The 2016 Presidential Election is in full swing, and The Road to Now has been working hard to place this election cycle within its historical context. We were therefore thrilled when Dr. Kathryn Cramer Brownell agreed to speak with us about her research on the history of Hollywood’s influence on American politics!
Kathryn, an Assistant Professor of History at Purdue University, takes us back to the 1960s, when American politicians and media advisors came to see the adoption of Hollywood’s style of engaging the public as key to running a successful campaign. She traces the ways that the media changed the power structures within political parties, allowing individuals to bypass the party establishment by appealing directly to the public. We also discuss the winners and losers in this process, and the ways that this lens allows us to better understand Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and the 2016 election. Along the way, Kathryn blows the doors off some of the major assumptions we have about the past and present of Presidential elections. You know that story about the 1960 televised debate being a key reason for Nixon’s loss? Kathryn discovered that it was created by Nixon and his advisors six years after the debate was over. (This blew our minds!).
Recorded September 20, 2016 w/ Ben Sawyer in Nashville and Dr. Brownell in West Lafayette, IN.
For more info on the podcast: www.theroadtonow.com
The first Presidential debate of 2016 is fast approaching, and Bob & Ben have put together a Debate Extravaganza to help you get ready for this highly anticipated showdown!
Never before has The Road to Now offered so many brilliant minds in a single episode! Bob and Ben begin by going through some of the most important moments in the history of Presidential debates since 1960, when John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon became the first candidates to debate live on television. Bob and Ben then hand the microphone to RTN favorites Matt Negrin and Alexander Trowbridge of Bloomberg Politics for an outstanding piece on the origins of the “spin room” and the role it plays in modern debates, featuring interviews with Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz and With All Due Respect’s Mark Halperin. Our extravaganza concludes with a tremendous conversation with The Washington Post’s Chris Cilliza about the 2016 debates and what strategies may be best for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
You’re probably thinking “Matt Negrin and Alex Trowbridge…. haven’t I heard of those guys before? Well of course you have! They’re the hosts of Path to the Present, a podcast within a podcast, brought to you by the podcast Double Down and Out, brought to you by Double Down (still available on Amazon and still kind of relevant), featuring The Road Less Traveled, a micropodcast featuring deleted scenes from The Road to Now. They’ve also joined our team as official contributors to The Road to Now, and we couldn’t be more excited! (Trust us, this will all make sense once you listen to the episode!)
For more on The Road to Now: www.theroadtonow.com
In The Road to Now’s first episode abroad, Bob and Ben are joined by Sir Alan Meale for a conversation about the politics and recent history of the United Kingdom. Meale, a Labour Party politician who has served for nearly three decades as a Member of Parliament from Mansfield (Nottingham County), offers his perspective on the political system of the UK, the European Union’s impact on the history of the UK and Europe, and the challenges that the UK faces as it severs its ties with the EU. He also shares his own personal history, and the reasons he decided to join the Labour Party and devote his life to public service through politics.
Recorded September 1st from the Parliament of the United Kingdom, London, England (w/ Ben via Skype from Nashville, TN).
You can find out more about The Road to Now on our website: www.theroadtonow.com
In the first episode of The Road to Now recorded over the Internet via Skype, Dr. Bradley Fidler explains the key moments in the development of the Internet and gives his take on the issues facing us as we move further into the 21st century. An episode about the Internet, recorded over the Internet? Yes, and it gets better because we recorded the interview at UCLA’s Boelter Hall ARPANET exhibit, and ARPANET was one of the most important networks in the early Internet.
Dr. Bradley Fidler is a researcher and historian with UCLA Computer Science whose research examines the remarkably complex and brilliant process that brought us to the Internet that we ended up with today. As Bradley makes clear, today's networks have deep roots that involve a number of actors in both the private and public sector (and yeah, Al Gore didn’t invent the internet, but his role in its expansion was probably more significant than most people realize).
Interview recorded Friday, July 22nd at the Boelter Hall ARPANET exhibit on the campus of the University of California-Los Angeles (w/ Bob via Skype from Portland, Oregon).
For more on our podcast: www.theroadtonow.com