Civics 101

Have you ever stared blankly at "City Clerk" on your ballot and picked a candidate at random? Feverishly searched "what is a county assessor" from your phone in the voting booth? Are you on your way to the polls RIGHT NOW with no real plan for who to vote for?

This is the guide for you! We cover local elected offices: what they are, why they matter and how you can prepare for your moment in the voting booth. Even if it's very last minute.

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What happens when a party forms inside of another party? How is the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, affecting the Democratic Party? And how did the the Tea Party shift the GOP's platform back in 2010?

Today, Ruth Bloch-Rubin from the University of Chicago walks us through intra-party movements. They've happened before, they'll happen again, and they tend to be a bellwether for significant shifts in party ideology.

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Today, we're sharing the season three premiere of Bear Brook, the critically acclaimed true crime podcast from New Hampshire Public Radio's Pulitzer Prize-nominated Document team. Bear Brook returns with A Private Matter, hosted by award-winning journalist Jason Moon.

This season, Jason investigates the disappearance of Jay Hickey, a beloved Christmas tree farmer with dementia who vanishes from his small New Hampshire town. His wife Patty never reports him missing. And it turns out, that's not necessarily a crime in New Hampshire. What follows is a story about family estrangement, the growing dementia crisis, and the legal gaps that leave vulnerable people behind.

Listen to more of the new season, follow Bear Brook here:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/redhanded/id1250599915https://play.megaphone.fm/3gfaxmufro-bjytd5eobrg

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This October, Nick and Hannah sat down with Jenn White on WAMU's 1A. They talked about the outsized power a voter has (typically) in midterms, what we're seeing in this upcoming election regarding campaign spending and messaging, and finally what all Americans should know when it comes to civic action in addition to going out and casting our vote.

Click here to check out our series on midterm elections, including recaps of some of the most famous ones in US history.

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As a kingless, queenless, monarch-free nation, what do we decide to put in the space that best represents us to the world? Why is the Washington Monument a giant obelisk? And while we're at it, what's the deal with Donald Trump's proposed Triumphal Arch?

Today we are guided by an actual, real-life, architectural tour guide, Carolyn Muraskin of DC Design Tours. She walks us through the many ups and downs of DC's rich design history, along with the many controversies that surrounded what we put on the National Mall.

Click here to visit our website, where we're showing photos of all the monuments discussed in this episode, and click here to hear Hannah talking about what she feels when she's at the Lincoln Memorial.

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Today we look at the creation and evolution of the two major parties in the US; the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. How did they come about? How did their ideals shift over the last 200+ years? And where might they go next?

These episodes originally aired in 2020, and feature Keneshia Grant, George Will, Kathryn DePalo-Gould, Heather Wagner, Paddy Riley, and William Adler.

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Our final "Back to School" episode is a nod to how we started in the first place. Our show was created to be "Schoolhouse Rock for adults," and no mention of Schoolhouse Rock is complete without a sad little scrap of paper hoping to become a bill.

Today we're exploring how that bill, sitting there on Capitol Hill, becomes a law. This episode features the voices of Andy Wilson, Adia Samba-Quee, Alizah Ross, and Eleanor Powell.

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A tug of war, a balancing act, two dancers dragging each other across the floor. This is the perpetual ebb and flow of power between the states and the federal government. How can things be legal in a state but illegal nationally? Are states obstinate barricades to federal legislation? Or are they laboratories of democracy?

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Americans often take issue with our two-party system. So what other options are out there? Today, with the help of political scientists Guillermo Rosas and Robin Best, we explore the reason why we have (and may always have) such a system, and compare it to other democracies around the world. This episode contains an overabundance of Street Fighter 2 references.

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In which we take an historical look at the interplay between marriage and democracy, and Hannah and Nick reveal a Civics 101 secret years in the making.

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Not really. But we send one of our own out in style by asking (and answering) some very tough questions. Including one you might recognize.

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Article II, which lays out the powers, duties, and limits on presidential powers, is one of the most debated and reinterpreted parts of the Constitution. So what does it say?

Today we are joined by Dr. Corey Brettschneider, a professor of political science at Brown, author of several books on presidential power, and co-host of the podcast The Oath and the Office. We go through each and every clause of Article II, but somehow it keeps coming back to the same 35 words.

Be sure to check out Corey's podcast here.

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The Supreme Court wrapped it's 2025-2026 term and headed off on summer recess, so we're running through the biggest decisions from the bench. What did the court have to say about our constitution, our federal government and our individual rights?

This year they got to everything from Birthright Citizenship to mail-in ballots to executive agencies, cementing some principles and throwing others into legal limbo. A lot can change in a year, especially when nine people have the power to profoundly affect constitutional democracy.

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With the midterms coming up, these words are being uttered more and more each day. So what does it really mean when we call someone a socialist, communist, or fascist? Where did these ideologies come from, and why do we have ideologies in the first place?

Today we speak with Patrick McGovern, professor of political science at Buffalo State University, and Susan Kang, professor of political science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and host of Left On Red.

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Maybe you’ve read the Constitution a ton of times. Maybe you’ve never read it. Maybe you even have one somewhere in your home! But, even for us civics lovers, there are times we forget what exactly is in it. However, by the end of this episode, you’ll know each and every part of the largest, and most important, section.

Article I, which lays out the powers and restrictions of Congress, is massive. It comprises a full half of the written Constitution, and it’s the part the framers spent the most time debating. Today we’re going through the entire thing, section by section, with the inimitable Linda Monk, JD. Linda is a constitutional scholar and author of The Words We Live By, An Annotated Guide to the Constitution and The Bill of Rights: A User’s Guide.

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Conspiracy theories are not new in the United States, but over the years they have taken on a life and power of their own. How did conspiracy theories become so entrenched in the American mind? Why is it that, even if we don't entirely believe them, we like them?

Our guests today are Katherine Olmsted, author of Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI and history professor at UC Davis and Derek Arnold, an instructor at Villanova University who teaches communications and conspiracy theory.

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What did Jefferson mean when he wrote about a "wall of separation" between the church and the state? How have we interpreted the pair of clauses in the 1st Amendment regarding religion? And what is the current relationship between church and state when it comes to the Supreme Court, religious schools, taxes, and growing religious nationalism?

Today we talk to Katherine Stewart, author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism and Morgan Marietta, Chair of Political Science at the University of Texas, Arlington and founding editor of the SCOTUS Decisions Series.

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Pulitzer-prize winning historian and author Jill Lepore has spent her career uncovering the stories we often do not tell, particularly about American history and democracy. In her most recent books, These Truths and We, the People, she asks what really made and makes the United States and what role citizens have in arching toward a more perfect Union. Listen in as she talks about her work for Writers on a New England Stage, recorded at the Seacoast Litfest in Portsmouth New Hampshire.

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This is part two of our story about the original story of America we don't talk about...and how it ties to where we are today.

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This episode is being recorded just a couple of days before the 4th of July, and as so many are calling it, America's 250th birthday. And we here at Civics 101 have spent a lot of this year trying to understand when and how America, as we know it was really born. What is our origin story? Why are we like this? And why don't we talk about the empire that was here before the United States?

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