3131 - GOP’s War On College; Guatemala’s Democracy In Crisis w/ Bradford Vivian, Marco Fonseca

It's an EmMajority Report Thursday! She talks to Bradford Vivian, Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State University, to discuss his recent book Campus Misinformation: The Real Threat to Free Speech in American Higher Education. Then, she is joined by Marco Fonseca, instructor in Latin American and International Studies at the York University Glendon campus, to developments surrounding Guatemala's elections. First, Emma runs through updates on Biden’s visit to Ukraine, a potential return to the ERA, labor action with SAG, the EPA, and Ray Epps’ lawsuit against Fox News (and how it might have played into Tucker’s departure). Bradford Vivian then joins as he parses through the evolution of conservative attacks on higher education over the last few decades, with entire organizations, like TPUSA and YAF, and individuals, like Brett Weinstein and Barry Weiss, who have built up an entire industry of reactionaries who go to colleges to talk about how they can’t say anything at colleges. Professor Vivian parses through this blueprint as, largely, a pretext for state-control of higher education, and a way to undermine social justice movements, and the communities that form around and within academia. Stepping back, Bradford walks Emma through some parallels between this era of anti-intellectual attacks, and the similar conservative battle we saw in the mid-20th century, particularly in how it can serve to undermine social justice movements, before parsing through how the recent attacks have pervaded through all levels of education, K-12, as we see with attacks on CRT and the Don’t Say Gay bill. Marco Fonseca tackles the most recent round of Guatemalan elections and the surprise success of the Semilla party, a left, anti-corruption party that won enough to advance to a runoff, before stepping back to discuss the roots of the “Seed” party in the Guatemalan spring, with son of first President Arévalo helping to found the party. After walking through the CIA-backed Coup that violently halted the Guatemalan spring, and the decades of growing corruption that followed, Fonseca dives into the recent backlash to said corruption and parses through why the Elite interference in the 2023 election seemingly ignored the threat of Semilla, before they wrap up the show by assessing the future of Guatemalan election integrity as a Semilla ban becomes more and more likely.

And in the Fun Half: Emma is joined by Brandon Sutton and Matt Binder as Alex from New York proposes some hypothetical bouts between reactionaries, Josh from Chicago discusses how his role as a teacher has been affected by Republican attacks on teachers as “groomers,” and Maria Bartiromo hosts a wild blood-libel round table. Margaret from PA makes the fun half a little more fun, as does covering SAG's labor action, and the MR Crew covers a few extra strains of absurd Right-Wing conspiracy brain, plus, your calls and IMs!

Check out Bradford's book here: https://www.campusmisinformationbook.net/

Follow Marco on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/MarcoVFonseca

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