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Spencer often talks with Joan Esposito, who interviews him about politics for her show on Chicago\'s WCPT-AM. This episode of Dastardly Cleverness replays one of those conversations that\'s especially relevant now.
Joan and Spencer focus on why democracy, after all its successes, is now in so much danger from authoritarianism. They talk about:
You can hear more smart, thoughtful interviews by Joan Esposito over the air on WCPT-AM Chicago, online at heartlandsignal.com, on SoundCloud, or with any podcast app \\u2014 just search for \\u201cJoan Esposito.\\u201d
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In many ways, addiction has become a defining feature of life in America. More and more of us have become addicted to drugs like alcohol, heroin, cocaine, and opioids, and to other things increasingly recognized as addictive, like sugar, junk food, and social media.
The problem has been growing for decades, but in recent years it has exploded. A record for deaths by overdose was set in 2020, at a level six and a half times higher than just 10 years before. The 2020 record was smashed last year, with the overdose death rate still rising. Overdose is now the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.
Some of the toll is probably related to the COVID pandemic. But much of it is also caused by a seemingly infinite supply of incredibly addictive and dangerous synthetic drugs, especially meth and fentanyl. They can be obtained or made cheaply by almost anyone, and sold at an enormous profit. Often they\\u2019re mixed in with other illegal drugs, or with counterfeit versions of legal drugs. Now there are reports of fentanyl pills made to look like candy.
Spencer\'s guest this time is one of the leading experts on the addiction crisis, and one of its most powerful storytellers. Journalist Sam Quinones sounded the alarm on opiate addiction in 2015 in his multiple-award-winning book Dreamland. That book focused on the devastation visited on a small Ohio town from two sources: the aggressive marketing of a supposedly safe universal painkiller called Oxycontin and a flood of cheap, black tar heroin. Dreamland played a major role in exposing the scale and the origins of the opioid epidemic, and that helped produce consequences for many of those who promoted and profited from that epidemic.
Sam Quinones was well ahead of the crowd when he wrote Dreamland, and he still is. His latest book is called The Least of Us. In it, he describes how the addiction crisis has gotten even worse \\u2014 and yet he also gives reasons for hope. Those reasons are found in the stories of ordinary people who reject the despair that addiction feeds on and amplifies. They\\u2019re replacing it with small acts of rebuilding and love, the mutual care that may be the only lasting cure for addiction.
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One way of thinking about democracy is as a game \\u2014 a game in which freedom, equality, and even lives are at stake.
And one way of thinking about the state of our democracy is that one of the two main competitors is no longer playing the game, but trying to destroy it.
As with any game, the rules of democracy only matter if we agree they do.
Ultimately, we can\\u2019t prove that things like civil debate, fair elections, and following the law are good things, we just agree that they are, like we might agree that aces are high. Except we\\u2019re not playing for chips.
My guest this time is a leading expert on the game of democracy, why it matters so much, and how it could come to an end.
Sheri Berman is a professor of political science at Barnard College, Columbia University.\\xa0
Much of her research focuses on how European democracies have developed, struggled, and often failed many times before succeeding. That\\u2019s if they do succeed, and if that success lasts. The lasting success of democracy isn\\u2019t guaranteed, as we\\u2019re all seeing, all too clearly, right now.
Sheri Berman\\u2019s most recent book is Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Regime to the Present Day, published by Oxford University Press.\\xa0 She also writes for many scholarly and popular publications, including the New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and VOX.
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Spencer Critchley talks about:
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