Briana Cartwright, a DNC member representing Young Democrats of America, joined our Misfits to talk about just how weird 2020 has been in every way and look at the hard choices ahead for people who want to make sure President Trump is held to one term. They ask how important Joe Biden’s running mate now becomes, who might be on that wish list, and whether the tendency of Democrats to pick each other apart helps or hurts their chances both to generate a movement and to win elections. Callers then weighed in with thoughts on the true value of vetting, character versus calculation, and the weakness of the left.
Alan MacLeod, journalist, media analyst and member of the Glasgow University Media Group, dropped by for some speculation about what kind of narrative the Democrats and the media will try to spin for Biden, and whether they’ll try the 2016 “at least I’m not the other guy” routine. He and hosts Bob Schlehuber and Jamarl Thomas point out that the only definite Biden policies they can point to are bad ones, so a policy-driven campaign seems out. Has this race come down to style versus substance, and if so, is there ever hope that substance can win? And will the pandemic expose Trump as a charlatan, or give him the opportunity to posture as a wartime leader?
The three also touched on the chilling aspects of some disease surveillance efforts, and continued that thread with Shane Stranahan, producer of Fault Lines on Radio Sputnik, to get into issues of privacy and also the links between Clearview AI and the US’ far right. Clearview’s facial recognition database dwarfs those of many law enforcement agencies. Should its connections both to some of the fringes of the far right, and to the Trump administration, raise alarms?
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