Who Is? – Details, episodes & analysis

If you work hard in the United States, there is no limit to the possibility of what you might achieve. That’s the American Dream. But the reality is that America today increasingly resembles aristocratic societies of the past, which were characterized by little social mobility and dramatic inequality perpetuated in part by the passage of enormous fortunes from one generation to the next. How and why this has occurred in the United States is largely the result of power, politics, and policy choices--choices that enable the coding of wealth in the legal systems that structure not only our economy, but our society and our democracy. The system is rigged--and rigged in favor of the few. Join Sean Morrow on the final episode of the third season of “Who Is?” for a look directly at the money, what it means for the rest of us, and what we can do about it. 

• James Henry, an economist, attorney, tax justice activist, and a senior advisor to the Tax Justice Network
• Paul Krugman, an economist, author, and longtime columnist at The New York Times. His most recent book is “Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future”
• Katharina Pistor, a professor at Columbia Law School. Her most recent book is “The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality”

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Rebekah Mercer may be the most powerful woman in conservative politics today, and she’s never held--and probably will never run for--elected office. Since 2004, Rebekah Mercer has been the director of the Mercer Family Foundation, which means for nearly twenty years she has been one of the key people who is in charge of how her father Robert Mercer’s vast fortune is spent. And following the Citizens United decision in 2010, millions of dollars of that vast fortune have been dedicated to American politics, and primarily to American politics on the far right. The Mercers have played a major role in the contemporary rise of the far right, and from Cambridge Analytica to Kellyanne Conway, Rebekah Mercer and her father were instrumental in the election of President Donald Trump. But after Trump won, it was Rebekah who was named to his transition team. In 2021, however, Trump’s election almost feels like ancient history, and the real question is what will Rebekah Mercer do next, and what does that mean for the rest of us and our democracy? 

• Brendan Fischer, Director of Federal Reform at the Campaign Legal Center 
• Jane Mayer, Chief Washington Correspondent at The New Yorker, and author of several books, including “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right”  

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Politicians have been trying to “fix” health care in the United States for nearly a century, and they really never manage to do it. Why? It has everything to do with money, and the moneyed interests--from health insurers to hospitals to pharmaceuticals--which have basically built the system we have today, and which spend more on lobbying to keep it that way than the military-industrial complex spends on defense. The Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, a group led by Hillary for America and Obama Administration alum Lauren Crawford Shaver, represents the latest move by the money to stop overhauls of health care, from a public option to Medicare for All, that a majority of Americans support. 

• Karl Evers-Hillstrom, who covers money in politics at opensecrets.org, the online home of the Center for Responsive Politics  
• Melissa Thomasson, Chair and the Julian Lange Professor of Economics at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where she studies the economic history of health insurance and health care  
• Dr. Eric Topol, a physician, researcher, and author of many books, including most recently, “Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again” 

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In 2020, Arizona and Georgia, two traditionally red states, turned blue. And while Stacey Abrams has received a lot of credit and media attention for the organizing that led to Georgia turning blue, what happened in Arizona? Is there a Stacey Abrams of Arizona? To find out, Sean Morrow spoke with some of the observers who saw it coming and one of the organizers who made it happen, and discovered that Arizona turning blue is about communities organizing around civil rights, about demographic change, and about activated Tribal Nations who are aware of the unique relationship between Native Americans and the federal government.  

• Patty Ferguson-Bohnee, a Professor at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. Ferguson-Bohnee is director of the Indian Legal Clinic at ASU, and serves as the Native Vote Election Protection Coordinator for the State of Arizona 
• Phoenix City Councilmember Carlos Garcia, a longtime organizer who represents Phoenix’s 8th City Council District
• Terry Greene Sterling, an author and journalist who has been writing about Arizona for many years. Her forthcoming book, co-authored with Jude Joffe-Block, is “Driving While Brown: Sheriff Joe Arpaio Versus the Latino Resistance”

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One of the defining characteristics of the modern nation state is that the state has a monopoly on the use of force. In the United States, police officers are a manifestation of this agreement, to which we are all parties--whether we like it or not--and that is perhaps one reason among many why the apparent lack of accountability that seemingly pervades incidents of police misconduct is so troubling: it throws into question the terms of the social contract. There’s a lot to talk about here, but when it comes to accountability, or lack thereof, there’s a story to be told about money, politics, and power, and that story is playing out in cities across the country, and is visible not only in the contracts that police unions negotiate with the cities who employ them, but in the role police unions play in local politics. On this episode of “Who Is?,” Sean Morrow tackles police unions, and goes to St. Louis to see how reform continues to unfold in the metro, nearly seven years after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson. 

• Phillip Atiba Goff, a Professor of African-American Studies and Psychology at Yale University. Dr. Goff is a co-Founder of the Center for Policing Equity, a research organization that promotes data-informed approaches to police transparency, equity, and accountability
• Stephen Rushin, a Professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, where he teaches criminal law, evidence, and police accountability
• Blake Strode, Executive Director of ArchCity Defenders, a nonprofit civil rights law firm based in St. Louis, Missouri 
• Retired Sergeant Heather Taylor, a 20-year veteran of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. Taylor was previously President of the Ethical Society of Police, a police association in St. Louis

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On April 19th, 1995, Timothy McVeigh detonated a bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City; 168 people were killed, and hundreds more injured, in what remains the deadliest incident of domestic terrorism in the United States. Twenty five years later, in 2020, FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress that the United States had recorded the deadliest year for domestic terrorism since the Oklahoma City Bombing. Then came the January 6th Insurrection. America has a problem, it seems, and the problem isn’t new. But why are Americans attacking America? On this episode of “Who Is?,” Sean Morrow digs deeper into the nature of domestic violent extremism in the United States, and the history we as a nation must face up to if we are to confront—and address—the violence which plagues our democracy. 

• Alina Das, a Professor of Clinical Law at the NYU School of Law, where she co-teaches and co-directs the Immigrant Rights Clinic 
• Roudabeh Kishi, ‎the Director of Research & Innovation at the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project 
• Susan Neiman, a philosopher and Director of the Einstein Forum. She is the author of many books, including “Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil”
• Kari Watkins, Executive Director of the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum

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Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is one of the most powerful and one of the most enigmatic people in the world. Often positioned as a primary global antagonist of the United States, Khamenei and his regime have endured five American presidents, and his story reveals, among other things, the consequences of American foreign policy. But Khamenei himself is a clever politician, a leader who has maintained the pious economic populism of the Iranian Revolution, and a tactician whose absolute authority is solidified through his relationship to institutions: namely, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard. Little of this, however, has brought any benefit to the people of Iran, who, for nearly 70 years, have found themselves living through one variety of authoritarianism or another. On this episode of “Who Is?,” Sean Morrow contends with absolute authority, the long shadow of history, and the uncertain future of a nation of more than 80 million.    

• Ervand Abrahamian, one of the world’s great historians of Iran. His forthcoming book, "Oil Crisis: From Nationalism to Coup d'Etat,” will be published in 2021
• Mahnaz Afkhami, Founder, President, and CEO of the Women’s Learning Partnership and former Minister for Women’s Affairs in Iran. Her memoir, “The Other Side of Silence,” will be published in 2021
• Maziar Bahari, a journalist, filmmaker, and founder of IranWire, a forum which presents Iranian citizen journalism covering national and local news  
• Trita Parsi, co-Founder and Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, as well as the Founder and former President of the National Iranian American Council 

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Ronald Reagan, a man who was first elected President more than forty years ago, remains one of the most impactful and influential conservative politicians in American history. Reagan, who made it in Hollywood before he made it to the White House, was a towering statesman, a favorite of Republicans and Democrats alike, and a man whose image recalls a past which may never have existed in the first place. How we view Reagan is one way in which America reveals itself, and more importantly, what we leave out of his story are some of the things that we most need to remember. On the first episode of the third season of “Who Is?,” join Sean Morrow, host of “Who Is?,” for a critical reevaluation of Reagan, his administration, and his legacy. 

• Mayor Willie Brown, former Mayor of San Francisco and former Speaker of the California State Assembly
• Maria Foscarinis, Founder and Executive Director of the National Homelessness Law Center
• Jo-Marie Burt, Professor of Political Science and Latin American Studies at George Mason University
• Elizabeth Oglesby, Professor of Latin American Studies and Geography at the University of Arizona
• Monica Prasad, Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University
• Paul Volberding, a physician who has been fighting HIV/AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic

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"Who Is?," an original podcast from NowThis News that explores the lives of the powerful, is back for a third season. On "Who Is?," host and NowThis correspondent Sean Morrow dives deep into the stories and backstories of the politicians, donors, media moguls, movements, and ideas that shape our lives, from Ronald Reagan to Inherited Wealth, and Domestic Violent Extremism to Police Unions. Featuring conversations with the reporters, biographers, colleagues, confidantes--and occasionally adversaries--who know these world molders and big ideas best, "Who Is?" is back for another season of sixteen episodes. There's a new guy in the White House, and we're still living through a pandemic. Who knows what could happen next? 

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“Nobody would be fighting this hard to suppress the vote—the lie about voter fraud—if the vote was not powerful.” - Reverend Doctor William Barber II

Bonus episode!

If you listened to “Who Is Electoral College,” you heard from Reverend Doctor William Barber II. Reverend Doctor Barber is a major civil rights leader, organizer, and also a certified genius: he got the MacArthur grant in 2018, which is unofficially called the 'Genius Grant.' Rev. Barber is the founder of Repairers of the Breach, and runs the revitalized modern version of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign. For a special bonus episode of "Who Is?" we’re sharing our unedited interview with Rev. Barber, as he shares his thoughts on democracy, power, and the importance of voting.

• Rev. Dr. William Barber II, president of Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign

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