearly out. Then he did a campaign whistle stop tour of America and beat the odds. TV eye candy is one thing but seeing a president in the flesh connects far better, and connection is needed to win. On this show author of Whistle Stop Politics: Campaign Trains and the Reporters Who Covered Them, crisis management expert Edward Segal tells why and how the great theater of a train tour of America could uniquely generate public support.

The Right gets it; where are Democrats? In his new book What it Took to Win, author and history professor  Michael Kazin looks at the last hundred or so years and says it’s clear what has and still works.  Whether it’s the labor movement, or now perhaps the pro-choice movement, that’s far more powerful than mere party politics. Americans are against corporate greed, the cause of today’s inflation; so why are today’s politicians afraid to say that? Kazin says what connects and inspires is the prospect of  Moral Capitalism. Give a listen!

After decades in a coma, the nuclear industry is back. But the truth is nuclear power is not an acceptable stopgap measure, it’s a diversion from real, actually economic, safer solutions. On this show policy analyst Paul Gunter tells the truth behind the new nuclear PR campaign. He really knows his stuff.

In the current American version of capitalism, all of us are “thingified:” our only value being as digits on the way to corporate profits. This reflects a core bias in the system toward serving the very richest. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In her new book Wealth Supremacy; How the Extractive Economy and Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today’s Crises, author co-founder and former president of Business Ethics magazine Marjorie Kelly explains how capitalism can and must evolve to serve the common good. It can happen.

It’s basic to the very essence of America. On this show Constitutional Law Professor John O. McGinnis argues that commerce was the mother’s milk of the American Revolution and that the virtues of commerce and idealism need not conflict. Listen in and let him explain how it worked. And still does.