Thomas Zimmer: Slide Toward Authoritarianism on Right is Accelerating

Historian Thomas Zimmer tells Joshua Holland that there is a consensus among experts that American democracy is teetering on the brink of collapse -- but there is a reason for hope.

EPISODE NOTES

This week, Joshua Holland kicks off the show looking at a new analysis of Americans' average life expectancy, which declined in 2021 for the second year in a row. There are some interesting demographic details to that story, which follows other public health analyses that revealed a growing life expectancy-gap between red and blue states. 

Then we're joined by Thomas Zimmer, a historian at George Washington University, who argues that while there is a consensus among experts that American democracy is teetering on the brink of collapse, that reality is being obscured by outdated journalistic standards, Democratic leaders desperately trying to restore a bygone status quo and widespread belief in right-wing propaganda painting progressives as extreme.