Utterly Moderate Podcast

Before we get to today’s episode, check out this article about the Connors Institute in The Sentinel newspaper!

On this episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast we are joined by Robert VerBruggen from the Manhattan Institute to discuss a new documentary which claims to disprove that George Floyd was killed by Derek Chauvin, as well as a new research study which claims to disprove that income inequality in the U.S. has been rising since the 1960s.

The documentary in question, The Fall of Minneapolis, was produced by Alpha News, an organization that has a history of low-quality journalism that is often inaccurate, biased, and misleading. Podcast host Lawrence Eppard and guest Robert VerBruggen will discuss the claims in the documentary and why they fall short.

They also discuss a new and important research study which calls into question whether income inequality has really been rising since the 1960s like we have all been led to believe. While this new paper does not completely disprove the argument that inequality has in fact been increasing, it raises serious concerns about how certain we can be about the dominant narrative that inequality has been rising out of control.

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Episode Audio:

• "Air Background Corporate" by REDCVT (Free Music Archive)
• "Please Listen Carefully" by Jahzzar (Free Music Archive)
• "Last Dance" by Jahzzar (Free Music Archive)
• “Happy Trails (To You)” by the Riders in the Sky (used with artist’s permission)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast. . .

• Segment One: The Life and Times of George Washington
  • George Washington University historian Denver Brunsman joins the show to share his insights on the life and career of George Washington, as well as his general reflections on the study of history and its place in the modern university.
• Segment Two: The Importance of Teaching Kids Financial Literacy
  • True Tamplin, who runs the digital marketing agency UpDigital and created the finance website Finance Strategists, joins the show to discuss the importance of teaching children a solid foundation in financial literacy.
• And Before You Go. . .
  • Subscribe to our awesome free email newsletter!

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The Connors Forum is an independent entity from the institutions that we partner with. The views expressed in our newsletters and podcasts are those of the individual contributors alone and not of our partner institutions.

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Episode Music:

• “Please Listen Carefully” by Jahzzar (creative commons)
• “Draw the Sky” by Paul Keane (licensed through TakeTones)
• “Star Blessed Night” by Ketsa (creative commons)
• “The Last Ones” by Jahzzar (creative commons)
• “Last Dance” by Jahzzar (creative commons)
• “Happy Trails (To You)” by the Riders in the Sky (used with artist’s permission)

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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On this episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast, host Lawrence Eppard discusses the threat of political violence, America’s slide toward autocracy, and more with guests Rachel Kleinfeld and Ken White.

Articles/other stuff referenced in this episode:

• “The New Era of Political Violence is Here” from Tom Nichols at The Atlantic
• “Trump Supporters’ Threats to Judge Spur Democracy Concerns” from Fields & Riccard at the Associated Press
• Bulwark Podcast episode with guest Dana Milbank
• Ken White's podcast and newsletter

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The Connors Forum is an independent entity from the institutions that we partner with. The views expressed in our newsletters and podcasts are those of the individual contributors alone and not of our partner institutions.

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Episode Music:

• “Please Listen Carefully” by Jahzzar (creative commons)
• “Draw the Sky” by Paul Keane (licensed through TakeTones)
• “Star Blessed Night” by Ketsa (creative commons)
• “When” by Stephan Siebert (creative commons)
• “Cloudbank” by Podington Bear (creative commons)
• “Happy Trails (To You)” by the Riders in the Sky (used with artist’s permission)

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast we discuss recent controversies at and concerns about colleges and universities in the United States—from highly publicized instances of campus unrest to a lack of intellectual diversity among faculty to hypocrisy on free speech.

This episode’s guest is Jacob Mackey, associate professor at Occidental College and coeditor with host Lawrence Eppard of The Poisoning of the American Mind, which is due out later this spring.

Check out the podcast episode and also check out two reports that were recently released from the Connors Institute, the “Connors Institute Media Report Card” and “Place Matters.”

In the media report card Connors researchers take a rigorous look at numerous news and information sources in the U.S. and evaluate their bias and accuracy. Check it out yourself to see which outlets made the grade and which ones missed the mark.

In “Place Matters” Connors researchers examine the impact of neighborhoods and communities on American children’s chances of success. The efforts and choices of the individual children themselves of course matter for their success, as do the efforts and resources of their families. But this research shows that the neighborhoods and communities where children are raised matter a great deal for their success as well—take a look at the report yourself and also take some time to examine your own neighborhood!

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Episode Audio:

• "Air Background Corporate" by REDCVT (Free Music Archive)
• "Please Listen Carefully" by Jahzzar (Free Music Archive)
• "Last Dance" by Jahzzar (Free Music Archive)
• “Happy Trails (To You)” by the Riders in the Sky (used with artist’s permission)

Longtime Connors Newsletter subscribers and Utterly Moderate Podcast listeners know how concerned we are about post-truth America—that is, the fact that we now live in a time where objective facts are becoming less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about how American conservatives are regularly lied to by Fox News, Newsmax, and OAN about a variety of issues, whether it is supposedly stolen elections or climate change or immigration, among other topics.

But on this podcast episode we want to turn a critical eye toward those who feed American liberals misleading information.

Many in the leftwing bubble tell “virtuous lies,” a concept created by this episode’s guest, Jacob Mackey. These are empirically-flawed claims—espoused as empirically-sound and authoritative by those who propagate them—that further a social justice agenda made by some academics, activists, and partisan media outlets on the left. People make these claims without realizing or acknowledging the weak, unsettled, or even sometimes nonexistent empirical support behind their assertions.

Liberal audiences believe these claims because they fit their worldview, make them feel good, and come from credentialed people who they trust.

Additionally, for a liberal to oppose a virtuous lie would be to align oneself with “bad” people on the other side (supposed bigots, know-nothings, etc.). Jacob Mackey argues that to correct a virtuous lie is to oppose the noble goals of one’s tribe and/or to signal that one does not take the problem seriously.

The left tells a number of virtuous lies, particularly about issues related to race and gender, including claims regarding the gender pay gap, gender identity, racial inequality, microaggressions, and implicit bias, to name a few (here is a great discussion of the very unsettled research regarding microaggressions).

This of course doesn’t mean that these are not real issues, or that everything the left says about them is false. But many claims made by academics and partisan media outlets on the left about social justice issues present biased analyses of topics as if they are the settled, authoritative consensus.

The misleading information being fed to liberals and conservatives within their ideological bubbles is contributing to feelings and beliefs becoming more important than facts for many Americans on empirical matters, people becoming increasingly comfortable bending reality to their beliefs (instead of adjusting their beliefs to match the preponderance of the evidence), and millions of people losing faith in notions of facts and expertise.

As post-truth scholar and friend of the podcast Lee McIntyre argues, “[W]hat seems new in the post-truth era is a challenge not just to the idea of knowing reality but to the existence of reality itself.”

We need to work together as a country fix this! We hope you enjoy our conversation exploring this issue in this episode.

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The Connors Forum is an independent entity from the institutions that we partner with. The views expressed in our newsletters and podcasts are those of the individual contributors alone and not of our partner institutions.

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Episode Music:

• “Please Listen Carefully” by Jahzzar (Free Music Archive)
• “Star Blessed Night” by Ketsa (Free Music Archive)
• “Draw the Sky” by Paul Keane (licensed through TakeTones)
• "Reading by Lamplight" by Maarten Schellekens (Free Music Archive)
• "Last Dance" by Jahzzar (Free Music Archive)
• Mitt Romney speech and Bruce Springsteen commercial publicly available on YouTube.

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.