Leid Stories – Election 2016: Primaries Deliver A Big Payday for Clinton, An Inevitable Payout for Sanders – 06.08.16

With wins yesterday in four of six states holding primaries—particularly in delegate-rich California and New Jersey—Hillary Clinton, who also carried New Mexico and South Dakota, had a big political payday. She zoomed past the 2,383 delegates needed to be the Democratic Party’s nominee in the general election (now having 2,184 pledged delegates and 571 superdelegates, against Sanders’ 1,804 and 48, respectively). The taste of victory—and history, as a major party’s first female presidential nominee—was sweet.

Which brings us, for the umpteenth time, back to Bernie and what, exactly, he plans to do with his votes and his anti-establishment movement.

Leid Stories discusses the inevitability of Sanders’ capitulation to Clinton and the Democratic Party in the name of “party unity,” and the almost certain death of the “progressive” movement he started.

Leid Stories – Election 2016: What We Should Have Learned By Now – 05.18.16

As Election 2016 progresses toward various parties’ nominating conventions this summer, (for Republicans, July 18-21 in Cleveland, Ohio; for Democrats, July 25-28 in Philadelphia, Pa.; the Green Party, Aug. 4-7 in Houston, Texas; the Libertarian Party, May 27-30 in Orlando, Fla.), presidential hopefuls are in the final stretch of the primaries, looking to claim their spots as their parties’ standard bearers in the general election. The duopoly has outdone all other major parties in the still-ongoing battle of attrition. Donald Trump is the last person standing in the Republican field of 17; Hillary Clinton is being touted as the presumptive Democratic nominee.

By all indications, Election 2016 will be a watershed moment in U.S. electoral politics—though for reasons that should alarm even a casual observer. Leid Stories has been looking at this historical moment in terms of what politics and the political process have come to mean and be for the masses of people. We continue this discussion, focusing on what we are learning, or have learned, about our relationship to the political apparatus, and ways in which we can affect political outcomes through an increased consciousness and strategic use of power.

Leid Stories – Election 2016: Turning Political ‘Inevitabilities’ Around – 05.11.16

The results of yesterday’s primaries in West Virginia and Nebraska—with Donald Trump capturing both states and Bernie Sanders besting Hillary Clinton in West Virginia—have only moved political outcomes even closer to “inevitability.” Trump has no major impediments to clinching the Republican nomination, and Sanders’ win did little to blunt Clinton’s lead in delegates. The duopoly continues to take care of party business in the leadup to the general election in November, when, inevitably, there’ll be a new president in the White House.

Meanwhile, Leid Stories’ listeners ponder new approaches to politics and how best to prepare to cope with what soon will be our collective reality. We continue the discussion for the third day.

This Can’t Be Happening – 04.27.16

The guest today is Alfredo Lopez on the Bernie Sanders campaign.

We’re talking about Sanders in the wake of the Tuesday primaries in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut and Rhode Island, about why Sanders has been unable to win the black vote anywhere and about where his campaign goes from here.

Leid Stories – Election 2016: Trump, Clinton and the Ick Factor – 03.17.16

They are “front runners” in the 2016 presidential race, having racked up impressive wins in the primaries and caucuses held thus far. But that doesn’t mean people like them. Even after their partisan Super Tuesday sweeps, a Gallup poll shows 53 percent of Americans dislike Hillary Clinton, and an even greater number, 63 percent, have a similar view of Donald Trump.Yet Clinton and Trump keep winning. Will the Ick Factor be their undoing?

Leid Stories – 03.02.16

Election 2016: The Duopoly’s Super Tuesday Wins and What They Mean for the Rest of Us

Donald Trump’s and Hillary Clinton’s big wins in the Super Tuesday primaries have all but cleared their paths to their parties’ nomination and eventual matchup in November’s general election. Listeners decipher the results of yesterday’s primaries and what they mean for progressives.