A look back at Republican tactics.

03/07/22 • 40 min

While Donald Trump dominated the news for much of the last half-decade, Republicans have been tinkering with messaging that obscures just how hostile they are to most Americans’ wants and needs. Today we look back at two instances of this: their attempts to cast theirs as the party of economic equality, and their willingness to use racial and cultural wars and wedge issues to divide the working class.

Tom Geoghegan

Labor lawyer Tom Geoghegan thinks Republican “faux populism” is a good sign for Democrats ... because we own the issue.

Daniel McGraw

Donald Trump’s anti-Hispanic rhetoric may make no difference. Why? Because the Latino vote is mostly set in states other than Florida and possibly Colorado, says voting analyst Daniel McGraw.

Jim Hightower

A Rube Goldberg Inflationary Spiral

Last July, several GOP senators combined their 5-watt intellects to charge that inflation was rising because of the “insane tax and spending spree of President Biden and the Democrats.”

Never mind that the “insane” spending is for such sensible, productive, and enormously popular national needs as childcare and jobless benefits, Mitch McConnell’s rabidly partisan flock saw the chance to politicize the public’s legitimate worries about rising prices.

Jamie Raskin

Bill's Take on Biden's State of the Union

Although Biden is not known as a great orator, he gave a great speech Tuesday night.

If you'd like to hear the entire episode, visit BillPressPods.com.

A look back at Republican tactics.

Tom Geoghegan

Labor lawyer Tom Geoghegan thinks Republican “faux populism” is a good sign for Democrats ... because we own the issue.

Daniel McGraw

Donald Trump’s anti-Hispanic rhetoric may make no difference. Why? Because the Latino vote is mostly set in states other than Florida and possibly Colorado, says voting analyst Daniel McGraw.

Jim Hightower

A Rube Goldberg Inflationary Spiral

Last July, several GOP senators combined their 5-watt intellects to charge that inflation was rising because of the “insane tax and spending spree of President Biden and the Democrats.”

Jamie Raskin

Bill's Take on Biden's State of the Union

Although Biden is not known as a great orator, he gave a great speech Tuesday night.

If you'd like to hear the entire episode, visit BillPressPods.com.

Previous Episode

The threat of Republican gerrymandering on the 2022 Midterms.

David Daley

With Texas starting their vote process for the 2022 Midterms this week, with one of the most devastatingly gerrymandered maps in the country, we take a look back to how we got here. David Daley is one of the nation's leading authorities on partisan gerrymandering. And he says if Democrats don’t do more to stop it, Republicans will have the power to shape elections for years to come.

Jim Hightower

A Phoenix is Rising

Our local newspapers are being merged, purged, shrunk, shut down, and looted by Wall Street profiteers – yet there’s good news. In the towns those media vultures are torching, a phoenix is rising!

Hundreds of determined locals, often led by people of color, are finding new ways to pay for and revive top-quality, local journalism. For example, the Ferndale (CA) Enterprise moved to an old Victorian home, renting upstairs rooms to vacationers to subsidize the paper.

Jamie Raskin

"This Was a Coup."

Congressman Jamie Raskin was inside the Capitol, with family, on January 6th. On January 5th he had buried his 25-year-old beloved son who had killed himself to escape a crippling depression. On January 12th, Raskin was named Lead Impeachment Manager for the second Impeachment Trial of Donald Trump. That eventful January is the subject of his New York Times Bestseller, Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy. In his interview with Bill, he shares his thoughts and emotions about the death of his son, the coup and the inside story of the Impeachment Trial. Plus he hints at just what the January 6th Committee knows about the Trump-organized coup attempt.

If you'd like to hear the entire episode, visit BillPressPods.com.

Next Episode

Fighting back against the Plutocrats.

With Russia in the news lately, a lot has been said about the power wielded by that country’s plutocrats. This week, we look back at the overwhelming influence a few wealthy billionaires have over the American government—and at the ways Americans are ready to fight back.

Sheila Simon

Former Democratic Lieutenant Governor of Illinois Sheila Simon explains how her state was taken over by a Republican governor operating not on ideology but on helping his business buddies make more money.

Stanley Greenberg

Progressive Democrats are not only fighting to get Donald Trump out of the White House, but for a new alignment of politics in America that will realize a progressive agenda on everything from jobs and immigration to health care and the climate.

Jim Hightower

Is Your Job in the Robot Kill Path?

Hunters have come up with euphemisms to make what they do sound... well, less unpleasant. For example, animals aren’t killed, they’re “harvested.”

Corporate America is now adopting this verbal ploy, for CEOs urgently need to soften the image of their constant hunt for ways to kill jobs. Their urgency is that they’re now pushing a huge new surge in cuts – this time targeting college-educated, white-collar professionals.

Barbara McQuade

The Case Against Trump. with fmr US Attorney Barbara McQuade

Can Congress file charges against Trump? Will the Justice Department file charges against Trump? Can a former president even be charged with a crime or even if true, can Trump still just get away with it? To get the answers, Bill talks to Barbara McQuade, an NBC News and MSNBC legal analyst. She is a professor at the University of Michigan Law School and a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan.

If you'd like to hear the entire episode, visit BillPressPods.com.