US President Donald Trump gives a thumbs-up to a visitor leaving the White House.(Reuters / Carlos Barria)
Are Trump’s recent racist tweets part of a political strategy, or an uncontrollable personal impulse? Harold Meyerson comments—and also proposes ways to end the potentially devastating divide among Democrats over a Green New Deal. Harold is editor-at-large of The American Prospect.
Also: Was Al Franken railroaded, when he was forced to resign from the Senate in the face of #MeToo complaints about unwanted sexual touching and kissing? Jane Mayer wrote a long report on the case for The New Yorker and concluded yes, but our national political correspondent Jeet Heer disagrees.
And we’re still thinking about Paul Krassner, the sixties anarchist activist and editor of The Realist—he died July 21st—we replay an interview where he talks about how he got Norman Mailer to come out against masturbation.
Start Making SenseTwitterStart Making Sense is The Nation’s podcast, hosted by Jon Wiener and coproduced by the Los Angeles Review of Books. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts for new episodes each Thursday.
Jon WienerTwitterJon Wiener is a contributing editor of The Nation and co-author (with Mike Davis) of Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties.