How to Save a Country: Recent Episodes
Roosevelt Institute
On "How to Save a Country," hosts Felicia Wong (Roosevelt Institute) and Michael Tomasky (The New Republic) introduce you to the people and ideas moving America forward in uncertain times. How did we get to this inflection point for our democracy and economy, and how do we move ahead? How do we protect democracy from its attackers? How do we change the fundamentals of our economy so jobs pay more and wealth is shared? How do we forge a path to a high-care, low-carbon future?
“How to Save a Country” answers these questions by connecting dots across economics, law, and politics—and shows that there is a way forward for our democracy.
New episodes every Thursday. Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.
You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.
Over the last two seasons, Felicia and Michael have talked with politicians, superstar activists, and renowned academics—from Senator Elizabeth Warren to economist Thomas Piketty.
In this final episode of How to Save a Country, they’re taking a look back, and hashing out debates they’ve had between themselves along the way: What’s the real difference between “progressive” and “liberal”? What big projects should the left set their sights on, and which are politically out of reach? And how well does “the middle out” work as a descriptor for post-neoliberalism?
And later, they play back some of the boldest ideas guests have discussed on the show, including expanding the House of Representatives (a pet cause of Michael’s).
“I hope that in the years to come, we can look back on this capsule of conversations that we’ve had over the last few seasons and see that we captured a moment in time. Right on the cusp of changing the economic paradigm, but before that paradigm was fully instantiated,” says Felicia.
“And I hope that we can see these conversations as a prelude maybe to a new way of organizing, organizing our economy, organizing our democracy, organizing and fighting for our vision of freedom.”
Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.
You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.
What do people mean when they talk about freedom? Throughout history, that question has often had dark answers, as Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Jefferson Cowie explains in this episode.
“Going all the way back to Athenian democracy is the freedom to enslave, the freedom to oppress, the freedom to dominate,” he tells Felicia and Michael.
In his book, Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power—which won the 2023 Pulitzer for History—Jefferson argues that this kind of freedom is deeply American, and explores the story of one place that exemplifies it: Barbour County, Alabama.
Jefferson takes Michael and Felicia on a journey through the county’s history, highlighting the treatment of the Muscogee Nation, political dynamics during the Reconstruction Era, and the political career of four-time Alabama governor and Barbour County native George Wallace.
And later, Jefferson, Felicia, and Michael discuss the present-day fight over freedom, and the role historians have in this moment of political instability.
Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.
You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.
Almost a decade ago, economist Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century changed the way many people understood capitalism and inequality.
In the years since, his research and ideas have helped jolt our politics out of autopilot and elevate solutions like a wealth tax into the mainstream.
This episode—recorded in Paris following a panel discussion Thomas and Felicia participated in with historian Gary Gerstle—is about what comes next.
“I think it's important that progressives . . . start thinking again not only about next week, but also about next decade and next century,” Thomas tells Felicia.
He talks about the possibility of a universal basic inheritance, the battle for progressive taxation, and what he sees as the key to prosperity: “much more investment in education, human capital, public infrastructure.”
Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.
You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.
If you’ve never heard of OIRA, you aren’t alone. But while small, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is a mighty federal agency, with a vital role in reviewing and implementing executive branch regulations.
It’s also a popular target for some on the right. When conservatives target the administrative state and paint executive powers or civil service as overreaching, agencies like OIRA are what they’re disparaging.
What would the US look like without the administrative state? And what can progressives do to protect it? This week, Felicia and Michael ask those questions (and many more) of OIRA’s recent leader, K. Sabeel Rahman, who served in the agency from 2021 to early 2023.
Sabeel is the co-founder and co-chair of the Law and Political Economy Project, the former president of the think tank Demos, and the author of the books Democracy against Domination and Civic Power: Rebuilding American Democracy in an Era of Crisis (co-authored by Hollie Russon Gilman).
As Sabeel tells Michael and Felicia, OIRA is indispensable in that rebuilding.
“Of course we want our government to be responsive and accountable to the public,” Sabeel says. “But I would actually argue that the way we do that is through the regulatory process, through having policymakers in government who are apolitical, neutral civil servants whose whole mission is to serve the public, not to serve any one party.”
And later, the trio discuss OIRA’s efforts to make government services more accessible and reflect on the too-close-for-comfort debt ceiling battle.
Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.
You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.
Fun fact: The US economy’s rebound from the COVID recession has been five times faster than its recovery after the Great Recession.
You read that right. And to explain why that is—and how workers have benefited—we’ve got two people who’ve had front-row seats in the Obama and Biden administrations.
Joelle Gamble is the current chief economist at the US Department of Labor; Heidi Shierholz (now the president of the Economic Policy Institute) was its chief economist between 2014 and 2017.
Together, they talk with Felicia and Michael about how the shifts in economic policy thinking over the last decade helped produce today’s record-breaking recovery.
“The economy is not like the freaking weather, right? Like it really is a policy choice,” Heidi says. “The difference in the speed of the recovery really, really underscores just how unbelievably important fiscal policy is, like Keynesian stimulus, to generating a strong recovery.”
Joelle and Heidi discuss how to measure a recovery, why this inflation moment is a corporate profit story, and how to shift people’s view of the government’s role—by “doing things that help people and doing them well,” Joelle says.
Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.
You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.
Brad DeLong knows a thing or two about the US economy. As one of the world’s leading macroeconomists, a former Treasury Department deputy assistant secretary, and author of the new book Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century, Brad is an expert on both the history and theory of neoliberalism.
And he’s as surprised as anyone that it came to power so completely, and that it’s lasted this long.
“In my heart of hearts, I still cannot believe that the New Deal order collapsed as rapidly as it did in the 1970s,” Brad says.
In this episode, Brad and hosts Felicia Wong and Michael Tomasky dig into what came next, and Michael comes out of host mode to talk about his book The Middle Out: The Rise of Progressive Economics and a Return to Shared Prosperity—which incidentally released on the same day as Brad’s.
Together, they discuss what neoliberalism is (always a matter of debate), when and how it became the dominant way of thinking about the economy, and why it’s finally on the way out. Maybe.
Brad also talks to Michael and Felicia about the ways in which he says his generation failed, and what the next generation must do to meet the new challenges of the 21st century, from the climate crisis to wealth inequality.
Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.
You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.
The morning after Election Day, Michael and Felicia look at how progressive ideas—particularly economic ideas—fared throughout the country. They discuss why we might be in a new era of midterms, what the media got wrong about election narratives, what political ads can tell us about economic policy, and whether elected officials can connect the dots between rhetoric and reality.
Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.
You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.
Few have done more to change the climate paradigm than Rhiana Gunn-Wright.
As an architect of the Green New Deal, Rhiana was instrumental in expanding the limits of climate policy, and telling a story far larger—and more inspiring—than curbing carbon emissions by taxing them.
The Green New Deal’s vision: affirmative investment in green industries, decarbonization as an engine of economic growth, and racial equity and job creation at the center of the national project.
“They wanted a World War II style economic mobilization that would cut emissions in 10 years, create millions of jobs, and…reduce the racial wealth gap. And so my job was basically to figure out how you could do that,” Rhiana tells Felicia and Michael.
Now director of climate policy at the Roosevelt Institute, Rhiana sees the legacy of that vision in today’s politics. Environmental justice is now an essential part of the narrative; and industrial policy, which she has championed for years, is becoming mainstream.
“Back in 2019 when I was doing all these interviews, not a day went by where people didn't ask me, ‘Well, why should equity be part of this? Why should racial justice be part of discussions about climate or decarbonization?’” Rhiana recalls. “And now you can't actually have a conversation about climate without mentioning equity and justice and environmental justice.”
Rhiana also talks with Felicia and Michael about why she thinks the Inflation Reduction Act is a mixed bag, why industrial policy must include transforming our approach to child care and elder care, and how to change people's understanding of where wealth comes from by telling a story of public investment and inclusion.
Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.
You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries is a rising star in the Democratic Party and the likely front-runner to be the next House leader. He’s also quite the policy wonk, as Felicia and Michael learn in this episode.
What drives the chair of the House Democratic Caucus, and what’s his vision for the next generation of leadership?
Rep. Jeffries, who grew up in a union family in Crown Heights, traces his political journey back to the 1992 Rodney King trial. “There was a shock at the injustice of an acquittal. And I remember saying to myself that…[I want] to fight for the principles of equal protection under the law, liberty, and justice for all in the purest possible way.”
Three decades later—on the heels of what he calls “one of the most productive legislative sessions in the history of the country”—Rep. Jeffries discusses what implementation of clean energy investments will require, why solving the affordable housing crisis is one of his top priorities, and how progressives can better communicate their accomplishments and goals.
“We're going to have to do a better job moving forward, of recognizing that there's a distinction between governing and messaging,” he says. “You govern in fine print. You message, you persuade, you communicate in headlines.”
Rep. Jeffries also talks about the historic role of the Congressional Black Caucus, and what being middle-class actually means in today's economy.
Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.
You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.
Deepak Bhargava has a big idea: America should live up to the best parts of our national identity and become the most welcoming country on Earth for immigrants and refugees. His Statue of Liberty Plan proposes a target of welcoming 75 million people over the course of the next decade. To do that, and counter broader authoritarian appeals, we need a new narrative rooted in progressive values.
Deepak is a CUNY distinguished lecturer in Urban Studies, a Roosevelt senior fellow, and former President and Executive Director of Center for Community Change, and his ideas come at a crucial moment. In the coming years, an existing trend will accelerate: The people who contributed the least to the climate crisis will bear the worst of its effects. According to the World Bank, there will be 143 million climate migrants from Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia by 2050. Given the scope of our country’s historic contributions to the climate crisis, this presents an urgent question: As Deepak asks, “If you burned your neighbor's house down and they came to your door, knocking, asking for refuge, what's your responsibility?”
Deepak, Michael, and Felicia discuss the moral imperatives behind a progressive vision for immigration and what kind of civil society movement would be necessary to see it through.
Deepak also talks about his vision and strategy for the broader progressive movement: Returning to the fundamentals of organizing. Listening seriously to what people want and need. And telling a good story that makes sense. “There are millions and millions of people in this country who would participate in its renewal, who would participate in this fight if they are asked,” he says. “We can win this.”
Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.
You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.
Last term, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority showed that it was unafraid of flexing its muscle when it voted to overturn Roe v. Wade—a landmark ruling that had been in place for nearly half a century. Now that the Supreme Court has begun a new term, how can progressives prepare for a conservative majority that’s highly skeptical of government power?
Yale Law professor Amy Kapczynski has unique insight into what the Supreme Court could do this term, and what it means for the current and future state of our democracy. Amy, a former AIDS activist, is faculty co-director of Yale’s Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project, which seeks to explain how the law shapes our economy, and what that means for our ability to solve urgent social problems.
“It’s going to be very hard to do,” she tells Felicia and Michael, “to tackle changes that are existential for the United States, like climate change, without addressing the actual persons and the majority on this court.”
Amy, who has clerked at the Supreme Court for Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Stephen Breyer, discusses the future of the court and its expected voting record, legal originalism’s impact on modern justices, and why progressives need to move from a defensive position to a positive vision if they want to protect the Constitution and democracy’s commitment to equality, racial justice, and reproductive freedom.
Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.
You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.
In the mid-1950s, nearly 3 in 10 employed workers belonged to a union. Now that figure is down to about 10 percent—or just 6 percent in the private sector alone.
But labor organizing and pro-worker policymaking are on the rise. At more than 200 Starbucks outlets, an Amazon warehouse, and even an Apple store, workers are banding together to ask for higher wages, better benefits, and more control over their schedules and workplace conditions.
Dorian Warren has been a leader in those efforts. Dorian is a labor scholar and organizer, and the co-president of Community Change, a national organization that builds the power of low-income people—especially low-income people of color.
“This is actually an exciting time for the labor movement,” he tells Felicia and Michael. “There is something really going on across the spectrum in terms of one's class background, racial and gender background.”
Dorian talks about the diversity of those pushing for unionization in modern America, the importance of federal leadership when it comes to labor rights, and what’s really at stake: “No labor movement means no strong democracy. No labor movement means no middle class.”
Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.
You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.
Heather Cox Richardson's wildly popular Substack newsletter, Letters from an American, achieves what historical studies do at their best: shed light on the politics of the moment by telling parallel stories from the past. As often as the word "unprecedented" comes up in modern political discussions, the comparisons it conjures are usually limited to living memory—which historians know to look beyond.
The newsletter is drawn from Richardson's work as a professor of 19th century American history at Boston College. She's also the author of six books including, most recently, To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party.
In this conversation, Richardson talks with Michael and Felicia about today’s polarization, the last time antidemocratic forces threatened to take hold of Congress, and the origins of the American public's susceptibility to conspiracy theories.
Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.
You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.
Fresh off a legislative winning streak, the Biden administration is having a moment right now. But those unprecedented investments in driving clean energy innovation and rebuilding supply chains are poised to reshape the American economy for the next decade and beyond.
Brian Deese, Director of the National Economic Council, had a lot to do with that.
Brian joins the podcast to talk about the uniting principle behind the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act: "competent, effective government focused on investing in the United States, building in the United States, building capacity that's going to connect to people's lives.”
But first, co-hosts Felicia Wong and Michael Tomasky discuss their mission for the podcast's first season: challenging neoliberalism's prescription for small government, trickle-down tax cuts, and an unquestioning faith in markets—and offering an alternative vision for an economy and democracy that work for all of us.
Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.
You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.
On "How to Save a Country," hosts Felicia Wong (Roosevelt Institute) and Michael Tomasky (The New Republic) introduce you to the people and ideas moving America forward in uncertain times.
With their insights and ideas, they'll connect the dots across economics, law, and politics to show there is a way forward for our democracy — even if it doesn't feel that way.
New episodes every Thursday. Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX.