Politics in Question

In this week’s episode of Politics in Question, Lee and James talk with their former co-host Julia Azari about the role of presidents in shaping of racial norms. Azari is a Professor of Political Science at Marquette University and author of Backlash Presidents (Princeton University Press, 2025).

How have presidents shaped racial norms? Why was President Andrew Johnson a “backlash president”? What role does Congress play in coalition-building and norm shaping? These are some of the questions Lee and James explore in this week’s episode.

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In this week’s episode of Politics in Question, Lee and James dive into the “moderate debate.” They discuss Lee’s recent Substack essay, The Moderation Debate Fiddles with 2% While Democracy’s Dimensionality Collapses.
Should parties move to the center? How do we define “moderate”? And what would it take to reinvigorate dimensionality in party politics? These are some of the questions Lee and James ask in this week’s episode.
Links to the previous episodes referenced:
Why do Americans use primary elections to select candidates for office? (featuring Robert Boatright)
How did the Great Migration help shape today's politics? (featuring Keneshia Grant)

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In this week's episode of Politics in Question, host Lee Drutman talks with Leader Stacey Abrams about the current state of democracy. Leader Abrams is a strategist, novelist, and host of the podcast Assembly Required.
How do we create a sustainable democracy? What’s the difference between autocracy and authoritarianism? What role does civil resistance play in sustaining democracy? These are some of the questions Lee asks in this week's episode of Politics in Question.

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In this week’s episode of Politics in Question, Lee and James talk with Matt Glassman about the state and stakes of the government shutdown. Glassman is a Senior Fellow at The Government Affairs Institute and the author of the Substack Matt’s Five Points.
What's the underlying cause of this shutdown? How do you "win" a shutdown? What will be the future political costs for the Democratic Party in trying to make a healthcare policy deal? These are the questions that James and Lee explore in this week’s episode.

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In this week’s episode of Politics in Question, Lee talks with G. Elliot Morris about all things polling. Morris is a data-driven journalist and author of Strength in Numbers: How Polls Work and Why We Need Them (W. W. Norton & Company, 2022).
How should we evaluate the quality of polling data? What can polling data actually tell us about a candidate’s performance in an election? What factors cannot be measured through polling? These are the questions that Lee explores in this week’s episode.

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