'BradCast' 4/27/2021 (Guest: CUNY's Deepak Bhargava on 'The Progressive Multiplier' effect)
On today's 'BradCast':\xa0 Republicans are very good at leveraging their political power to gain even more political power, wielding their rightwing agenda and propaganda industrial complex to shift power to their advantage, both inside and outside government. Our guest today, DEEPAK BHARGAVA of City University of New York and the Roosevelt Institute, suggests that Democrats must learn to do the same thing, but in a different way, using their current political power to expand political effectiveness through smart legislation and executive actions that benefit working American families. Bhargava says Democrats should implement what he calls the 'Progressive Multiplier' effect to defeat Trumpism \u2013 not to prevent their opponents from accessing the ballot box, like Republicans do, but to expand their own pool of voters. Bhargava notes that Republicans have been ruthless about restricting democracy, so Democrats must be ruthless about expanding democracy. And he offers specific actions \u2013 including some that are quite surprising and little-known -- that progressive elected officials and voters can take to expand voter engagement and participation in the US. Also today:\xa0 several new examples of the GOP's institutionalized and well-funded rightwing echo chamber, including the lie blasted out by the Republican-Fox 'News' propaganda industrial complex that falsely claimed Joe Biden's climate policy bans red meat \u2013 it doesn't.\xa0 President Biden issued an executive order raising the minimum wage for federal contract workers, and automatically tied it to inflation for the future. Plus Desi Doyen has our latest 'Green News Report.'