Episode 1.5 – Trump of the Elites
Welcome to This Is Fine, episode 1.5: Trump of the Elites. Thank you very much for listening, Finers. Please subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or your favorite app, and share this link with your favorite Supreme Court appointee or lottery winner.
In this week’s podcast, we use Chris Hayes' Twilight of the Elites as a jumping off point for a discussion of elites, experts, and ways that we might improve institutional trust and accountability.
We’ll return in two weeks with This is Fine, episode 1.6, when we'll discuss the future of Democratic Party organizing.
Please send us listener questions or complaints (and guest requests) for This is Fine. For those of you calling your Senators and Representatives: Thank You.
Book reviewed:
* Chris Hayes, Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy
Also mentioned (in order of discussion):
* Gaetano Mosca, The Ruling Class
* C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite
* Robert Michels, Political Parties
* George Orwell, 1984 (though it’s bad) and "Politics and the English Language" (which is good)
* Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
* Joan Williams, "What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class"
* Joy Connolly, "The Romans Tried to Save the Republic from Men Like Trump. They Failed."
* Vladimir Nabokov, Speak Memory
* Michael Patrick King and Whitney Cummings, “Two Broke Girls” (CBS)
* Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of American Consensus
* Lauren Rivera and Andras Tilcsik, “Class Advantage, Commitment Penalty”
* JD Vance, Hillbilly Elegy
* Jill Leovy, Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America