"The Context" is a podcast about democracy—its past, present and future—brought to you by the Charles F. Kettering Foundation.
History ripples and changes. From decisions at the dinner table to declarations from the Rose Garden; moments build upon one another informing our past, illuminating our present, inventing our future. History makes meaning, especially when it comes to the state of our democracy, and context is everything.
The Context is a new podcast about the history, trends, and ideas shaping democracy in the United States and around the world. In each episode, host Alex Lovit will interview someone who has seen it all—scholars, politicians, journalists and public servants—to get their take on how we got to where we are and what they’ve seen through their experience not only watching the news unfold but sometimes even being the news itself. Reckoning with racism, a crisis of democracy, the right role of government in our daily lives—every question has its reason; every answer has its context.
Tune in every other week wherever you listen to podcasts. Subscribe to The Context to get the latest episodes.
The Charles F. Kettering Foundation works to inspire and connect individuals and organizations to advance thriving and inclusive democracies around the globe. We believe all people belong and have the right to engage in and shape a democracy that serves them.
All content for The Context is the property of Alex Lovit, Charles F. Kettering Foundation and is served directly from their servers
with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.
"The Context" is a podcast about democracy—its past, present and future—brought to you by the Charles F. Kettering Foundation.
History ripples and changes. From decisions at the dinner table to declarations from the Rose Garden; moments build upon one another informing our past, illuminating our present, inventing our future. History makes meaning, especially when it comes to the state of our democracy, and context is everything.
The Context is a new podcast about the history, trends, and ideas shaping democracy in the United States and around the world. In each episode, host Alex Lovit will interview someone who has seen it all—scholars, politicians, journalists and public servants—to get their take on how we got to where we are and what they’ve seen through their experience not only watching the news unfold but sometimes even being the news itself. Reckoning with racism, a crisis of democracy, the right role of government in our daily lives—every question has its reason; every answer has its context.
Tune in every other week wherever you listen to podcasts. Subscribe to The Context to get the latest episodes.
The Charles F. Kettering Foundation works to inspire and connect individuals and organizations to advance thriving and inclusive democracies around the globe. We believe all people belong and have the right to engage in and shape a democracy that serves them.
How did right wing voices take over podcasting? Media analyst Angelo Carusone joins host Alex Lovit to discuss how the online media ecosystem came to be dominated by anti-inclusive and authoritarian narratives and what that means for democracy.
Angelo Carusone is the president of Media Matters, a nonprofit media watchdog organization.
https://www.mediamatters.org/
https://www.mediamatters.org/google/right-dominates-online-media-ecosystem-seeping-sports-comedy-and-other-supposedly
https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/study-interacting-these-popular-right-leaning-comedy-podcasters-can-turn-your-tiktok-feed
Nonviolent movements are more effective at combatting authoritarianism than violent resistance, according to research from today’s guest. Maria Stephan joins host Alex Lovit to discuss the implications of her research for the United States in this moment of political upheaval and growing authoritarianism.
Maria Stephan is the co-lead and chief organizer of the Horizons Project. She’s written several books, including co-authoring the award-winning Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict.
https://horizonsproject.us/
https://freedomtrainers.net/
This week, we bring you an episode of the Disrupting Peace podcast, from the World Peace Foundation. In this episode, host Bridget Conley talks with two guests about how Gen Z Americans are—and aren’t—engaging in democracy and what people of all ages can do to encourage the next generation of peaceful leaders.
Find more episodes and subscribe here: https://disrupting-peace.captivate.fm/
Deva Woodly joins host Alex Lovit to discuss the importance of social movements for American democracy and the role they can play at this precarious moment in American political history. We need these networks of trust and coordinated action to push the country away from authoritarianism and toward a democracy that works for everyone.
Deva Woodly is a scholar of social movements. She is a professor of political science at Brown University and a research fellow at the Charles F. Kettering Foundation.
Want to know what you can do to fight authoritarianism? Organizer Daniel Hunter joins host Alex Lovit to give practical advice for people seeking to reclaim democracy in the United States.
Daniel Hunter has studied authoritarianism and resistance around the world. He is an educator with Freedom Trainers and the director of Choose Democracy.
https://choosedemocracy.us/what-can-i-do/
https://freedomtrainers.net/
In the United States, today’s Republican Party is what political scientists call “personalist.” Power is concentrated with one individual, and other party elites don’t have much ability—or willingness—to oppose that leader. In other countries around the world, when personalist parties have won control of national government, the result has been democratic backsliding and growing authoritarianism. Understanding why this is a problem for the future of democracy can also help us understand what to do about it.
Erica Frantz studies authoritarian politics, with a focus on democratization, democratic backsliding, conflict, and development. She is an associate professor of political science at Michigan State University and a research fellow at the Charles F. Kettering Foundation.
Steven Levitsky, a leading expert on authoritarian regimes, joins host Alex Lovit to talk about the US’s current slide into authoritarianism and what we can do about it.
Democracies tolerate dissent. In a democracy, citizens and institutions can criticize, protest, or file legal claims against the government, without fear of reprisal. That is no longer true of the US today, which means that the US is no longer a full democracy.
Steven Levitsky is the David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and professor of government and director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University. Along with many acclaimed academic works, he is the coauthor (with Daniel Ziblatt) of two bestselling books about threats to democracy: 2018’s How Democracies Die and 2023’s Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point. He is also a senior fellow at the Charles F. Kettering Foundation.
We can’t have a full democracy without financial justice. Host Alex Lovit speaks with Arlo Washington, a banker creating access to loans, credit, and financial literacy training for his underbanked community in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Arlo Washington is a barber, entrepreneur, and the founder and president of People Trust Community Federal Credit Union, a Community Development Financial Institution in Little Rock, Arkansas. People Trust is the first Black-owned financial institution established in Arkansas.
Washington is also the subject of the 2024 Oscar-nominated short documentary, The Barber of Little Rock.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-documentary/barber-of-little-rock-arlo-washington-wealth-gap
https://www.peopletrustloans.org/
Americans are constantly arguing about politics—on the internet and at the family dinner table. But we rarely change one another’s minds, and we often emerge from those disagreements feeling frustrated and distrustful. Host Alex Lovit is joined by research psychologist Keith Payne to discuss the science behind the political divide and how the psychology of political disagreements can help us have more productive political conversations.
Keith Payne is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina. He is the author of The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die and Good Reasonable People: The Psychology Behind America's Dangerous Divide.
Voting rights are the foundation of democratic governance. But recent changes in elections policies have disenfranchised millions of Americans, and the voting gap between White and minority voters is continuing to expand.
Host Alex Lovit is joined by Sean Morales-Doyle. Morales-Doyle is the director of the Voting Rights and Elections Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.
https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-can-vote
Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed joins host Alex Lovit to discuss Juneteenth’s history and the transformative potential of reckoning with our country’s complex past.
Annette Gordon-Reed is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard, where she teaches both history and law. She’s the author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family and On Juneteenth.
Who should make decisions about what kinds of health care American minors can receive: their parents and doctors, or their state governments? A growing number of states are claiming the right to ban gender-affirming health care for minors—but only if the person being treated is transgender. This month, the Supreme Court will decide if those power grabs are constitutional.
Host Alex Lovit is joined by Chase Strangio, one of the lawyers who argued the case in question, United States v. Skrmetti, before the Supreme Court. Their conversation explores the legal reasoning of that case and how American citizens can influence the court and build a society that embraces LGBTQ+ people.
Chase Strangio is the codirector of the LGBT & HIV Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. He was one of the advocates who argued the Skrmetti case before the Supreme Court and is the first openly trans lawyer to appear before that court.
Pro-democracy progressives are their own worst enemy when it comes to recruiting conservative Americans to their cause.
In part two of our conversation, political strategist Sarah Longwell offers suggestions for how to connect with anti-Trump conservatives. Her ideas draw on what she hears from voters in her frequent focus groups, as well as on her experience as a gay conservative fighting for inclusion in American society and politics in the 2010s.
Longwell is the publisher of The Bulwark and the cofounder and executive director of the advocacy organization Defending Democracy Together. She hosts The Focus Group podcast and is a senior fellow at the Charles F. Kettering Foundation.
https://www.thebulwark.com/
https://www.defendingdemocracytogether.org/
How did one of our major political parties abandon its principles? And what do voters make of that shift?
Host Alex Lovit is joined by Sarah Longwell—a political strategist who broke from the Republican party when it acquiesced to Trump’s authoritarian tendencies. She went on to cofound a media outlet (The Bulwark) and an advocacy organization (Defending Democracy Together) to advance pro-conservative causes. She’s also the host of The Focus Group podcast and a senior fellow at the Charles F. Kettering Foundation.
This episode is part one of a two-part conversation. Come back next week for part two.
https://www.thebulwark.com/
https://www.defendingdemocracytogether.org/
Public schools are essential for democracy—and they’re under attack. But the very policies that are being championed as their salvation may have a catastrophic impact on American education for generations. Public education advocate and historian Diane Ravitch unpacks how school choice policies like vouchers and charter schools are dangerous for democracy.
Diane Ravitch is a former assistant secretary in the United States Department of Education. She is the author of several books on the history and policy of American public schools. Her memoir, about her life as a leading public education reformer, will be published this fall. It’s called An Education: How I Changed My Mind About Almost Everything.
https://dianeravitch.net/
US institutions are being pressured into compliance with the Trump administration’s capricious demands. Many law firms, philanthropic organizations, and higher education institutions are choosing the path of least resistance. But will it keep them safe?
Sharon L. Davies is the president and chief executive officer of the Charles F. Kettering Foundation. Davies’ career experiences span both academic and nonacademic fields. From 2017–2021, she was provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Spelman College. She joined Spelman from The Ohio State University, where she was vice provost for diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer. Davies was also a member of OSU’s Moritz College of Law faculty for 22 years, serving as the Gregory H. Williams Chair in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. In addition, she directed the university’s Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & Ethnicity. Davies has an undergraduate degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a law degree from Columbia University School of Law.
https://kettering.org/
Life under an authoritarian regime can erode one’s faith in humanity. Today's guest says that’s why it’s more important than ever for Americans to lean into building human connection.
Ece Temelkuran is a Turkish political thinker, writer, and award-winning journalist. Her two most recent books are How to Lose a Country: Seven Steps from Democracy to Fascism and Together: Ten Choices for a Better Now.
https://ecetemelkuran.net/
A former member of the Hungarian Parliament tells us what interventions Americans need to take right now to avoid the authoritarian backsliding that has dismantled democracy in Hungary since Prime Minister Viktor Orbán came to power in 2010.
Gábor Scheiring served in the Hungarian Parliament from 2010–2014. He is an assistant professor of comparative politics at Georgetown University, Qatar, and author of The Retreat of Liberal Democracy: Authoritarian Capitalism and the Accumulative State in Hungary. He is also a Charles F. Kettering Global Fellow.
https://www.gaborscheiring.com/
https://kettering.org/fellow/gabor-scheiring/
Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign promised “the largest deportation operation in American history.” Will he be able to achieve this goal? What would this kind of mass deportation look like, and what would its human costs be? And what is the current “largest deportation operation in American history,” anyway?
We get answers from Adam Goodman. Goodman is an associate professor in the Department of Latin American and Latino Studies and Department of History at the University of Illinois Chicago, and the author of the award-winning book, The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants.
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691182155/the-deportation-machine
https://immpolicytracking.org/
https://www.icirr.org/
https://ndlon.org/
The Constitution is under attack—and not just by Trump and the executive branch. For a long time, the conservative justices on the Supreme Court have been inconsistently interpreting the Constitution. But our guest, Madiba Dennie, says focusing on their decision-making processes is a trap. She says there’s a better way for concerned citizens to take action against the backsliding of social progress fueled by the Supreme Court.
Madiba K. Dennie is an attorney, columnist, and professor whose work focuses on fostering an equitable multiracial democracy. She is the deputy editor and senior contributor at the critical legal commentary website Balls and Strikes and the author of The Originalism Trap: How Extremists Stole the Constitution and How We the People Can Take It Back. Dennie previously served as counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, and her legal and political commentary has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, the BBC, and MSNBC.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/735353/the-originalism-trap-by-madiba-k-dennie/
"The Context" is a podcast about democracy—its past, present and future—brought to you by the Charles F. Kettering Foundation.
History ripples and changes. From decisions at the dinner table to declarations from the Rose Garden; moments build upon one another informing our past, illuminating our present, inventing our future. History makes meaning, especially when it comes to the state of our democracy, and context is everything.
The Context is a new podcast about the history, trends, and ideas shaping democracy in the United States and around the world. In each episode, host Alex Lovit will interview someone who has seen it all—scholars, politicians, journalists and public servants—to get their take on how we got to where we are and what they’ve seen through their experience not only watching the news unfold but sometimes even being the news itself. Reckoning with racism, a crisis of democracy, the right role of government in our daily lives—every question has its reason; every answer has its context.
Tune in every other week wherever you listen to podcasts. Subscribe to The Context to get the latest episodes.
The Charles F. Kettering Foundation works to inspire and connect individuals and organizations to advance thriving and inclusive democracies around the globe. We believe all people belong and have the right to engage in and shape a democracy that serves them.
