Don’t Believe the Election Myths
On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Branko Marcetic on media narratives that misrepresent what happened.

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On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Jeet Heer is joined by Branko Marcetic to discuss media narratives that misrepresent what happened.
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Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris pauses while speaking during a campaign rally at the Rawhide Event Center on October 10, 2024, in Chandler, Arizona.
(Brandon Bell / Getty Images)The one good thing about defeat is you can learn some lessons. But what if the lessons you learn are the wrong ones? In the wake of Donald Trump winning the presidential election, pundits and Democratic strategists have already been drawing lessons.
Unfortunately, as Branko Marcetic documents in a recent piece in Jacobin, many of these lessons are in fact myths, designed to exculpate those responsible for the electoral disaster while scapegoating groups that have much less power. On this episode of The Time of Monsters, I was very happy to talk to Branko about both election myths and the mythmakers who spin them.

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
The Trump administration has released a new National Security Strategy that is a marked shift
not only from earlier administrations but also Trump’s first term in office. While the new policy
statement eschews the goal of global hegemony, it promotes culture war in Europe by
promising support of anti-immigration political parties, economic rivalry in Asia with China, and
a renewal of US military hegemony in the Western hemisphere. To survey this document and
Trump’s often contradictory foreign policy, I spoke to frequent guest of the show Stephen
Wertheim who is American Statecraft senior fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace.
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