On this episode of The Nation Podcast, John Nichols talks about 2025's unusually important off-year elections.
From left, New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer; Newark Mayor Ras Baraka; Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop; moderator NJ Spotlight News anchor Briana Vannozzi; moderator WNYC Morning Edition host Michael Hill; New Jersey Rep. Mikie Sherrill; and former state Senate President Steve Sweeney attend the New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial primary debate Monday, May 12, 2025, in Newark, N.J.(Steve Hockstein / NJ Advance Media via AP, Pool)
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Across the country, Democratic leaders and voters are beginning to push back against Trump’s cruelty and chaos. Some are cautiously optimistic that a few key state races could serve as a crucial odd-year referendum—with major implications for voters, donors, and even Republican politicians who may reconsider their allegiances after significant MAGA defeats.
Joining us today is our own national affairs correspondent, John Nichols, who, in our July issue, turned his focus to two potential bellwethers: Virginia and New Jersey. He spoke with politicians, strategists, and activists to understand what’s at stake this fall, and who might be best positioned to deliver a winning message.
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Across the country, Democratic leaders and voters are beginning to push back against Trump’s cruelty and chaos. Some are cautiously optimistic that a few key state races could serve as a crucial odd-year referendum—with major implications for voters, donors, and even Republican politicians who may reconsider their allegiances after significant MAGA defeats.
Joining us today is our own national affairs correspondent, John Nichols, who, in our July issue, turned his focus to two potential bellwethers: Virginia and New Jersey, which has a crucial primary on Tuesday. He spoke with politicians, strategists, and activists to understand what’s at stake this fall, and who might be best positioned to deliver a winning message.
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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.
It’s no surprise that liberal philanthropy — a longtime pillar of the Democratic establishment — has become one of the Trump administration’s latest targets. As David Callahan writes in our December issue, liberal foundations “have often been depicted as the great puppet masters of the left, bankrolling and directing a who’s who of progressive groups intent on destroying the American way of life.” In other words, catnip for MAGA madness.
But as Callahan points out, the reality of how these institutions operate is far from radical. As powerbrokers of the elite, liberal philanthropists are averse to challenging “the systems that spawned them.”
How have liberal foundations failed to mobilize working-class Americans? And how can they ramp up the fight to defend the democracy they claim to care so much about saving?
Joining us to discuss this is David Callahan, founder and editor of Inside Philanthropy, and author of The Givers: Wealth, Power and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age.
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D.D. GuttenplanTwitterD.D. Guttenplan is a special correspondent for The Nation and the host of The Nation Podcast. He served as editor of the magazine from 2019 to 2025 and, prior to that, as an editor at large and London correspondent. His books include American Radical: The Life and Times of I.F. Stone, The Nation: A Biography, and The Next Republic: The Rise of a New Radical Majority.
John NicholsTwitterJohn Nichols is the executive editor of The Nation. He previously served as the magazine’s national affairs correspondent and Washington correspondent. Nichols has written, cowritten, or edited over a dozen books on topics ranging from histories of American socialism and the Democratic Party to analyses of US and global media systems. His latest, cowritten with Senator Bernie Sanders, is the New York Times bestseller It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism.