3. What’s Really Happening in the US?

John Simpson's World Podcast

If you’ve found yourself wondering WTF is going on in the USA – which we’re pretty sure the whole world has – this episode is for you. With over 53 years of political reporting behind him John gives us his unique take on American politics from the 60s until today and the explains the reasons behind the success of Trump. Along with producer Lisa Francesca Nand, John talks about presidents past and present, news reporting, perceived BBC bias, Brexit, immigrants, guns, the electoral college system, Facebook fiddling and above all why we should sod Make America Great Again and instead Make America Cool Again. You heard it here first.

On this episode we cover:

One man giving some people a voice

The weird US constitution and electoral college system

A strange vengeance about the Trump administration

John being covering US politics since the Kennedy days

The US was run by a section of society – more open than British society then

People who thought differently were silenced

Covering the 1964 election with President Johnson and Barry Goldwater

The Republican party allowing Goldwater to go forward because they knew they couldn’t win

Ronald Regan allowing the rich to get richer with fewer taxes

The divisions between rich and poor being far higher now than the 1980s

A side effect of this being a bitterness in American society

It is THIS that has lead to Trump’s success

Trump’s ‘ineffable’ tweets from his lonely bedroom

A multi millionaire how has screwed plenty of little people over the decades pretending he’s standing up to the little man

The excitement of seeing a president say the sort of thing some people who are thinking

How do Trump and Farage convince people they’re on their side?

People want to be convinced

Grabbing women by the pussy

The religious right being among Trump’s strongest supporters

The confusing contrasts of the US

Britain having nothing to pat itself on the back for at present

President Regan scrapping the law that broadcasting had to be balanced

The subsequent rise of the shock jock

The chances of Trump winning the elections of November 2020

Whether the electoral college system will change

Most political scientist in the US feeling it doesn’t change the popular will

Social media and Facebook being used by nefarious organisations

John being a product of the ‘intellectual elite’

Being the BBC’s longest serving journalist, probably

Does the BBC really strive to make things balanced?

Do the BBC have an internal bias?

How the BBC balancing the argument in the referendum had the opposite effect

People allowed to broadcast outright lies

The BBC’s strict fact checking process

Listen up Daily Mail – there is no official editorial line to toe at the BBC

John feeling the BBC has to fight against an institutional timidity

The importance of diversity in recruiting

How casting the same white, middle aged, privately educated men ain’t helpful

Lisa getting John sacked

The other things going on in the US

How a controversial figure like Trump generates alternative views on the other side

People who have never had a voice before on both sides

The sons and daughters of immigrants and even immigrants now speaking out

The US being a great society

How Lisa wants to ‘Make America Cool Again’

Who would want to share a bed with Trump?

John’s liberating first visit to the US in the 60s

Returning to England ‘like catching a sailing ship back to the middle ages’

Nowadays Britain and Europe being far ahead of the US in many ways

How can you buy automatic weapons over the counter?

Seen the US move from the most advanced society in the West to an old-fashioned regressive society

Britain isn’t perfect, but you cant buy sub machine guns over the counter

Our message to the USA

Let’s Make America Cool Again