campaign

Cognitive scientist George Lakoff lectures on how political debates are framed through language and metaphors tied to values, and on the moral worldviews behind progressive and conservative politics. It was given in 2005 at UC San Diego.

James D'Angelo argues that the 1970 Legislative Reorganization Act made congressional votes public, opening the door to lobbyists and special interests. He proposes restoring secret voting as a cheap fix for corruption and many social ills.

Elizabeth Warren's 2007 Berkeley lecture, when she was a Harvard law professor, on why middle-class families are under growing financial strain. She draws on bankruptcy research to examine rising costs of housing, health care and education.

The 1965 Cambridge Union debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley Jr. on whether the American Dream comes at the expense of the American Negro. It is a historic recording of the two speaking.

Mark Blyth's 2016 Brown University lecture on global Trumpism, explaining the rise of populism through economics, the decline of Western middle classes and revolt against technocracy.

Historian Timothy Snyder explains the politics of inevitability and the politics of eternity, two ways of thinking about time that frame his books On Tyranny and The Road to Unfreedom.

Milton Friedman explains why the US tax code is enormously complex and why meaningful reform is unlikely. He argues that politicians profit from the complexity, since tax breaks are products they sell and the code works as a tool of reward and punishment. The clip is about 14 minutes from his lecture series.

The first lesson from Timothy Snyder's short video series accompanying On Tyranny, arguing that most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given when people comply in advance. It runs about eight minutes.

Chalmers Johnson, author of Blowback and Sorrows of Empire, lectures on parallels between the decline of the Roman and Soviet empires and the United States. He argues the US shows the same symptoms: overextension, corruption, and an inability to reform.