251 | Police State USA

We talk to Adom Getachew, Jasson Perez and Gary Gerstle about the politics of protest and the politics of policing in America.  What does 'Defund the Police' mean in practice?  Is the current crisis likely to empower or curtail the surveillance state?  How are the current protests different from ones we've seen in the past?  And where Minneapolis leads, will the world follow?  Plus we talk about the implications of the protests for the November elections.

123 | America First?

We talk to the historian Sarah Churchwell about the origins of some of the ideas churning up politics in the age of Trump: 'America First', 'Make America Great Again', 'Fake News'. Where do these phrases come from and what do they mean? We try to unpick the racism from the isolationism and the anti-immigrant from the anti-elitist sentiment. Plus we discuss whether fascism in America was a real threat in the 1930s and whether it's a real threat today. With Andrew Preston, historian of US foreign policy. Next week: the midterms!

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