The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's largest public affairs forum. The nonpartisan and nonprofit Club produces and distributes programs featuring diverse viewpoints from thought leaders on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast — the oldest in the U.S., since 1924 — is carried on hundreds of stations. Our website features audio and video of our programs. This podcast feed is usually updated multiple times each week.
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Everyone knows her name.
Mary Trump grew up in a family divided by its patriarch’s relentless drive for money and power. The daughter of Freddy Trump—the highly accomplished, dashing eldest son of wealthy real estate developer Fred Trump—and Linda Clapp—a flight attendant from a working-class family—Mary lived in the shadow of Freddy’s humiliation at the hands of his father.
Fred Trump embodied the ethos of the zero-sum game and among his five children: there could only be one winner. That was supposed to be Freddy, his namesake, but Fred found him wanting―too sensitive, too kind, too interested in pursuits beyond the realm of the real estate empire he was meant to inherit. In Donald, Fred found a kindred spirit, a “killer,” who would stop at nothing to get his own way.
Even after Freddy’s short-lived career as a professional pilot for TWA came to an end, he never stopped trying to gain his father’s approval. Finally, at the age of 42, he succumbed to Fred’s lethal contempt and died alone in an emergency room, with no family by his side.
Mary Trump returns to the Club for a special online-only talk about the issues raised in her new memoir Who Could Ever Love You, in which she pulls back the curtains on what she calls the twisted family whose patriarch ignored, froze out, and eventually destroyed his own. Freddy Trump’s decline into alcoholism and illness, along with Linda’s suffering after their divorce, left Mary dangerously vulnerable as a very young girl. Inadequately and only conditionally loved, there were no adults in her life except for the father she loved but lost before she could know him; and a mother abandoned by her ex-husband’s rich and powerful family who demanded her loyalty but left her with nothing.
She says that cold, selfish cruelty has come to define the Trump family thanks in large part to her uncle, whose ambition has divided the nation and much of the world.
This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.
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H.R. McMaster: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House
Saturday, September 7, 2024 • Duration 01:08:52
For 13 turbulent and consequential months, H.R. McMaster served as President Donald Trump’s national security advisor. McMaster entered an administration beset by conflict and the hyper partisanship of American politics. Join us as McMaster shares his stories of helping an unpredictable president drive necessary shifts in U.S. foreign policy at a critical moment in history.
He says that while all administrations are subject to backstabbing and infighting, some of Trump’s more unscrupulous political advisors were determined to undermine McMaster and others to advance their narrow agendas. Hear about Cabinet officials who, deeply disturbed by Trump’s language and behavior, prioritized controlling the president over collaborating to provide the president with options. McMaster offers a frank and fresh assessment of the achievements and failures of his tenure as national security advisor and the challenging task of maintaining one’s bearings and focus on the mission in a hectic and malicious environment.
Determined to transcend the war within the administration and focus on national security priorities, McMaster forged coalitions in Washington and internationally to help Trump advance U.S. interests. Trump’s character and personality helped him make tough decisions, but sometimes prevented him from sticking to them, says McMaster. And now with the 2024 election on the horizon, hear McMaster highlight the crucial importance of competence in foreign policy, and make plain the need for leaders who possess the character and intellect to guide the United States in a tumultuous world.
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With President Biden Out of the Race . . . What to Expect at the DNC
Monday, August 19, 2024 • Duration 01:03:31
President Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race on July 21, and in the few weeks since, Vice President Kamala Harris has garnered enough delegates to become the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. During the Democratic National Convention in a couple of weeks, the party will feature its new challenger to Donald Trump.
For months, Biden had trailed Trump in the polls, but Harris has since rallied the hopes of Democratic Party voters. Now the 2024 presidential election is a toss-up, and there are signs that Harris' momentum is upending the race.
On August 12, please join us for a conversation about what to expect at the 2024 DNC, and how the introduction of Harris's running mate, Tim Walz, may impact the contest for the battleground states.
Stuart Stevens, former chief Republican strategist and author of Conspiracy to End America, will join Ray Suarez to discuss the state of the race, and make predictions for the final 90 days of the 2024 presidential election.
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Caroline Paul: How Outdoor Adventure Improves Our Lives as We Age
Sunday, March 31, 2024 • Duration 01:05:09
Why slow down as you get older?
Caroline Paul has always filled her life with adventure: From mountain biking in the Bolivian Andes to pitching a tent, mid-blizzard, on Denali, she has never been a stranger to the exhilaration the outdoors can hold. Yet through it all, she has long wondered, Why aren’t women, like men, encouraged to keep adventuring into old age?
Now she is sharing her quest to understand not just how to live a dynamic life in a changing body, but why she says we must. She dives deep into the current research on aging and highlights the results with the stories of women like 93-year-old hiker Dot Fisher-Smith, 80-year-old scuba diver Louise Wholey, 52-year-old BASE jumper Shawn Brokemond, 64-year-old birdwatcher Virginia Rose, and the many septuagenarian Wave Chasers who boogie board together in the San Diego surf. These women aren’t experts. But their experiences and the scientific studies that back them up offer important insight into our own physical and emotional health as we age, showing that growing older is no reason for women to sell themselves short. She’s chronicled it all in her new book Tough Broad, a high-spirited call for women to embrace the outdoors, not back away from it, in their 50s, 60s, 70s, and beyond.
Bring your taste for adventure and hear this New York Times-bestselling author share her funny, inspiring, deeply researched exploration into the science and psychology of the outdoors and our place in it as we age.
MLF ORGANIZER: Denise Michaud
A Grownups Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of Commonwealth Club World Affairs, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums.
This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.
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Jamal Greene: How Rights Went Wrong in America
Wednesday, April 7, 2021 • Duration 01:05:05
America prides itself on freedom and guaranteed rights for all its citizens, but has the explosion of rights resulted in a partisan divide among its citizens?
You have the right to remain silent and the right to free speech. The right to worship, and to doubt. The right to be free from discrimination, and to hate. These rights were not written at the founding of our country, but rather an afterthought of our country’s founding fathers. It wasn't until the racial strife resulting from the Civil War and missteps by the Supreme Court that rights gained a great deal of controversy. This controversy has falsely led many Americans to believe that awarding rights to one group means denying rights to others.
Columbia professor and constitutional law expert Jamal Greene seeks to understand this phenomenon in his new book How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession with Rights Is Tearing America Apart. Greene says that in order to prevent society from complete division, we must recouple rights for all with justice for all.
Join us as Greene grounds us in the foundations of our country and envisions a future of equity and guaranteed rights for every American.
NOTES
This program is part of The Commonwealth Club’s Future of Democracy Series, supported by Betsy and Roy Eisenhardt.
SPEAKERS
Jamal Greene
Dwight Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; Author, How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession with Rights Is Tearing America Apart
Judge LaDoris Hazzard Cordell
(Ret.), Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors—Moderator
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on March 31st, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.
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Sherry Turkle and Tiffany Shlain: Empathy in the Technology Age
Tuesday, April 6, 2021 • Duration 01:03:43
American life is dominated by machines: our computers, our televisions, our phones. This has been especially true over the past year as technology kept us connected—to our jobs, our friends, our families, even our doctors. But, as the country sees the light at the end of the tunnel of the pandemic, what now? What has our reliance on technology done to us for not only the past year, but for the past decade (or longer)?
Two authors, Sherry Turkle and Tiffany Shlain, will use the occasion of the publications of Turkle's new book (The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir) and the paperback version of Shlain's book (24/6: Giving up Screens One Day a Week to Get More Time, Creativity, and Connection) to have an intimate and timely discussion on the urgent need to reclaim humanity and empathy in this technological age.
Turke's latest book illuminates our present search for authentic connection in a time of uncharted challenges. Her book ties together her coming-of-age and her pathbreaking research on technology, empathy and ethics. Growing up in postwar Brooklyn, Turkle searched for clues to her identity in a house filled with mysteries. She mastered the codes that governed her mother’s secretive life. She learned never to ask about her absent scientist father—and never to use his name, her name. Before empathy became a way to find connection, it was her strategy for survival.
Shlain's book recounts the efforts she and her family have made to gain more time, productivity, connection and presence in their lives by giving up screens for one day a week. Her book takes readers on a thought-provoking and entertaining journey through time and technology, introducing a strategy for flourishing in our 24/7 world. Drawn from the ancient ritual of Shabbat, she says that living 24/6 can work for anyone from any background. With humor and wisdom, Shlain shares her story, offering the accessible lessons she has learned and providing a blueprint for how to do it yourself.
Please join for this special event about the critical need to reclaim our lives from technology.
SPEAKERS
Sherry Turkle
Author, The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir
Tiffany Shlain
Author, 24/6: Giving up Screens One Day a Week to Get More Time, Creativity, and Connection
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on March 30th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.
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Mark Bittman: Animal, Vegetable, Junk
Tuesday, April 6, 2021 • Duration 01:03:36
A century ago, food was industrialized. Since then, new styles of agriculture and food production have written a new chapter of human history, one that’s driving both climate change and global health crises. Best-selling food authority Mark Bittman will offer a panoramic view of the story and explain how we can rescue ourselves from the modern wrong turn.
Mark Bittman has been a leading voice in global food culture and policy for more than three decades. Born in New York City in 1950, Bittman began writing professionally in 1978. After five years as a general assignment reporter, he turned all of his attention to food. His first cookbook, Fish: The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking, was published in 1994 and remains in print; since then he has written or co-written thirty others, including the How to Cook Everything series.
Bittman was a distinguished fellow at the University of California, Berkeley and a fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists; he remains a fellow at Yale and is now on the faculty of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. He has received six James Beard Awards, four IACP Awards, and numerous other honors. He is also the editor-in-chief of "The Mark Bittman Project," a newsletter and website focusing on all aspects of food, from political to delicious. His most recent book is his history of food and humanity, Animal, Vegetable, Junk.
MLF ORGANIZER
Patty James
NOTES
MLF: Health & Medicine
SPEAKERS
Mark Bittman
Fellow, Yale University; Faculty Member, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University; Winner of 6 James Beard Awards; Editor-in-Chief, "The Mark Bittman Project"; Author, Animal, Vegetable, Junk
Patty James
M.S., N.C. Nutritionist; Chef; Author—Moderator
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on March 24th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.
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Commonwealth Club Week in Review for April 2, 2021
Saturday, April 3, 2021 • Duration 09:54
This is your Commonwealth Club week in review. Hear what you missed this week, and what we’ve got lined up for you next week.
We’re always adding new programs - check out commonwealthclub.org/online for all of our upcoming events.
If you haven’t already - please consider becoming a member of the Club. Enjoy exclusive discounts and access to special programs all while knowing your contributions directly support our many public programs and civic initiatives.
Visit commonwealthclub.org/special, for special rates on memberships.
Thanks for your support and as always - thanks for listening!
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Mary Marcy and Lande Ajose: The Future of Higher Education
Friday, April 2, 2021 • Duration 01:06:06
Before the challenges of 2020, most of higher education was already facing intense demographic, financial and cultural pressures. Now, with the likelihood of some online learning remaining part of college curriculum even post-pandemic, what does the future hold for higher education? What questions should students and families be asking institutions as they prepare to return to campus in the fall? Will higher education as we once knew it return, or has the pandemic fundamentally changed how students will experience college? Join us for this engaging conversation between two seasoned experts on the rapidly changing state of higher education, and how colleges are preparing to meet the needs of students for generations to come.
Dr. Marcy is the ninth president of Dominican University of California, serving since 2011. Her research focuses on higher education innovation and transformation. She has published and presented extensively on issues of leadership, strategy and diversity. She holds a doctorate and master's degree in politics from the University of Oxford.
As California Governor Gavin Newsom's senior policy advisor for higher education, Dr. Ajose is responsible for developing and shaping the governor’s higher education policy agenda, which is focused on protecting college affordability, preserving college access and increasing system efficiency to meet the state’s need for a skilled and educated workforce. Most recently she led the Governor's Recovery with Equity task force. She holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
SPEAKERS
Dr. Mary Marcy
Ph.D., President, Dominican University of California; Board Member, Commonwealth Club; Author, The Small College Imperative: Models for Sustainable Futures
In Conversation with Dr. Lande Ajose
Ph.D., Senior Policy Advisor for Higher Education to Governor Gavin Newsom
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on March 30th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.
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Cult-like Behavior in Extreme Trump Followers
Friday, April 2, 2021 • Duration 01:03:41
In a recent article on The Daily Beast, Dr. Steven Hassan refers to the cult leaders’ “playbook” and lists some of the mind-control strategies employed by former President Donald Trump: These include his grandiose claims, his practice of sowing confusion, his demand for absolute loyalty, his tendency to lie and create alternative "facts" and realities, his shunning and belittling of critics and ex-believers, and his cultivating an "us versus them" mindset. Of all these tactics, the "us versus them" mindset is probably one of the most effective. He says that from the moment you are recruited into a cult, you are made to feel special, part of an "inside" group in opposition to unenlightened, unbelieving, dangerous "outsiders."
Join us for an intriguing talk with Dr. Hassan on cult-like behavior in the political world.
Steven Hassan, Ph.D., is a mental health professional who has been helping people leave destructive cults since 1976 after he was deprogrammed from Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church. He is the author of four books Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults; Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves; Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Thoughts & Beliefs; and The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control.
MLF ORGANIZER
Patrick O'Reilly
NOTES
MLF: Psychology
SPEAKERS
Steven Hassan
Ph.D., Author, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control
Patrick O'Reilly
Chair, Psychology Member-Led Forum, The Commonwealth Club of California—Moderator
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on March 30th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.
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