Don’t Believe the Election Myths
On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Branko Marcetic on media narratives that misrepresent what happened.

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On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Jeet Heer is joined by Branko Marcetic to discuss media narratives that misrepresent what happened.
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Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris pauses while speaking during a campaign rally at the Rawhide Event Center on October 10, 2024, in Chandler, Arizona.
(Brandon Bell / Getty Images)The one good thing about defeat is you can learn some lessons. But what if the lessons you learn are the wrong ones? In the wake of Donald Trump winning the presidential election, pundits and Democratic strategists have already been drawing lessons.
Unfortunately, as Branko Marcetic documents in a recent piece in Jacobin, many of these lessons are in fact myths, designed to exculpate those responsible for the electoral disaster while scapegoating groups that have much less power. On this episode of The Time of Monsters, I was very happy to talk to Branko about both election myths and the mythmakers who spin them.

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
Even as he imposes authoritarianism on the United States, Donald Trump has given a new lease on life to the center left in many other countries. Canada is holding an election at the end of April under the shadow of the American presidents threat to turn it into the 51st state. Until Trump’s inauguration, the Conservative Party of Canada had a commanding lead. But voters are changing their minds fast and it now looks like the Liberal Party under new leader Mark Carney will win the election.
To talk about the quick revolution in Canadian politics I spoke to Luke Savage, a widely published journalist and substracker. We take up not just Canada’s likely rejection of Trumpism but also the question of whether Carney’s technocratic centrism really offers an alternative. If there is to be a new Canadian nationalism, will it have more substance than Carney offers?
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The chaos and cruelty of the Trump administration reaches new lows each week.
Trump’s catastrophic “Liberation Day” has wreaked havoc on the world economy and set up yet another constitutional crisis at home. Plainclothes officers continue to abduct university students off the streets. So-called “enemy aliens” are flown abroad to a mega prison against the orders of the courts. And Signalgate promises to be the first of many incompetence scandals that expose the brutal violence at the core of the American empire.
At a time when elite universities, powerful law firms, and influential media outlets are capitulating to Trump’s intimidation, The Nation is more determined than ever before to hold the powerful to account.
In just the last month, we’ve published reporting on how Trump outsources his mass deportation agenda to other countries, exposed the administration’s appeal to obscure laws to carry out its repressive agenda, and amplified the voices of brave student activists targeted by universities.
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