The Republican Party's plutocratic populism and ethnic outbidding

The deepening economic inequality being experienced in the United States has brought with it considerable cultural and political problems, the most interesting being the popularity of the Republican Party among lower income groups, despite a policy agenda that is decidedly hostile to their own economic interests. The answer, argue political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson in their new book "Let Them Eat Tweets," resides in the plutocrats using more and more aggressive instrumentalization of resentment and racism to push through their unpopular platform. Hacker and Pierson join Robert Amsterdam on the podcast to discuss the main arguments of the book and how the United States has arrived to this dangerous precipice, with the ominous approach of the 2020 presidential elections this fall.