• Why is Jesus on the ballot? | Doug Heye
    Sep 24 2024

    Unlike other Western democracies, America's politics are infused with religion. Why is God part of the get-out-and-vote plans? Republican strategist Doug Heye says Republicans and Democrats have used religion to attract voters in the past but evangelical fervor for Donald Trump has turbo-charged the Republican ticket in different ways.

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    23 mins
  • Three-day weekend in NYC in 1951 | Doug Heye
    Sep 24 2024

    In this bonus episode, Republican strategist Doug Heye shows his foodie side by listing his favorite restaurants and imagining his dream dinner party with Julia Child, Thomas Jefferson and Hank Aaron. When Robyn Curnow asks him about his favorite Presidents, Doug Heye gives a surprising answer.

    Favorite piece of music or movie: Frank Sinatra singing

    What makes him cry? Maybe a few tears were shed' seeing Bruce Springsteen sing "Thunder Road"

    Favorite American landscape: Yellowstone

    Favorite President; Ronald Reagan. George Washington. Richard Nixon.

    Sports team: Tar Heels.

    First job: Mr Barbecue, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. "I'll never forget the customer who returned his french fries because they tasted like potatoes."

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    15 mins
  • Poor teeth, rural voters | Sarah Smarsh
    Sep 19 2024

    Sarah Smarsh's grandmother had dentures in her twenties, after her teeth were pulled out due to poverty. Robyn Curnow asks why good or bad teeth explain whether America is a meritocracy?

    Smarsh's new book is called Bone of Bone; Essays on America by a Daughter of the Working Class.

    Robyn wanted to talk to Sarah because she's rare commodity in America - a whisperer or translator of two Americas; rural, white, poor middle America and the educated, urbane newsrooms of the coasts. As one of the few people in a newsroom who have worked in a wheat field, Smarsh says she takes the stereotypes of middle America personally because they can get her people so wrong.

    Not all white, poor Americans in rural areas are Trump supporters, in the same way not all New Yorkers are walking around with Black Lives Matter t-shirts. Sarah blames a fractured media and the Democrat Party ignoring large chunks of America where people have felt ignored, and to whom Donald Trump speak to.

    How to bring divided Americans together? Dolly Parton, the Patron Saint of the American Working Class.

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    25 mins
  • Texas two-step and Bourbon | Sarah Smarsh
    Sep 19 2024

    Even though her family says American politicians 'are all crooks,' Sarah Smarsh was asked to run for Senate after she became a rare voice of an ignored part of America; the white, poor, rural working class. She choose not to go to run for office but instead wrote another book about her life in Kansas while working to save the prairies and fight against the stereotypes that paint her people as backwards.

    The solution to American polarization? More honky-tonks, dancing and bourbon.

    Her favorite landscape? The American prairie where she lives.

    American movie? Wizard of Oz (even though everyone always says to her, 'You're not in Kansas anymore.")

    Dinner party guests (dead or alive)? Dolores Huerta. Jodie Foster. Toni Morrison.

    Three words to describe America? Stressed, militarized and empire. The USA spends to much money policing the world and underinvests in taking care of its own people.

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    10 mins
  • Back-to-school battles over ideas | Josh Clark
    Sep 17 2024

    We need to immerse kids in more ambiguity, says headteacher Josh Clark, who is also on the board of the National Association of Independent Schools. How do the divisions in America manifest in schools?

    Is pressure to say the right thing and give the 'correct answer' stifling debate and critical thinking in classrooms? Why have kids lost the ability to put themselves in another person's shoes? Does simplification of complicated issues create less empathy?

    Josh Clark's dad was a prison warder which meant Josh grew up in the warder's house inside a prison complex in Hopewell, Virginia. "My first friend in life was Nelson. Nelson was an inmate who worked in our yard. He smuggled cocaine into the country in a private plane in the 70s. I was seven. I thought he walked on water."

    Growing up in the dynamic of the federal prison system gave Josh a perspective that informs his views on right, wrong, legal, illegal and the need to understand ambiguities and embrace complexity.

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    22 mins
  • Dazed and Confused, U.S.A. | Josh Clark
    Sep 17 2024

    Josh Clark would love to time travel to the 1850's just before the Civil War when the country was dealing with what it meant to be an American. As a Southerner, who grew up Mississippi, he is intrigued by a country that was grappling with itself and at the same time embracing transcendentalism. He lists his favorite books from the pre-Civil War days, written during an time of national tension. Leaves of Grass, Moby Dick and the Scarlet Letter.

    Motto: Make it New.

    Best President: Abraham Lincoln.

    Greatest fear for America: Apathy

    What can bring Americans together in divided times? Football, of course. And in particular, college football in the South. (Go Tennessee...)

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    15 mins
  • An American Soldier | Lt. Gen Mark Hertling (1)
    Sep 12 2024

    What does it mean to die for America? What is it like losing men under your command? Why do so many American civilians dress up like soldiers in camouflage gear and carry deadly weapons of war? (Lt. Gen Mark Hertling has strong opinions about that...)

    General Mark Hertling earned the Purple Heart in Operation Desert Storm and commanded the US Army Europe and Seventh Army. He's a Westpoint graduate and has numerous university degrees.

    When she was a CNN anchor, Robyn Curnow and Mark Hertling had numerous conversations on air about battles, wars or terror attacks, but now Robyn gets a chance to ask Mark all the questions she never had the chance to during breaking news.

    In this episode they dive into what it means to be an American soldier in divided times.

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    25 mins
  • The Sounds of Battle | Lt. Gen Mark Hertling (2)
    Sep 12 2024

    Why do so many American civilians dress up like soldiers in camouflage gear and carry deadly weapons of war? Lt. Gen Mark Hertling talks about what makes a soldier, and what it means to die for America. Hertling earned the Purple Heart in Operation Desert Storm and commanded the US Army Europe and Seventh Army.

    When she was a CNN anchor, Robyn Curnow and Mark Hertling had numerous conversations on air about battles, wars or terror attacks, but now Robyn gets a chance to ask Mark all the questions she never had the chance to during breaking news.

    In this episode they dive into what it means to be an American soldier in divided times.

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    18 mins