Building a Coalition with Democracy as the First Principle

Building a Coalition with Democracy as the First Principle

April 9, 2026 · 53 min · Season 7 · Episode 13

About this episode

The episode features a conversation with journalist Osita Nwanevu about the need for a new founding of American democracy based on his book.

I spoke with journalist and author Osita Nwanevu about his recently published book, The Right of the People: The Case for a New American Founding . In this episode, I share our second conversation, about why we should have a new founding of American Democracy, and what that might look like. In the previous episode, we talked about the first half of the book: how do we define (and identify) democracies, and what are the arguments for and against democracy as a form of government. If you haven't listened yet, I think it's useful for this conversation, but you can also start here and listen to that one after if you so choose. As noted at the end, I'll link to a couple upcoming books that I interviewed the authors about, in case you want to read them in advance: Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism by Thea Riofrancos A Just Transition for All: Workers and Communities for a Carbon Free Future by J. Mijin Cha Music is by Evan Schaeffer

People in this episode

Host: Steven Nelson

Guest: Osita Nwanevu

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: The Right of the People: The Case for a New American Founding, Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism, A Just Transition for All: Workers and Communities for a Carbon Free Future

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