This Week's Show

Special guest Jonathan Weiler is on to discuss the rise of authoritarianism and Donald Trump! Don't worry, we try and fit in some sports too.

Hosts

• Special Guest Jonathan Weiler(@jonweiler)
• Andres Alvarez (@nerdnumbers)
• Produced by Brian Foster (@boxscorebrian)

Sources

You can watch us live at twitch.tv/nerdnumbers; we usually go Tuesday or Wednesday at 9:30 pm EST. Follow us on Twitter and we'll keep you posted!

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Video Show

Show Notes

Jonathan Weiler may be one of our most notable guests. He's a professor at UNC, writes at the fantastic blog The ESPN Watch, recently released the book "Divorce: A Love Story," with Anne Menkens, and a few years ago published the very topical book "Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics" with Marc J. Hetherington. 

Jonathan's research on authoritarianism has garnered recent attention on Vox as well as at CNN!

Many of the polarizing topics in politics are things like bathrooms, and sadly not issues others might argue are more important.

Barry Glassner wrote "The Culture of Fear," which discusses a matter in the media, namely the tendency to overreport scary subjects and not paint an accurate representation of reality.

Fantastic episode of John Oliver on the problem with how the media reports "scientific studies." A must watch!

Trump allegedly appeals to the "common American." The voting demographics may say otherwise. So we sincerely hope he's less popular than it seems.

If those links appeal to you, then tune in for a depressing and optimistic talk about the current state of politics! Fun note, we recorded this the night Steph Curry set a record for points in OT.