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Reasons for Hope From Iowa Republicans, Plus American Fiction

On this episode of Start Making Sense, John Nichols analyzes Monday’s GOP caucus results, and John Powers reviews the new film starring Jeffrey Wright.

Jon Wiener

January 17, 2024

Jeffrey Wright in American Fiction. (Photo by Claire Folger)

The Nation Podcasts

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.

Reasons for Hope from the Iowa GOP, plus “American Fiction” | Start Making Sense
byThe Nation Magazine

John Nichols reports on Monday’s Republican caucuses in Iowa, and explains why Iowa is the state with the biggest shift from blue to red between Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2020.

Also: The new film "American Fiction," starring Jeffrey Wright, takes up the question, do Black writers have to "write Black"? The film is based on the novel "Erasure" by Percival Everett, which is considerably wilder and more uncompromising than the film. John Powers comments—he’s critic at Large on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross.

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On this episode of Start Making Sense, John Nichols reports on Monday’s Republican caucuses in Iowa, where 31 percent of Republicans said they’d consider Trump unfit for the presidency if he were to be if he were to be convicted of a crime

Also on this episode: The new film American Fiction, starring Jeffrey Wright, takes up the question, do Black writers have to “write Black”? The film is based on the novel Erasur by Percival Everett, which is considerably wilder and more uncompromising than the film. John Powers comments—he’s critic at Large on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross.

The Nation Podcasts

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.

Mamdani’s Socialism—and Us; plus Football and Concussions | Start Making Sense
byThe Nation Magazine

Zorhan Mamdani takes office in four weeks as the first socialist mayor of New York City. How should we understand the constraints he faces, without accepting those constraints? Bhaskar Sunkara has our analysis; he’s president of The Nation and author of ‘The Socialist Manifesto.’

Plus: Sports Talk on The Nation podcast! Of course Thanksgiving was a big weekend for football on TV – a weekend where millions of viewers got to see a festival of brain injuries — concussions after receiving blows to the head. Dave Zirin will comment – he's the long-time sports editor of The Nation and host of the Edge of Sports podcast.

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Jon WienerTwitterJon Wiener is a contributing editor of The Nation and co-author (with Mike Davis) of Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties.


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