Dastardly Cleverness in the Service of Good

Spencer Critchley
  • 4.9 (17)
  • POLITICS
  • UPDATED BIMONTHLY

Winner of national Communicator and W3 Awards: the podcast for people who make progress. Your host: writer, consultant, and national media commentator Spencer Critchley.

  1. Minneapolis: Saving Democracy From Moral Bankruptcy

    JAN 27

    Minneapolis: Saving Democracy From Moral Bankruptcy

    Normally, we should be reluctant to talk about politics in terms of morality. We can't live with each other, in peace anyway, if we think disagreement is a matter of good and evil. But that doesn't mean that democracy is amoral. Democracy will survive if we all stand up for the shared moral values that make democracy possible. That's what the peaceful protesters in Minneapolis are doing, even at the risk of their own lives: showing us how to rescue our democracy from moral bankruptcy. Video & transcript: https://spencercritchley.substack.com/p/minneapolis-saving-democracy-from

    5 min
  2. MAGA: An Escape From Freedom

    JAN 22

    MAGA: An Escape From Freedom

    One of the most confusing things about Trumpism is this paradox: People who believe so strongly in individual freedom are also eager to give away all their power, to one man. Why? One reason: Human beings yearn for freedom, but when we actually get it, we may find it terrifying. So argued the influential German psychologist Erich Fromm in "Escape From Freedom," published in 1941, when another authoritarian was at the peak of his power.

    6 min
  3. The Shooting of Renee Good

    JAN 11

    The Shooting of Renee Good

    In a democracy, law enforcement exists to protect people: their safety and their Constitutional rights. Under authoritarianism, law enforcement protects power. Under autocracy, it protects the power of one man. Which way we're going to live is still up to us. The shooting of Renee Nicole Good shows us what's at stake. — Spencer

    19 min

  4. 12/22/2025

    The True Crisis: The Liberal Backbone Chapter 15

    About a year ago, I started publishing draft chapters of my book in progress, The Liberal Backbone. It hit me lately that the draft is done – I realized that with the latest chapters I'd started writing a second book. That one will be on alienation, which I think deserves a book of its own. So I'm calling it. I'm going to switch to editing The Liberal Backbone — and, no doubt, editing some more, and then, more. To make time for it, I'll be cutting back on the frequency of podcast episodes for a while. For this one, I want to sum up why I think it's so crucially important for the lost liberal backbone to be restored. In a nutshell: the future of democracy depends on it. — Spencer

    4 min

  5. 10/22/2025

    The Art of Politics: The Liberal Backbone, Chapter 14

    Liberals think of rhetoric as something you cut through to get to the substance. But in politics, rhetoric is the substance. Politics is the art of persuading people. If you can't persuade them, you can't get anything done. That doesn't mean you have to lie to them. Yes, Donald Trump uses rhetoric, like all con artists. But so did Barack Obama, like Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, and Cicero did. All saw rhetoric as a tool for moral work. You can speak poetically and still speak truth — deeper truth, if you do it well. If liberals want to stop losing, they need to re-learn how. Here's where to start. Full transcription and links at dastardlycleverness.com.

    16 min

  6. 09/17/2025

    Escape From the Iron Cage: The Liberal Backbone, Chapter 13

    Escape from the iron cage of alienation appears to be impossible: You'll never think of a way out, because it's thinking that locks you in. Unless you discover a different way to think. This episode: a dive inside the mind of a musician.

    14 min

  7. 07/16/2025

    How to Lose in One Word: The Liberal Backbone, Chapter 12

    Every politician, or anyone trying to persuade anyone else of anything, faces two make-or-break moments: the moment before they say a word, and the moment they do. We turn to that second moment here. And to "Don't Mess With Texas." You probably know the slogan, but you may not know that it represents one of the most successful persuasion projects in history. There are many reasons for that, but among the most important is the power of one word. Full transcript and links at Substack and DastardlyCleverness.com.

    14 min

  8. 06/18/2025

    It's the Alienation, Stupid: The Liberal Backbone Chapter 11

    The fiendish thing about the iron cage of alienation is that the harder you try to escape, the harder that gets. The more you try to think your way out, the more surely you lock yourself in. A case in point: The Democratic Party recently paid $20 million to study how to talk to men. If Democrats are alienated from men, it might just be because they see them as objects of study, as opposed to human beings they actually know. And it's not just men who are becoming strangers to the Democratic Party. It's black, Latino, Asian, and female voters too. Many are members of the party's former, blue collar base. But how can Democrats get unalienated? How do you escape your own mind? Not by thinking the same old way, harder. You do it by learning to think in a different way. Find the full transcript and links for this episode at DastardlyCleverness.com.

    18 min
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Ratings & Reviews

4.9
out of 5
17 Ratings

About

Winner of national Communicator and W3 Awards: the podcast for people who make progress. Your host: writer, consultant, and national media commentator Spencer Critchley.

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