February 21 – Will the Democrats Continue Pursuing the Wrong Voters?; Trump’s Open Season on the Deportation of Immigrants; America’s Changing Attitude to Human Rights and Immigrants

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the upcoming choice facing the Democratic Party in next Saturday’s election of a chairman of the DNC which may determine the fate of political opposition in the country as a groundswell of resistance to the new Trump Administration is erupting across the country and around the world. Steve Phillips, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and author of “Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority” joins us to discuss his article at the New York Times, "Move Left, Democrats." He is the founder of Democracy in Color and we will examine the fact that in the last election more Obama voters defected to the Green and Libertarian parties than was the increase in the number of white working class voters who supported Donald Trump, with Hillary Clinton getting 193,000 fewer white voters in Wisconsin for example compared to Obama than Trump, who picked up just 9,000 more white voters that Romney did. We will assess whether the election of an African-American Muslim, Congressman Keith Ellison, will steer the Democrats away from pursuing the wrong white voters in the Rust Belt to instead focus on the growing opportunities in the south and west.

Part 2

Then we speak with Kamal Essaheb, an Immigration Policy Attorney at the National Immigration Law Center whose advocacy focuses on the DREAM Act and DACA. We examine the memorandums released today by the Department of Homeland Security that appear to declare open season on the deportation of undocumented immigrants and discuss the deputizing of local police and sheriffs that in effect will nationalize the infamous Arizona Sheriff Arpaio’s enforcement approach to immigration reform.

Part 3

Then finally we look into the human rights dimensions of this change in America’s attitude and approach to immigrants and speak with Maria McFarland Sanchez-Moreno, the Co-Director of the U.S. Program at Human Rights Watch about whether Trump’s impending roundup will become a referendum on America’s decency and humanity. And also assess the extent to which Donald Trump is threat to American democracy itself, with his increasing preference for “patriotic” political rallies favored by autocrats that whip up crowds with populist fervor which often scapegoats so-called “enemies of the people”.