Political Reality

Political Reality
  • 4.9 (98)
  • Politics
  • Updated Weekly

Our daily lives seem increasingly overwhelmed by polarization, misinformation, and dubious culture wars, while we face countless serious problems that require thoughtful and evidence-based solutions. To move forward, we need a shared reality of facts and reason with an equally shared dedication to democracy and fairness. The Political Reality podcast is here to fill that void – diving into how politics and governments work, how to make them work better, how to navigate the dizzying world of political information, and how to better understand and approach the “other side”.  We can find a shared political reality if we are willing.

  1. 4h ago

    How Does Democracy Score

    Political Reality

    1h 2m

  2. Season 1, Episode 20 Trailer

    PREVIEW: Being in Congress

    Full Episode https://www.patreon.com/posts/being-in-s01e21-159335999 Thanks to Derek Kilmer for joining us!

    10 min

  3. May 20

    How to Talk Politics with Prof. Lindsay Cormack

    Prof. Cormack’s excellent book, How to Raise a Citizen (And Why It’s Up to You to Do It): https://howtoraiseacitizen.com/ Her DC Inbox searchable database of e-newsletters from members of Congress (well worth exploring): https://www.dcinbox.com/ More of her research and writing: https://www.lindseycormack.com/ Follow Prof. Cormack: https://www.instagram.com/howtoraiseacitizen/

    59 min

  4. Season 1, Episode 19 Trailer

    European Affective Polarization

    🌍 Primary studies discussed in the episode: 1. 📄 Wagner, Markus (2024), “Affective polarization in Europe,” European Political Science Reviewhttps://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-political-science-review/article/affective-polarization-in-europe/36BDBF804365FE0B350E610E9E7C714E 2. 📄 Boxell et al. (2024), “Cross-country trends in affective polarization,” The Review of Economics and Statisticshttps://direct.mit.edu/rest/article-abstract/106/2/557/109262/Cross-Country-Trends-in-Affective-Polarization 3. 📚 Reiljan, Andres (2025), “Affective polarization in Europe,” ch. 8 of the Handbook of Affective Polarizationhttps://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap-oa/book/9781035310609/chapter8.xml 📘 Handbook of Affective Polarizationhttps://www.elgaronline.com/edcollbook-oa/book/9781035310609/9781035310609.xml 4. 📄 Iyengar et al. (2012), “Affect, not ideology: A social identity perspective on polarization,” Public Opinion Quarterlyhttps://pcl.sites.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj22066/files/media/file/iyengar-poq-affect-not-ideology.pdf 5. 📄 Iyengar et al. (2019), “The origins and consequences of affective polarization in the United States,” Annual Review of Political Sciencehttps://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051117-073034 6. 📄 Druckman & Levy (2022), “Affective polarization in the American public,” ch. 18 of the Handbook on Politics and Public Opinionhttps://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/book/9781800379619/book-part-9781800379619-30.xml 7. 🎙️ And, of course, see our previous episode on this :).https://politicalrealitypodcast.com/videos/is-polarization-actually-a-problem-s01e05-teaser/ Finally, you may be surprised to see that Turkey is included as a European country. We were also surprised! While only 3% of Turkey’s landmass (or 15% of its population) is in Europe (the rest is considered to be in Asia), it is relatively standard practice in global measures to categorize it along with other European countries. For example, see also the latest Economist Intelligence Unit 2025 democracy index report:https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2025/ Or their Wikipedia page if you don’t feel like downloading it!:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index Turkey is also a NATO member, member of the Council of Europe, and an EU candidate (though negotiations are currently frozen), among other European memberships. Most importantly, it’s also part of Eurovision ;). All of that said, this is an excellent example of how the “simple” act of classification, never mind quantification, is an enduring challenge in political science! You could certainly imagine a valid case for analyzing, say, aggregate European data both with and without Turkey included (as well as Russia, and some others). 🧠 For a primer/refresher on affective polarization in general, see:🇹🇷 A quick note on Turkey and “Europe”

    10 min

  5. May 7

    Damage to Science Under Trump

    https://www.npr.org/2025/12/22/nx-s1-5642965/what-cuts-to-research-under-trump-have-meant-for-science-in-2025⁠ ⁠https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-026-00088-9/index.html⁠ ⁠https://www.science.org/content/article/how-trump-administration-dismantling-science-u-s⁠ ⁠https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/opinion/doge-hiv-funding.html⁠ ⁠https://scienceimpacts.org⁠ ⁠https://www.cgdev.org/blog/update-lives-lost-usaid-cuts⁠

    1h 6m

  6. Season 1, Episode 17 Trailer

    PREVIEW: Politicization of Science

    https://www.patreon.com/posts/politicization-156907450

    10 min

  7. Apr 22

    What would it take to solve homelessness in America? with Andrew Heaton!

    1. 🎙️ Check out Andrew Heaton’s podcast and Substack, The Political Orphanagehttps://www.thepoliticalorphanage.com 2. ▶️ You can also find his podcast and other videos on YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/@AndrewHeatonTPO 3. 📚 Here’s one of his many books: Tribalism is Dumbhttps://www.amazon.com/Tribalism-Dumb-Where-Came-about/dp/B0DJKSZP6J 4. 🎧 Here are some of his Political Orphanage episodes that are about homelessness:     🏚️ Homelessness, and our stupid solutions     https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/homelessness-and-our-stupid-solutions/id1439837349?i=1000548447580     🦖 How Godzilla beat the housing crisis     https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-godzilla-beat-the-housing-crisis/id1439837349?i=1000710268550&l=fr-FR     🏘️ The best tiny house village in America (an interview with Alan Graham, the founder of Community First! Village, an organization we discussed in the episode)     https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-best-tiny-house-village-in-america/id1439837349?i=1000549032659     🐶 We’ll watch your dog while you’re in rehab (an interview with Evan Taylor and Cindy Webb, who lead Pause for Paws, one of the organizations we talked about in the episode)     https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/well-watch-your-dog-while-youre-in-rehab/id1439837349?i=1000685060836 5. 🏡 More information about Community First! Villagehttps://mlf.org/community-first/ 6. 🐾 More information about Pause for Pawshttps://www.pause4pawsok.org 7. 🌐 Check out all of Andrew Heaton’s goings on:https://mightyheaton.com/ 8. 😂 You can also watch him in comedy videos about politics, like this one!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1z_xtOmgek

    1h 5m

  8. Season 1, Episode 15 Trailer

    PREVIEW: Urban Rural Bias

    Full Episode: https://www.patreon.com/posts/155715368 1. 📚 Katherine J. Cramer, The Politics of Resentmenthttps://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo22879533.html     📝 a. Non-paywalled, non-scientific, but nevertheless helpful and short(!) student summary of a talk by Kathy about this work     https://civic.mit.edu/index.html?p=1891.html 2. 📄 Katherine J. Cramer, “Putting inequality in its place: Rural consciousness and the power of perspective.”https://www.jstor.org/stable/23275431     🔬 a. Somewhat unrelated, and we didn’t actually mention this in the episode, but Katherine Cramer is also involved in a project at the MIT Center for Constructive Communication that might be of interest to our audience :)     https://www.ccc.mit.edu 3. 📄 Nelson & Petsko, “Race and white rural consciousness”https://www.christopherpetsko.com/uploads/1/2/5/8/125868532/race-and-white-rural-consciousness.pdf 4. 📄 Trujillo & Crowley, “Symbolic versus material concerns of rural consciousness in the United States”https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0962629822000725 5. 📄 Brown & Mettler, “Rural politics in the United States”https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-040623-114017 6. 📄 Brown & Mettler, “Sequential polarization: The development of the rural-urban political divide, 1976–2020”https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/sequential-polarization-the-development-of-the-ruralurban-political-divide-19762020/ED2077E0263BC149FED8538CD9B27109 7. 🌐 Quick article summarizing some empirical trends between population density and vote sharehttps://stanfordmag.org/contents/the-urban-rural-divide 8. 📄 Kaufman, “Where are the values voters? Ideological constraint and stability among rural, suburban, and urban populations in the United States”https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0743016721003259     📊 a. Relatedly, here’s a research report that underscores that urban, suburban, and rural areas are by no means monoliths     https://globalaffairs.org/sites/default/files/2021-08/report_urban-rural-divide-us-foreign-policy_170524.pdf     📈 b. And here’s a Pew survey with similar findings     https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/what-unites-and-divides-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/ 9. 🤝 Braver Angels is an example of an organization working to increase conversations across political differences, including between urban and rural Americanshttps://braverangels.org 10. 📚 Lorrie Frasure-Yokley, Racial and ethnic politics in American suburbs (we touched on these themes a bit in our discussion of the suburbs, but certainly much more to cover in future episodes about racial and ethnic politics!)https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/racial-and-ethnic-politics-in-american-suburbs/8E23703D5C1E6DDA8D7AB7609C6C0E9F     🎤 a. Separately, here’s an interesting interview with Lorrie about the need for more high-quality data for research on this topic!     https://politicalsciencenow.com/ucla-associate-professor-of-political-science-lorrie-frasure-yokley-shares-her-experiences-as-a-political-scientist-and-apsa-member/     🏙️ b. For more on suburbs if you’re interested: Thomas Vicino is another political scientist whose body of research on the suburbs may be of interest, particularly his recent, “In what sense a post-suburban era?” in The Routledge Companion to the Suburbs     https://thomasjvicino.com/research     https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/89019656/9781315266442-4-libre.pdf

    10 min
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Our daily lives seem increasingly overwhelmed by polarization, misinformation, and dubious culture wars, while we face countless serious problems that require thoughtful and evidence-based solutions. To move forward, we need a shared reality of facts and reason with an equally shared dedication to democracy and fairness. The Political Reality podcast is here to fill that void – diving into how politics and governments work, how to make them work better, how to navigate the dizzying world of political information, and how to better understand and approach the “other side”.  We can find a shared political reality if we are willing.

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  • Creator
    Political Reality
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    22
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Political Reality
  • Show Website
    Political Reality

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