Battleground with Amanda Litman and Faiz Shakir

“In conservative media, there’s an incentive to put out misinformation, and to essentially lie.” David Brock, founder of Media Matters — a rightwing media watchdog group — knows exactly how the conservative media ecosystem works, because that’s where he cut his teeth. For the first half of his career as a journalist, David got caught up in what he now describes as a cult, working at places like the Washington Examiner and the Heritage Foundation, until he managed to break ranks and turn against them. David joins Amanda this week to discuss the unconscionable actions of Fox News, his efforts to create robust media infrastructure for Democrats and progressives, and the struggle to get investors on the left to pay attention to Virginia’s elections, despite their massive importance to the Democratic party heading into 2022. Plus: while the rest of the world enjoys an average of 26 weeks paid maternity leave, the great USofA and our highly functional legislative branch can’t even manage a measly four. Cool.

Amanda’s Twitter fav, Luppe B. Luppen — also known as @nycsouthpaw — joins "Battleground" to analyze some of the biggest stories in politics. First, Amanda and Luppe dissect the secret agreement, between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, that capped overall spending on the Democrats' reconciliation bill at $1.5 trillion. They pick apart the draft materials released by Biden’s SCOTUS Commission and discuss what legal options the January 6th committee has when it comes to enforcing subpoenas. Finally, Luppen breaks down a topics he's researching for an upcoming book: the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucus debatable and the (unlikely) chances for reform. Plus: it’s Striketober!

Julián Castro, former Mayor of San Antonio and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for the Obama administration, joins the show this week to shed light on a range of issues troubling America. The groundbreaking 2020 presidential candidate and Amanda discuss the ongoing housing affordability crisis; the transformational impact universal pre-K could have on our society; and the small group of conservative Texas politicians desperately clinging to their gerrymandered power, one regressive state bill at a time. Plus: why understanding the media ecosystem in which Democratic candidates operate is just as — if not more — important than the message they’re running on.

More than half of Americans are under the age of 40, and according to Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, President and Executive Director of NextGen America, they are facing three crises simultaneously — a climate catastrophe, a democracy in decline, and grotesque income inequality. Cristina is a progressive labor organizer and former 2020 U.S. Senate candidate who truly understands the complexity of the youth vote, especially in her home state of Texas, and particularly within the Latino community. She joins Amanda this week to pull apart the Democrats’ mistaken assumption that young voters are all college kids; discuss why campaigns clinging to the ‘young people don’t vote’ myth after impressive turnout in 2020 do so at their own peril; and, as always, they tackle money in politics. Plus, breaking up Facebook: it’s time.

Judd Legum, author of the progressive newsletter, Popular Information, and former founder of ThinkProgress, can tell you with certainty that there’s too much money in politics, that legislators prioritize corporations over people, and that the media does a pretty bad job at covering all of it. He joins Amanda this week to discuss what the major news outlets are missing, getting wrong, and forgetting too quickly, and why. They get into which corporations pretend to champion gender equality and social justice; why so many public servants eventually join lobbying firms; and what’s wrong with political newsletters “brought to you by Chevron.” Plus, your weekly dose of Manchin shit-talking.

Third parties are famous for siphoning off votes from the major parties and ruining elections. While this phenomenon, known as the spoiler effect, is real, America's two-party system makes for strange bedfellows. It's not obvious what a democratic socialist like AOC has in common with a conservative Democrat like Joe Manchin, other than a "D" after their names.So what can reform-minded progressives do? How can they advocate for systemic change without tilting the field in the Republicans’ favor? Maurice Mitchell, a seasoned organizer and National Director of the Working Families Party, joins Amanda this week to discuss the WFP’s decades-long effort to build substantive, multiracial political power for the working class. The WFP emerged in 1998 as a direct response to the conservative-corporate takeover of American politics. Maurice details his party’s multifaceted approach that has its sights set not only on conservative Republicans, but on establishment Democrats in very blue districts who are out of step with the needs of their communities. In other words, the WFP is providing progressives, the working class, and people who don’t identify with either party a path to representation in government through collective organization. Just how effective are they? Ask now-former Governor Andrew Cuomo.