Defending Democracy

Heather Cox Richardson – Interviews & Articles

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Interviews, articles, or videos with “HCR.”

• Politics Chat with Heather Cox Richardson – this is usually posted once a week by HCR.  The group viewed the first portion of her Jan. 31 video to start off our January meeting.
• Interview with Heather Cox Richardson with Tim Miller from The Bulwark
• Interview with Heather Cox Richardson (HCR) with Jon Stewart from The Weekly Show
• Interview with HCR on Amanpour & Co. with Michel Martin
• Politics Chat with HCR- The Two Economic Ideologies Dividing USA, Nov 17, 2024

 ●  HCR Podcasts

Links to podcast episodes from Heather Cox Richardson.

• Letters from an American, almost daily short podcast by HCR

Videos

• Interview with Prof. Michael Sandel, “What Trump’s Win Says About American Society,” – from Amanpour & Company
• The Dignity Deficit – Inequality, Work and Recognition: a discussion between Thomas Piketty and Michael Sandel
• A video series based on “On Tyranny”  by Yale Historian Timothy Snyder, 20 Lessons from the 20th Century.
• “The Tech Coup:” Expert Warns of Silicon Valley’s Influence on Washington – from Amanpour & Company
• What the Democratic Party Got Wrong – Amanpour & Co., interview with Jonathan Martin, co-author of “This Will Not Pass.”  Martin is politics bureau chief for Politico. He joins Walter Isaacson to talk about the implications of Trump’s re-election, and what went wrong for the Democrats.

Podcasts & Newsletters

Podcast episodes or series from sources other than HCR.

• Autocracy in America – Episode 1: “Start with a Lie”.  Featuring historian and author Anne Applebaum and Academic and journalist and researcher Peter Pomerantsev.  Autocracy in America is produced by The Atlantic and made possible with support from the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University.
• The Contrarian – a Substack newsletter and podcast hosted by Jen Rubin (formerly of the Washington Post) and Norm Eisen (a well-known attorney currently involved with some of the high profile lawsuits filed against the current Administration.  They have substantive interviews with well-informed and influential people.
• Chop Wood Carry Water – looking for a set of actions you can take?  Taking its name from the old Zen saying, this is a website and Substack newsletter by the activist and author Jess Craven. Her daily newsletter is dedicated to “saving democracy, addressing the climate crisis, preserving our freedoms, electing better lawmakers, and, in general, creating a better country—one simple action at a time.”  She is essentially a bundler and aggregator. Not of donations, but of easy things each of us can do to make a difference. Hope is an action.

Articles

• What is DOGE’s Real Goal? – a recent episode from The Ezra Klein Show, from The New York Times.  This one is an interview with Santi Ruiz from the Institute for Progress. He’s the author of the Statecraft newsletter and the host of its podcast.
• In His Second Term, Trump Fuels a ‘Machinery’ of Misinformation, NY Times, March 24, 2025
• Information on the staff working for Elon Musk at the Dept. of Gov. Efficiency (DOGE)
• Interview with Robert P. Jones about a recent video that portrays the President as a “messiah-like” figure to his evangelical supporters.
• The Opinion – NY Times, Interview with Masha Gessen, “There’s a Reason Even ‘Smart’ People Surrender to Trump,” Feb 13, 2025
• The role of media in our current state of politics – “The Real Reason Trump Won” by Michael Tomasky
• NY Times Editorial – “How to Remain a Reality Based Human in 2025,” by Pamela Paul.
• Misinformation and American Politics, Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, October 27, 2024
• Profile of Russell Vought, who was appointed as the Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget for this Administration, by ProPublica, October, 2024
• Editorial by Thomas Edsall, The New York Times, Feb. 11, 2025, “Their Target Is ‘the Very Core of Modern American Liberalism.”
• “What Does Having a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on hold mean for Consumers?” AP News, Feb 12, 2025

Stay tuned – We will try to share articles which are publicly accessible, but will link to articles behind paywalls if they are especially relevant.

Advocacy Groups & Ways to Get Involved

• Indivisible Project – “Indivisible Project (501c4) drives coordinated campaigns, powering the grassroots Indivisible movement to defeat the right-wing takeover of American government and win an inclusive democracy and bold progressive policies.”
• Common Cause (National) – Massachusetts Chapter – “Common Cause is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to upholding the core values of American democracy. We work to create open, honest, and accountable government that serves the public interest; promote equal rights, opportunity, and representation for all; and empower all people to make their voices heard in the political process.”
• Democratic Attorneys General Association – this is not an endorsement of one political party, but rather an acknowledgement that the DAGA has taken a leadership role in filing timely and important lawsuits against the current Administration that should concern all Americans.  This includes cases concerning birthright citizenship, DOGE and government overreach.

Other Resources

• Project 2025 Tracker– This open-source effort tracking 290 Project 2025 initiatives finds it’s already more than a quarter of the way complete.
• Litigation Tracker – tracks legal challenges to Trump administration actions, hosted by Just Security.
• The Hamilton Project – tracking federal expenditures in real time
• First Parish has a page of Anti-Racism Resources which points to many additional organizations, articles, and podcasts.
  • The “Seeing White” podcast from Scene on Radio was mentioned in one of the discussion groups; the podcast can be found here.
• The Lewis Powell “Confidential Memo” referred to at page 48
• An earlier speech by Powell, on which the Confidential Memo was substantially based. (“noteworthy for its ironic resonance to today’s ‘Attack on American Institutions'”)