Election in Crisis, Cancel Culture, John Lewis

Seeking Election to the White House in Times of Crisis (0:31) Guest: Chris Karpowitz, PhD, Professor of Political Science, Co-director of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, BYU; Grant Madsen, PhD, Professor of History, BYU The 2020 Presidential Election will be surely be remembered as the pandemic election. At least I’ll remember it  that way. Historians probably will, too. How have past Presidential Elections played out amid a crisis–whether caused by disease, economic depression or war? Understanding the Cancel Culture Debate (23:30) Guest: Samuel Moyn, Law Professor, Yale University What does it mean to get “cancelled”? In recent years, it’s come to mean being publicly shamed on social media and maybe even losing your job. A few weeks ago, more than a hundred prominent journalists and authors published an open letter in Harper’s Magazine warning that this rush to call out and ostracize viewpoints threatens both freedom of speech and a free press. The letter was met with calls to cancel many of the people who signed it. That’s the irony of cancel culture. And let me point out that it’s alive and well across the ideological spectrum. Social Status Plays a Role in Viewing Own Beliefs as Objectively True (40:35) Guest: Kristjen Lundberg, Assistant Professor of Social Psychology, University of Richmond Do you know someone who is just so sure of themselves that they think anyone who disagrees must be either stupid or biased? I find this quality seems particularly common right now when you’re talking about politics. But we’re seeing a fair amount of it in the US related to views about the pandemic response. New research tries to figure out who is most prone to think down on people who disagree with them. Congressman John Lewis About “Good Trouble” and his Graphic Novel Memoir “March” (52:53) Guest: Georgia Congressman and Civil Rights leader John Lewis, Author Andrew Aydin and Artist Nate Powell, “March” Georgia Congressman John Lewis died over the weekend. He was a central figure in the