Historic: Breaking down 2020 election with Stuart Stevens of Lincoln Project & VTDigger

Posted on November 5, 2020 by David

The 2020 election was historic. Voter turnout records were smashed: Some 160 million Americans voted — the largest number ever, comprising 67% of eligible voters, the highest turnout rate in 120 years. In Vermont, over 360,000 voters turned out, exceeding the previous record of 327,000 votes cast in 2008. Former Vice President Joe Biden won Vermont with 66% of the vote (up from 56% for Hillary Clinton in 2016), while President Trump received 30% of the Vermont vote, the same proportion as he received in 2016. Nationally, Biden received the highest number of votes ever by a U.S. presidential candidate, topping Barack Obama’s 2008 total, and currently has a 3.5 million vote lead over President Trump.

In Vermont, Republican Gov. Phil Scott was elected to a third term with a stunning 40 percentage-point victory over Democratic nominee David Zuckerman. And in another historic result, Molly Gray was elected as just the fourth woman to hold the office of lieutenant governor.

We discuss the national election results with Stuart Stevens, a former top strategist for George W. Bush’s two presidential campaigns and also a lead strategist for the 2012 Republican presidential candidate. In the 2020 race, Stevens was part of The Lincoln Project, a group of Republican strategists who worked to defeat Trump. Stevens is author of It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump.

We dissect the results of the Vermont election with Anne Galloway, founder and editor of VTDigger, and Xander Landen, VTDigger’s political reporter.

“A caricature of illegitimacy:” Sen. Patrick Leahy on the Barrett SCOTUS hearings

Posted on October 21, 2020 by David

“This isn’t just illegitimate; it’s a caricature of illegitimacy,” tweeted Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy during the confirmation process of President Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, who is expected to be confirmed just days before the 2020 presidential election. Leahy says that Barrett’s appointment “diminishes [the Supreme Court’s] moral authority.” Leahy also discusses his views on court packing and the rising threat to abortion rights.

Leahy is the last of the Senate’s “Watergate babies,” the Democrats who were elected in November 1974, just months after President Richard Nixon resigned in scandal. Despite current challenges, Leahy remains hopeful about the future. “I really do believe in our better angels,” he muses. “We can do better and get over this.”

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont)

Is Trump Fascist? Yale Professor Jason Stanley on How Fascism Works

Posted on October 19, 2020 by David

Is fascism on the rise under President Donald Trump? Jason Stanley, a professor of philosophy at Yale University and author of the bestselling 2018 book, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, discusses the fascist tactics used by Trump to maintain power. Demonizing immigrants, delegitimizing political opponents, mobilizing paramilitary groups, undermining experts, attacking the press, and lying incessantly until there is no accepted truth are all classic tactics used by fascist leaders throughout history. Stanley, a frequent contributor to the New York Times and Washington Post, says, “Normalization is what I fear most. …We’ve normalized law breaking in the White House on a stunning level, corruption on a scale we’ve never seen before.” He asserts, “Right now, the idea that we’re a law and order state is a dim memory.”

Democracy on the ballot: Gov. Howard Dean on the stakes in the 2020 election

Posted on October 16, 2020 by David

What is at stake in the 2020 election? Is democracy on the ballot? Howard Dean has a unique perspective that extends from the Green Mountains to the nation. He served as governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2003, ran unsuccessfully for president in 2004, and served as chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009. He has worked as a political consultant and commentator in the years since. “What’s going on is just shocking,” he says. “We’re in really serious trouble. When you abandon the rule of law as a democracy, your democracy is gone. And it’s going to be gone before people realize if we don’t turn this thing around.” Dean also discusses his thoughts on running for office again if Sen. Patrick Leahy does not run for re-election in 2022, or Sen. Bernie Sanders retires in 2024.

Gov. Madeleine Kunin on Trump’s tirades, democracy in peril & hope

Posted on October 12, 2020 by David

Former Vermont Gov. Madeleine Kunin, who just turned 87, remains a keen participant in politics. Kunin is the first and only woman to be elected governor in Vermont, serving from 1985 to 1991. She was also deputy secretary of education and ambassador to Switzerland in the Clinton Administration.

Kunin continues to be actively engaged in urging women to run for office. She is founder of the Vermont chapter of Emerge, which trains and supports Democratic women candidates. She speaks and lobbies in support of issues such as death with dignity, universal pre-K and paid family leave. She is the author of four books, most recently, Coming of Age: My Journey to the 80s.

Kunin, the first Jewish woman governor in the U.S., was born in Zurich, Switzerland. Her family emigrated to the U.S. as the Nazis began to sweep across Europe. She views President Trump’s signal to white supremacist and anti-Semitic groups to “stand by” with deep concern. “This opens a Pandora’s Box that we’ve got to close as quickly as possible,” she warns. “This is not America.”

Gov. Madeleine Kunin

Will your vote count? Sue Halpern on election security threats

Posted on October 7, 2020 by David

Voter suppression could affect the outcome of the November presidential election. Will everyone get to vote in November, and will their votes be counted? “It could be a big mess,” warns Sue Halpern, a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine covering election security and a scholar in residence at Middlebury College. “There’s so many reasons why the simple act of voting has become so fraught.” She adds, “My biggest concern is that people won’t be able to vote.”

“Trump has crossed the Rubicon:” Authors Lawrence Rosenthal & John Judis on the presidential debate and white supremacy

Posted on September 30, 2020 by David

The presidential debate held on Sept. 30 will be remembered as the first time that an American president openly allied with white supremacists. “The remarks addressed to the Proud Boys stood out as a kind of bellwether of something pretty severe and to be taken seriously,” says Lawrence Rosenthal, the founder of the Center for Right Wing Studies at UC Berkeley and author of Empire of Resentment: Populism’s Toxic Embrace of Nationalism. “He was giving them orders: Stand down, stand by. He was also giving orders to his army of pollwatchers … a force of intimidation. Trump last night crossed the Rubicon.”

Trump also claimed that former Vice President Joe Biden is a socialist and part of the “radical left.” John Judis, editor-at-large of Talking Points Memo and author of The Socialist Awakening: What’s Different Now About the Left, asserts that Biden “is not in any sense a doctrinaire socialist.” But he adds that Biden, who may be forced by the pandemic to expand national health care and other social welfare programs, might “tend toward policies that put the public first, that put the public interest before profits and that shift the balance of power in America.” Judis also says that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, together with Eugene V. Debs, are the “two great figures in the history of American socialism.”

Lawrence Rosenthal, founder, Center for Right Wing Studies at UC Berkeley; author, Empire of Resentment: Populism’s Toxic Embrace of Nationalism

John Judis, editor-at-large, Talking Points Memo; author, The Socialist Awakening: What’s Different Now About the Left

Can the CDC be trusted? Ex-top CDC official Dr. Howard Frumkin on political interference in science

Posted on September 29, 2020 by David

In the midst of a pandemic that has killed over 200,000 Americans, many people are wondering: Can the Centers for Disease Control be trusted? Dr. Howard Frumkin was a top CDC official under President Obama and is deeply alarmed by the Trump administration’s unprecedented attacks on the nation’s premier public health agency. “I don’t think any of us has ever seen the level of political interference and manipulation at the CDC that we are seeing these days,” he says. “We have to hope and pray for the sake of our country and the world that the CDC gets back to its position as an independent scientific agency so that we can trust all the advice coming from there.” Frumkin, the former dean of the University of Washington School of Public Health, also discusses his new book, Planetary Health, which connects the climate crisis, extreme wildfires, health vulnerability in communities of color, and Covid-19.

Dr. Howard Frumkin, former director, National Center for Environmental Health, CDC; former dean, University of Washington School of Public Health, co-editor, Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves

No human is “illegal:” Trailblazing journalist Maria Hinojosa on the immigrant human rights crisis

Posted on September 24, 2020 by David

“I don’t use the word ‘illegals’ to refer to human beings,” says Maria Hinojosa, a trailblazing Emmy Award-winning journalist who has been among the first Latina reporters at PBS, CBS, CNN, and NPR. “We have to actively get those voices out of our head, …break down that narrative and be active in creating a new one.” Hinojosa hosts the nationally syndicated radio show LatinoUSA on NPR and founded Futuro Media, a nonprofit newsroom which focuses on news from a POC perspective. Her new book is Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America, in which she tells her own story of nearly being taken from her family when they came legally into the US in the early 1960s. Her personal experience informs her reporting on immigration, family separation and the human rights crisis on our borders.

“We are at a tipping point:” Yale historian Timothy Snyder

Posted on September 20, 2020 by David

Timothy Snyder is a professor of history at Yale and a world renowned scholar of authoritarianism. His 2017 international bestseller, On Tyranny: 20 Lessons from the 20^th Century, is a roadmap to how autocrats rise and democracies fall. Snyder’s newest book is Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary. He describes his near death experience following a missed medical diagnosis last year, and he eviscerates America’s failed coronavirus response. He calls on us to rethink the fundamental connection between health and freedom. “Other countries look at us and for the first time ever, they sincerely pity us, but also wonder, how can you have so much wealth… and kill so many people?” He observes, “We’re at a tipping point. To say that it can’t go on like this is an understatement. Things could get much worse than they are — and they might.” He notes that if Joe Biden is elected president, he will have to undertake “a redo of the 21^st century.”

Timothy Snyder, Levin Professor of History, Yale University, author, On Tyranny and Our Malady

“I’m extremely worried:” Rep. Peter Welch on legislating during a national crisis

Posted on September 18, 2020 by David

Peter Welch has been Vermont’s lone congressional representative since 2006. Welch is the chief deputy whip of the House Democratic Caucus and serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. He’s a member of the House Progressive Caucus. Faced with the increasingly visible effects of the climate crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic, the rise of white supremacy and other threats, Welch says, “I’m extremely worried. I’ve not seen anything like this in my lifetime.” Welch has clashed with the Trump administration, and he is concerned about the president’s attempts to undermine the integrity of the upcoming election. “We have a president,” Welch says, “who does not believe in democracy and is doing everything he can to erode it and to kill it.”

Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT)

Filmmaker Eugene Jarecki & pro athletes call for voting in sports arenas to protect 2020 election

Posted on September 8, 2020 by David

When NBA players walked off the court in protest over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in late August 2020, they announced a surprising precondition for their return: that the arenas in which they played should be used as voting sites in the November 2020 election.

The idea had been floated by a group of activists led by Eugene Jarecki, an Emmy and Peabody award-winning documentary filmmaker from Vermont. Jarecki is co-chair of the non-partisan Election Super Centers Project. Numerous professional sports teams have now agreed to have their stadiums and arenas serve as election centers, including the Indiana Pacers, Dallas Mavericks, Pittsburgh Steelers, Milwaukee Bucks, Golden State Warriors and Washington Wizards. Jarecki explains how the idea became reality with the help of basketball superstar LeBron James, coach Doc Rivers, and others, and why they view this move as a vital strategy to defend fair elections and American democracy.

Eugene Jarecki, filmmaker and co-chair, Election Super Centers Project

Hatemonger: Author Jean Guerrero on Stephen Miller & white nationalism

Posted on September 2, 2020 by David

At last month’s Republican National Convention, President Trump declared, “Your vote will decide whether we protect law-abiding Americans, or whether we give free rein to violent anarchists and agitators, and criminals who threaten our citizens.” The man behind this over-the-top rhetoric is Stephen Miller, the most powerful Trump advisor you may never have heard of. The 35 year-old anti-immigration crusader and white nationalist has been the moving force behind Trump’s immigration policy and the author of his darkest speeches. Miller has conjured apocalyptic visions of immigrants as a threat to America and has targeted refugees, asylum seekers, and migrant children. So who is Stephen Miller? Jean Guerrero, an Emmy-winning investigative reporter formerly with the Wall Street Journal, explores the influence of Miller and white nationalism in the Trump administration in her new book, Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda.

Jean Guerrero, author, Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda

Stolen election? Ari Berman on voter suppression and threats to the 2020 election

Posted on August 30, 2020 by David

Will the 2020 election be stolen? Will voter suppression affect the outcome? Voting rights expert and journalist Ari Berman discusses how voter suppression works and how it has already changed electoral outcomes in the U.S. He explains the strategy behind President Trump’s attacks on the U.S. Postal Service and Trump’s threat to deploy armed agents at polling places — a voter intimidation tactic with long history. Berman explains his nightmare scenario for Election Day 2020 — what it will take for it to happen, and how to prevent it.

Ari Berman, senior reporter, Mother Jones, author, Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America

Fighting to vote: A century of struggle for women’s suffrage

Posted on August 21, 2020 by David

On August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, thus giving women the right to vote. This was the culmination of a suffrage movement that was launched in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention in New York, which was also attended by leading abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass. An effort to secure women’s suffrage failed at the US Supreme Court, leading to the movement to win the vote by a constitutional amendment. Enactment of women’s suffrage in 1920 was historic, but it did not end discrimination against African American women, who continued to be denied the vote due to Jim Crow racial discrimination laws until passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Marlboro College Professor Emerita Meg Mott discusses the suffrage movement, the racial divisions within it, enduring discrimination faced by African American and LGBTQ women, and parallels to modern efforts at voter suppression. (August 19, 2020 broadcast)

Meg Mott, Professor of Politics Emerita, Marlboro College

“We can do this:” Vermont DNC delegates voice hope and “terror” about 2020 election

Posted on August 19, 2020 by David

This has been the most unconventional Democratic National Convention. It is taking place, not in Milwaukee as originally planned, but virtually, due to the coronavirus pandemic. We talk with five Vermont delegates to the 2020 DNC about their roles, their hopes and their fears for the 2020 presidential election. (August 19, 2020 broadcast)

Carolyn Dwyer, political advisor, managed last four campaigns for Sen. Patrick Leahy and also headed Rep. Peter Welch’s efforts in 2006 and 2008 (Biden delegate)

Jim Dandeneau, former House campaign director for Vermont Democratic Party, (Sanders delegate)

Lisa Ryan, Director of Rutland County Community Justice Center at BROC Community Action, serve on Rutland City Board of Aldermen, former first vice president of the Rutland Area NAACP (Sanders)

Rep. Mary Sullivan, longtime state rep from Burlington (unpledged)

Allison Leibly, 18 year old from Woodstock, VT, freshman at Stanford (Biden)

Can Vermont schools safely reopen? A top educator & pediatrician confront the challenges

Posted on August 13, 2020 by David

Can schools safely reopen? Balancing staff and student safety against the need for children to return to school has been daunting and controversial around Vermont and the country. “The kids are not alright,” asserts Dr. Rebecca Bell, a critical care pediatrician and president of the Vermont chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Don Tinney, president of Vermont-NEA and a 31-year veteran high school English teacher, warns of “reopening chaos” and schools forced to close due to staff shortages. The educator and physician discuss the challenge of how and whether schools should reopen. (August 12, 2020 broadcast)

Don Tinney, President, Vermont-NEA

Dr. Rebecca Bell, Pediatric Critical Care Physician, UVM Medical Center, President, Vermont Chapter American Academy of Pediatrics

“You’re either a coward or complicit:” Why ex-Navy SEAL Dr. Dan Barkhuff is fighting Trump

Posted on August 12, 2020 by David

How does a self-described “pro-life, gun-owning combat veteran” end up starring in ads against President Trump? Dan Barkhuff is a former Navy SEAL and now an emergency physician at the University of Vermont Medical Center. He is the founder of the group Veterans for Responsible Leadership. Lately, he has gone viral as the star of two ads for the Lincoln Project, which was founded by former top Republican operatives who are now working to defeat Donald Trump in the 2020 election. He says, “I can see Trump for what he is — a coward. We need to send this draft-dodger back to his golf courses. The lives of our troops depend on it.” (August 12, 2020 broadcast)

Dr. Dan Barkhuff, emergency physician, UVM Medical Center, founder, Veterans for Responsible Leadership

“It Was All a Lie:” Top GOP operative Stuart Stevens on renouncing his party & defeating Trump

Posted on August 5, 2020 by David

For 25 years, Stuart Stevens was a leading strategist and media consultant to top Republican politicians, helping to elect presidents, senators, congressman, and governors. He was top strategist for 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, and he worked on both of George W. Bush’s presidential campaigns. Stevens, who lives in Vermont, has just written a book, It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump. He argues that Trump did not hijack the Republican party, he is the natural outcome of five decades of the party’s hypocrisy, racism and self delusion. (August 8, 2020 broadcast)

Stuart Stevens, former Republican strategist, author, It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump

Election 2020: Democratic candidates Rebecca Holcombe & David Zuckerman make their case for being Vermont’s next governor

Posted on July 29, 2020 by David

Former Education Secretary Rebecca Holcombe and Lt. Governor David Zuckerman are vying to be Vermont’s next governor. First, one of them must win the August 11 Democratic primary to advance to the general election, where they will likely face Republican incumbent Gov. Phil Scott. In separate interviews, Holcombe and Zuckerman discuss their respective approaches to the COVID-19 pandemic, school reopening, their accomplishments and what distinguishes them, and their visions for Vermont. (July 29, 2020 broadcast)

Rebecca Holcombe, Former Secretary of Education, Democratic gubernatorial candidate

Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman, Democratic gubernatorial candidate

“The Crisis of American Democracy:” WaPo media columnist Margaret Sullivan on the collapse of local journalism

Posted on July 15, 2020 by David

Most people might assume that the greatest threat to the media is President Trump’s relentless assaults on what he falsely calls “fake news.” But Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan argues, “Another crisis is happening more quietly. Some of the most trusted sources of news—local sources, particularly local newspapers—are slipping away, never to return. The cost to democracy is great.” Sullivan is the former public editor at the New York Times and the former editor of the Buffalo News. Her new book is Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy. She documents how nearly half of newsroom staffs have lost their jobs since 2008, the forces working against journalism, the dire implications for democracy, accountability and public participation, and where she finds hope (hint: Vermont’s own vtdigger is one). (July 15, 2020 broadcast)

Margaret Sullivan, media columnist, Washington Post

Will local journalism survive? Anne Galloway of VTDigger

Posted on January 30, 2020 by David

This week, Vermont’s nonprofit news publication VTDigger was awarded a $900,000 grant by the American Journalism Project to support its work as a daily statewide news source. This is the largest grant ever received by VTDdigger, which recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. VTDigger has been cited by Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics & Public Policy and the New York Times as a national model for providing local news. Anne Galloway, the founder and editor of VTDigger, talks about the future of local journalism in the age of Facebook & Google, how she started what began as a one-woman operation to cover state politics, the Trump effect on local news coverage and what is next for VTDigger. (January 29, 2020 broadcast)

Anne Galloway, founder and editor, VTDigger.org

The Legislative Year in Review, 6/5/2013

Posted on June 11, 2013 by David

VBSR Public Policy Manager Daniel Barlow guest hosts The Vermont Conversation with a focus on the Legislative Year in Review.

Andrew Stein, a reporter for VTDigger.org joins Dan in the studio and offers his thoughts on the session highlights and memorable moments.

Sen. Tim Ashe, Chair of the Senate Finance Committee; Sen. Claire Ayer, chair of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee; and Rep. Margaret Cheney, the vice-chair of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee call into the show to share their points of view.

Program Assistant Russ Elek discusses VBSR events and announcements for the upcoming months.

Vermont Conversation

Sponsored by VTDigger

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