Mike Madrid of the Lincoln Project

If you wanted to, you could consume nothing but presidential campaign coverage all day every day. But how much of it would leave you feeling better informed about casting what may be the most important vote of your life? Not better informed about the campaign as a sporting event, with all the expert play-by-play, color commentary, and stats. But better informed about questions that may not have easy, satisfying, or entertaining answers? Better prepared to think, and not just react?

On this episode of Dastardly Cleverness, we go hunting for that kind of election coverage, find a little, and try to supply some ourselves. I'm joined by two people I can always count on to leave me better informed.

Mike Madrid is a co-founder of the Lincoln Project and one of the country’s top political consultants, with special expertise on Latino voting trends. Mike previously served as the press secretary for the California Assembly Republican leader, as the political director for the California Republican Party, and as a senior adviser to both Republicans and Democrats. He’s the author of the upcoming book The Latino Century.

And Zach Friend has worked for multiple presidential campaigns, the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the U.S. Senate, and the U.S. House of Representatives, and has served for multiple terms as an elected official in Santa Cruz County, California. Zach is the author of the book On Message.

-- Spencer Critchley

By some measures, well over half of charities do little or no good. When similar charities are compared, the most effective ones can be up to 100 times more effective than the least. And there’s often a big mismatch between where donors direct their support and where the need and potential benefits are greatest.

A movement called effective altruism aims to make giving work better by identifying the most effective charities in the world and encouraging donors to support them generously and strategically.

There's been a lot of excitement about it, but lately it's also drawn critics of its ethical premises and the behavior of some who call themselves effective altruists.

In this episode Spencer explores both the promise challenges of effective altruism, in a fascinating conversation with one of the movement’s leaders, Luke Freeman, Executive Director of Giving What We Can.

There are lots of reasons to be cynical about the crisis in our politics. The trouble is, one of the biggest causes of that crisis is cynicism itself.

We should always be skeptical about politics. People aren’t angels, as James Madison reminded us.

But skepticism involves checking to find out what’s really going on, good or bad. Cynicism is just assuming that it’s all bad.

This is often mistaken for savviness, which lends cool-kids credibility to claims like “all politicians are crooks,” or “there’s no difference between the parties,” or “government never works.” Except none of those claims actually stands up to skeptical scrutiny.

Political journalists reinforce cynicism when they cover politics, day by day, as a dirty game in which all the players are more or less the same: self-interested schemers. NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen blames it on what he calls “the cult of savvy,” which rewards reporters for the cynicism of their coverage, when what we need from them is skepticism.

Skepticism is healthy, and necessary for democracy. You can’t say either about cynicism.

If we automatically accept cynical beliefs as true, we make them ever more likely to become true. People who work on behalf of hope gradually withdraw from the arena, leaving it to people all too happy to encourage despair. And those are people who do in fact have very bad motivations.

In this way cynicism reinforces itself and becomes a political death spiral.

Democracy can’t run on despair. But authoritarianism depends on it. This is why authoritarians like Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump don’t care that you know they’re lying — they want you to know they’re lying. It serves their interests if you conclude that everyone is a liar, and lose hope.  Then your only safe choice is to back the most powerful liar.

All this is why I wanted to talk this time about what has become a deeply unfashionable topic: morality in politics. Yes, it does exist, and in a democracy it must exist.

And once again I talk with Kevin Lewis and Zach Friend. 

Kevin has been a communications advisor and spokesman for former President Barack Obama, the White House, the Department of Justice, both Obama campaigns, and Meta.

Zach has worked for the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the U.S. Senate, the House of Representatives, and several presidential campaigns, including both of Obama’s. He’s currently an elected Supervisor in Santa Cruz County, California.

Both have seen lots of the good and bad in politics, but neither is a cynic.

— Spencer

A three-way conversation featuring host Spencer Critchley, Kevin Lewis, and Zach Friend on leadership lessons from the ouster of Kevin McCarthy, as compared with far better examples set by Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi, and others. It turns out, to the shock of cynics everywhere, that character matters!

Kevin was the post-presidency spokesman for former President Barack Obama. During the Obama administration he served at the White House and at the Department of Justice, where he advised Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch. He’s also worked for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and both Obama campaigns.

Zach has worked for the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the U.S. Senate, the House of Representatives, and both Obama campaigns as well. He’s currently serving in local government as an elected Supervisor in Santa Cruz County, California.

A video version of this episode is on YouTube.

If you want to know more about the risks and rewards of artificial intelligence, you could hardly do better than to consult with someone who’s been a senior communications advisor for Facebook, lately known as Meta, the US Department of Justice, and a President of the United States. And that’s what Spencer did for this episode.

Kevin Lewis was the post-presidency spokesman for former President Barack Obama. During the Obama administration he served at the White House and at the DOJ, where he advised Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch. He’s also worked for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and both Obama campaigns.

We talk about how AI is transforming communication, politics, business, and even our understanding of reality and identity. We get into Senator Charles Schumer’s current efforts to help Congress catch up with a rapidly-growing technology few people understand. And you’ll hear some of Kevin’s anecdotes about working with some very interesting people under very interesting circumstances.

If you have children in your family, you’re probably worried about what technology might be doing to them. And maybe there’s some hope about what tech might do for them. In this episode, you can get guidance from one of the world's top experts on the subject.

Dr. Katie Davis is a researcher and associate professor at the University of Washington, and the director of the university’s Digital Youth lab. She’s been studying technology and children for nearly two decades, starting with her time at Harvard University, where she studied under, and worked closely with, the renowned psychologist Howard Gardner. Katie’s first book, The App Generation, was co-written with Gardner. Her third and latest book, Technology's Child, was released recently by MIT Press.

The episode before last, Spencer was the guest for a change, interviewed by Joan Esposito, who hosts a liberal talk radio show originating at WCPT-AM in Chicago. This time, Spencer interviews Joan about how she manages to conduct smart, in-depth, live political conversations three hours a day, five days a week — sometimes devoting a full hour to a topic when the standard is a few minutes. We hear what Joan has learned as a radio host, as a TV news anchor, and in other roles, helping people understand what’s going on in their lives and in the world.

Sam Farr devoted 44 years of his life to elected office at the local, state, and federal level. That included 24 years as the Congressman for the Central Coast of California, where he grew up in the seaside village of Carmel. 

Among his inspirations were his father, longtime state legislator Fred Farr; President John F. Kennedy; and the Peace Corps, which he joined as a young man. If that makes him sound like an idealist, that’s accurate, but it’s only half the picture.

The other half is very pragmatic, with an obsessive focus on the nuts and bolts of policy and politics.

As you’ll hear in this interview, when both of those halves come together, democracy can work. Sam has lots of great stories about how that happens, some of them funny, some very moving, and all of them hopeful.

Spencer often talks with Joan Esposito, who interviews him about politics for her show on Chicago's WCPT-AM. This episode of Dastardly Cleverness replays one of those conversations that's especially relevant now.

Joan and Spencer focus on why democracy, after all its successes, is now in so much danger from authoritarianism. They talk about:

• Why so many people are choosing authoritarianism over democracy, mostly on the right but on the left too
• How the sources of America's division go back to the Founding
• The breakdown of the moral consensus that used to hold us more or less together and how that allows demagogues to appeal to the worst in us
• What Plato, Freud, Marx, religion, and Silicon Valley tech bro’s have to do with all this
• And more.

You can hear more smart, thoughtful interviews by Joan Esposito over the air on WCPT-AM Chicago, online at heartlandsignal.com, on SoundCloud, or with any podcast app — just search for “Joan Esposito.”

Even with democracy in grave danger, Democrats are in a close race against the people who are trying to finish it off. How can that be, and what should they do about it?

Questions like that have been dominating discussions among a group of some of the country's most senior Democratic Party veterans, including former House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt, one-time presidential favorite Gary Hart, and until her recent death, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

And our two guests this time: Les Francis and Lora Lee Martin.