politicalpower

How did the National Rifle Association, America’s most influential gun-rights group, amass its power?

A New York Times investigation has revealed the secret history of how a fusty club of sportsmen became a lobbying juggernaut that would compel elected officials’ allegiance, derail legislation behind the scenes, and redefine the legal landscape.

Mike McIntire, an investigative reporter for The Times, sets out the story of the N.R.A.’s transformation — and the unseen role that members of Congress played in designing the group’s strategies. 

Guest: Mike McIntire, an investigative reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Over decades, a small group of legislators led by a prominent Democrat pushed the gun lobby to help transform the law, the courts and views on the Second Amendment.
• The potential Republican 2024 presidential candidates showed strong support for gun owners’ rights — a core issue for the party’s base, but one that can be a tougher sell in a general election.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Is the global climate crisis already out of control? Lewis' special report from Southern Spain.

And, as the boss of NatWest resigns over the Farage - Coutts crisis - why has one man and his bank account consumed national news?

Editor: Tom Hughes

Senior Producer: Gabriel Radus

Producer: Laura FitzPatrick

Planning: Alex Barnett

Video producers: Rory Symon & Will Gibson Smith

Social media editor: Georgia Foxwell

The News Agents is a Global Player Original and a Persephonica Production.

For two decades, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has loomed large over Turkish politics. But skyrocketing inflation and a devastating earthquake have eroded his power and, in a presidential election over the weekend, he was forced into a runoff.

Ben Hubbard, The Times’s Istanbul bureau chief, discusses how Turkey’s troubles have made Mr. Erdogan politically vulnerable.

Guest: Ben Hubbard, the Istanbul bureau chief for The New York Times. 

Background reading: 

• Despite the headwinds, Mr. Erdogan appears to be in a strong position to emerge with another five-year term. Here’s what to know.
• The election suggested that even if Mr. Erdogan’s grip on power has been loosened, it has not yet broken.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In today's episode, Andy & DJ discuss an agency responding to the Twitter files claiming they didn't request any action on specific tweets, a New York judge allowing Sam Bankman-Fried to be released on a $250M bond, and Ukrainian President Zelensky's theatrical day at the capitol in Washington, DC.

“It’s true: We’re in trouble,” writes Michelle Goldberg of the modern feminist movement. “One thing backlashes do is transform a culture’s common sense and horizons of possibility. A backlash isn’t just a political formation. It’s also a new structure of feeling that makes utopian social projects seem ridiculous.”

It wouldn’t be fair to blame the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the ensuing wave of draconian abortion laws sweeping the nation on a failure of persuasion, or on a failure of the women’s movement. But signs of anti-feminist backlash are permeating American culture: Girlbosses have become figures of ridicule, Amber Heard’s testimony drew a fire hose of misogyny, and recent polling finds that younger generations — both men and women — are feeling ambivalent about whether feminism has helped or hurt women. A movement that has won so many victories in law, politics and public opinion is now defending its very existence.

Goldberg is a columnist for Times Opinion who focuses on gender and politics. In recent weeks, she has written a series of columns grappling with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but also considering the broader atmosphere that created so much despair on the left. What can feminists — and Democrats more broadly — learn from anti-abortion organizers? How has the women’s movement changed in the half-century since Roe, and where can the movement go after this loss? Has feminism moved too far away from its early focus on organizing and into the turbulent waters of online discourse? Has it become a victim of its own success?

We discuss a “flabbergasting” poll about the way young people — both men and women — feel about feminism, why so many young people have become pessimistic about heterosexual relationships, how the widespread embrace of feminism defanged its politics, why the anti-abortion movement is so good at recruiting and retaining activists — and what the left can learn from them, how today’s backlash against women compares to that of the Reagan years, why nonprofits on the left are in such extreme turmoil, why a social movement’s obsession with “cringe” can be its downfall, how “safe spaces” on the left started to feel unsafe, why feminism doesn’t always serve poor women, whether the #MeToo movement was overly dismissive of “due process” and how progressives could improve the way they talk about the family and more.

Mentioned:

“The Future Isn’t Female Anymore” by Michelle Goldberg

“Amber Heard and the Death of #MeToo” by Michelle Goldberg

Rethinking Sex by Christine Emba

The Case Against the Sexual Revolution by Louise Perry

Bad Sex by Nona Willis Aronowitz

“Elephant in the Zoom” by Ryan Grim

“The Tyranny of Structurelessness” by Jo Freeman

“Lessons From the Terrible Triumph of the Anti-Abortion Movement” by Michelle Goldberg

The Making of Pro-Life Activists by Ziad W. Munson

Steered by the Reactionary: What To Do About Feminism by The Drift

Book Recommendations:

Backlash by Susan Faludi

No More Nice Girls by Ellen Willis

Status and Culture by W. David Marx

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Annie Galvin and Rogé Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Kate Sinclair; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Sonia Herrero and Isaac Jones; audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Special thanks to Kristin Lin and Kristina Samulewski.

SCOTUS disapproves of Texas's anti-abortion law, Desi Lydic examines how Taylor Swift fans are affecting Virginia politics, and Vanessa Nakate discusses "A Bigger Picture."

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Robert is joined by Propaganda to discuss Pappa Doc and Baby Doc.

FOOTNOTES:

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/04/23/archives/papa-doc-a-ruthless-dictator-kept-the-haitians-in-illiteracy-and.html

http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,870257,00.html

https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/duvalier-francois-papa-doc-1907-1971/

https://archive.org/details/dominicanrepubli00metz/page/462/mode/2up?view=theater

https://books.google.com/books?id=wFrAOqfhuGYC&pg=PA391#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://archive.org/details/haitiduvaliersth00abbo/page/8/mode/2up

Charles River Editors. Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier: The Lives and Legacies of Haiti’s Most Notorious Rulers (pp. 15-16). Charles River Editors. Kindle Edition.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/jean-claude-duvalier-ex-haitian-leader-known-as-baby-doc-dies-at-63/2014/10/04/ecdaa2bc-4be3-11e4-b72e-d60a9229cc10_story.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/jean-claude-duvalier-former-president-haiti-who-brutalised-his-opponents-and-was-prevented-returning-back-country-9776019.html

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/terror-repression-and-diaspora-baby-doc-legacy-haiti/

https://origins.osu.edu/article/pact-devil-united-states-and-fate-modern-haiti/page/0/1

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Andrew Cuomo declares a “disaster emergency” on gun violence; our most powerful institutions have been hijacked by radicals; and our education system is now rife with critical theory of all sorts.

Check out Debunked. Where Ben Shapiro exposes leftist fallacies in 15 minutes or less. Watch the full season available only on The Daily Wire: utm.io/uc9er 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

New York Times columnist Charles Blow argues that white supremacy in America will never fully recede, and that it’s time for Black people to do something radical about it. In The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto, he urges a “reverse migration” to the South to consolidate political power and create a region where it’s safe to be Black. (This is an episode of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club.)

Tim Dillon is a standup comedian, actor, and host of The Tim Dillon Show. Kyle Kulinski is a political activist, news commentator, and host of The Kyle Kulinski Show.

In Part Two on Bashar al Assad, Robert is joined again by Anna Hossnieh to continue discussing how he murdered his nation.

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