Michael Tackett’s Post

Check out this blog post about solving polarization by the incredibly talented Casey Shea

I'm pleased to announce the publication of my new book: Moderates of the World, Unite: Reworking the Political Media Complex https://lnkd.in/eHUK2VsQ Available as eBook and paperback. Here is the blurb: The past three decades have seen debilitating changes to public discourse, thanks to media silos, social media, disappearing newsrooms, and an attention economy dominated by partisan propaganda. The age of "cheap speech" has arrived, and the resultant polarization prevents Congress from taking on any real problem-solving. The speech environment today is new and different, and cannot be wished away. What’s lacking is a vision. And the solution must match the scale of the problem. The entire national speech environment must be reformed. This book is both a polemic and a proposal for specific actions. It offers seven detailed, national proposals that have the potential to moderate public discourse and bring down the temperature. From David Foster’s introduction to Moderates of the World, Unite: “It is time to actually do something to solve the polarization problem. Something bold, decisive, and commensurate with the scale of the problem. No more talking about it, no more analyzing or handwringing, no toy projects. No pleas to citizens for civility or truly listening or looking inward. Let’s draft and pass some bills, let’s allocate real money.”

Energized by Kamala Harris’ candidacy, California could be the key to flipping the House 🔑 In a new article from the Financial Times, #USCPrice Professor and The Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy Director, Christian Grose, emphasizes how California could help decide the balance of power in Congress, noting, "The six congressional districts [in California] are the ones that are probably going to decide the House." Despite being a Democratic stronghold, the state’s tight races will determine whether Harris, if elected, has the legislative support to push her agenda, or if Republicans can hinder her plans and maintain influence. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gFwjqBb7

My latest column in Dawn

Good afternoon, all. Since I had not connected with so many of you when I originally posted this on my Substack, I thought I'd share it on a rainy afternoon here in Florida. Whatever side you happen to be on, I think we can all agree this is a very important election and to me, it's important to understand, perhaps, where all this stuff came from. That's one reason I wrote "Nashua: How Ronald Reagan led us to Donald Trump" - which is available - if you're interested - on Amazon in three different formats, E-Book, Paperback and Hardback. It's a quick read but so far, has earned 11 5-star reviews. Here are a couple to whet your interest - I hope - including one from the reporter who actually covered the Reagan-Bush debate for the newspaper - and wasn't pleased with what management did to his story. THE REVIEWS: Thomas P. Oppel 5.0 out of 5 stars  I was there and this is true Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2024 Nogo has always been a great story teller, and I should know since he and I were colleagues at the Telegraph and lived through the story he tells to set up how we got to where we are. Having covered the debate as an ink stained wretch reporter, I tried to report it straight, only to find the powers that be had injected their pitiful defense of their behavior under my byline. I didn’t get them to take my name off the story, but I left the paper within weeks. Nogo not only gets the details right, his analysis of how a moment on Saturday night in a gym in Nashua led to Trump and the morass we are in politically is spot on. Montgomery Connell 5.0 out of 5 stars  The day that changed America Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2024 History has its crossroads, those intersections where one road is abandoned and another taken. "Nashua" is John Nogowski's eyewitness account of one of those turning points, the moment in 1980 when America turned away from FDR's New Deal and the flowering of the middle class to embrace Reagan's cynicism (government is the enemy) and the reemergence of a gilded plutocracy. That this watershed moment occurred on a winter's day in a New England backwater perhaps explains why it can be seen most clearly in retrospect. Nogowski, who was there, tells the story briskly and effortlessly. He is a natural storyteller who writes in a conversational style. This is a book to be savored in a single sitting, but it will linger in the mind long afterward.

#politics #unitedstates #nobelprize The mainstream news media The Washington Post finally got my message since: 1. 2003 My Federal Reserve Board internal memo which got promptly leaked destroying my life undemocratically https://lnkd.in/g7NHRc7J during Barack Obama’s presidency. 2. 2008 A. One World: https://lnkd.in/euDUe7Se. B. TAMIRISA, https://www.tamirisa.com. 3. 2021-30 My engagement with The Nobel Prize online on LinkedIn and @1_776 on X since 2021, in particular, specifically on democracy after the recent March in-person Nobel Dialog on Democracy in Brussels, Belgium. Those interested of their own volition should sign up at the attached Post page and take the course, no matter your social status and education level as you perceive it, the newspaper is offering, for this is how under the nom de plume or pseudonym “publius” three founding fathers James Madison, John Jay who was the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and Alexander Hamilton authored the first authoritative interpretation of the then new constitution in New York newspapers which came to be known as The Federalist Papers. It appears United States of America has finally woken up to muddling along to figure out on its own how to do both democracy and economics at the same time, the Choice B I offered here: https://lnkd.in/ePiXN4Jk, without making democracy a casualty of economics https://lnkd.in/egdgBuG4 as it did since the end of the Civil War. I would urge you all to take the Post course with common sense and a critical eye, providing feedback to the news media as I have been doing for a long time, since 2008, by shaping the global information and policy space on global #sustainability because the media abdicated its First Amendment responsibility https://lnkd.in/e-WVJ5ku. The First Amendment right of all Americans is public service, not exaggerated sense of self-importance, entitlement to truth, and a false sense of indispensability. Step 0, before the Post course, including for the major news media and all news media, is for you to read, understand, and voluntarily sign this, if you agree: #OurCommonFuture https://lnkd.in/eaZe52sD. The polis, the public square, enables the oeikos, the economy, not the other way around in a democracy, politics matters, and elections matter before money.

An interesting article.

Research, listen, read, ask, VOTE!

On my search for expertise in a sea of experts in eastern North Carolina and how it all fits into broader concerns about the state of liberal democracy

My latest column in Dawn