January 14 – An African Perspective on Trump’s Insult of the Continent; An Historian of Immigration on the Trump/Sessions Agenda; Why Our “Populist” President Governs of, By and For the Plutocrats

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the vulgar and hateful remarks that Donald Trump made about Haiti, El Salvador and the entire continent of Africa during White House discussions with lawmakers over the future of DACA ahead of an increasingly likely government shutdown on Friday. Aniedi Okure, the executive director of the Africa Faith and Justice Network which advocates for responsible U.S. relations with Africa, joins us to discuss the outrage at Trump’s insult to the continent’s 55 countries expressed by the African Union and African ambassadors to the United Nations. We also examine the role of African leaders who, while venting indignation at the racist ignoramus in the Oval Office, in many cases care little for their own populations and are mainly interested in enriching themselves by accepting foreign bribes for access to critical minerals and vast tracts of agricultural lands.

Part 2

Then we look into the historical roots of Trump’s racist attitudes to immigrants that go back to the language of nativists and racists in the1920’s, and speak with a political historian who specializes in immigration, citizenship, and nationalism. Mae Ngai, Professor of History and of Asian American Studies at Columbia University and author of   “Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America” and the forthcoming book “The Chinese Question”, joins us to discuss how Trump and Sessions are trying to turn back the clock on immigration. We examine how DACA is being held hostage by Republican hardliners who want a wall and a so-called “merit-based” immigration system, while the Democrats hold considerable leverage ahead of a government shutdown at the end of next week.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Thomas Ferguson, a Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts who is co-author of a new study from the Institute for New Economic Thinking “Industrial Structures and Party Competition in an Age of Hunger Games” We look into the report’s detailed research of the last election that finds the bulk of the $861 million that Trump raised flooded into the race in the finally weeks of the campaign and it came mostly as dark money from private equity billionaires who have been rewarded by a president who ran as a populists but governs for the plutocrats.