Robert Jay Lifton LOSING REALITY: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindest of Political and Religious Zealotry

Robert Jay Lifton is a nonegenarian psychiatrist, author, and psychohistorian. In his long life, he has studied and written about the psychological causes and effects of wars and political violence. In addition to his theory of thought reform, he was an early proponent of psychohistorical techniques, and he was instrumental in the inclusion of Post traumatic Stress Disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder. He coined the term, psychic numbing. In 1953, he began interviewing US servicemen who had been prisoners of war during the Korean War, as well as others who had been in Chinese prisons after 1951. He published THOUGHT REFORM AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TOTALISM: A STUDY OF BRAINWASHING IN CHINA. Among his other books are DEATH IN LIFE: SURVIVORS OF HIROSHIMA; HOME FROM THE WAR: VIETNAM VETERANS – NEITHER VICTIMS NOR EXECUTIONERS; and THE NAZI DOCTORS: MEDICAL KILLING AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GENOCIDE.

His latest book is LOSING REALITY: ON CULTS, CULTISM AND THE MINDSET OF POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS ZEALOTRY. We spoke with Dr. Lifton on October 19, 2020.

Robert Jay Lifton, Psychiatrist Drawn to Humanity’s Horrors, Dies at 99 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/obituaries/robert-jay-lifton-dead.html

Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton Dies at 99; Explored Human Darkness, from Nazi Doctors to Hiroshima https://www.democracynow.org/2025/9/8/remembering_robert_jay_lifton_archival_interview

Robert Jay Lifton on the Apocalyptic Twins of Nuclear and Climate Threats & Reflections on Survival https://www.democracynow.org/2017/10/13/robert_jay_lifton_on_the_apocalyptic

Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton on Duty to Warn: Trump’s “Relation to Reality” is Dangerous to Us All https://www.democracynow.org/2017/10/13/psychiatrist_robert_jay_lifton_of_duty

Robert Jay Lifton on How Climate Change Joins Nuclear War in Threatening Human Survival https://www.democracynow.org/2015/5/7/robert_jay_lifton_on_how_climate

Atomic Cover-Up: The Hidden Story Behind the U.S. Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki https://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/9/atomic_cover_up_the_hidden_story

Superpower Syndrome: America’s Apocalyptic Confrontation With The World https://www.democracynow.org/2004/1/5/superpower_syndrome_americas_apocalyptic_confrontation_with

Jon Tester GROUNDED: A Senator’s Lessons on Winning Back Rural America

Jake Laperrruque INJUSTICE: Tracking BIll Barr’s Misconduct as Attorney General

In addition to being the only working farmer in the US Senate, and an organic farmer at that, he has now written a memoir, GROUNDED: A SENATOR’S LESSONS ON WINNING BACK RURAL AMERICA, just published by Ecco Press.

Jon Tester entered the US Senate in 2006 and was re-elected for a third term in 2018, in spite of having been the recipient of Donald Trump’s ire for having announced the unsuitability of his nominee for Director of Veterans Affairs, his personal physician, Dr. Ronald Jackson, because more than two dozen Whistle blowers had reported serious, credible problems with Dr. Jackson’s nomination. After Jackson withdrew his name, Trump flew to Montana four times to campaign against Senator Tester, Donald Trump, Jr. came four other times, and Vice President Pence also came, each determined to defeat Jon Tester. However, notwithstanding the fact that Trump had won the state of Montana in 2016 by 20 points, not only did Senator Tester get re-elected in 2018, but by a larger percentage of the vote than in any of his previous elections.

In these polarized times, when power trumps propriety, when those who serve are seen as suckers and losers, when science and good sense are subsumed in phantasmagorical conspiracies, there are those few who remain true to their roots, who not only believe in democracy, but struggle to maintain it against ever increasing odds. Such a one is Senator Tester. We recorded this interview on September 23, 2020.

Jake LaPerruque is Senior Counsel of The Constitution Project at the Project on Government Oversight, POGO. POGO is a nonpartisan independent watchdog that investigates and exposes waste, corruption, abuse of power, and when the government fails to serve the public, or silences those who report wrongdoing.

They published Jake LaPerruque’s article, Injustice: Tracking Bill Barr’s Misconduct as Attorney General, on September 25, 2020. It examines William Barr’s tenure since being confirmed as Attorney General of the United States on Feb. 14, 2019, identifying what they call a long string of actions that constitute serious misconduct, and may inflict lasting damage to the Justice Department. These actions generally fall into four key categories of misconduct that are antithetical to the department’s responsibilities to the public and to the Constitution. Namely, Barr has on numerous occasions interfered with impartial prosecutions, prioritized politics over justice, undermined the independent special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and hindered congressional oversight.

Thom Hartmann MONOPOLIES: How Big Business Destroyed the American Dream

The latest in Thom Hartmann’s Hidden History series has just been released by Barret-Koehler Publishing, THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF MONOPOLIES: HOW BIG BUSINESS DESTROYED THE AMERICAN DREAM. In addition to his daily 3 hour radio program, he somehow finds the time and energy to write the Hidden History Series, and he has been generous enough to be our guest on Forthright Radio each time one is published.

Here’s what Ralph Nader writes in the forward to THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF MONOPOLIES: HOW BIG BUSINESS DESTROYED THE AMERICAN DREAM:

”This is the most important, dynamic book – small as it is – on the cancers of monopoly by giant corporations written in our generation. he goes on “Because he is by far the most erudite longtime national radio talk show host, he has had an uncanny sense of retrieving critical segments of American history, ignored by historians, regarding the suspicion and caution our forbears had about this artificial entity called the large corporation as it became more immune and more privileged than real human beings……” he goes on from there, but we’ll just let the Thom speak and you can hear for yourself why Nader has such high appreciation of the man.

You can find the past shows on the Forthright.media archives.

Martha S. Jones VANGUARD: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All

This special edition of Forthright Radio for August 26, 2020, celebrates the Centennial of the signing of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution on August 26, 1920, after the very long, very hard struggle by women of different races and backgrounds to win the right to vote.

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As our guest, Professor Martha S. Jones reminds us, this struggle is not over.

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Martha S. Jones is the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History at The Johns Hopkins University. She is a legal and cultural historian, whose work examines how black Americans have shaped the story of American democracy.

Professor Jones is the author most recently of Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All, which will be published by Basic Books on September 8, 2020.

Her other books include Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America (2018), winner of numerous prestigious awards, and All Bound Up Together: The Woman Question in African American Public Culture 1830-1900, and a coeditor of Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women.

Professor Jones currently serves as a Co-president of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, and on the Executive Board of the Society of American Historians.

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Other articles relating to the struggle for suffrage or pertinent to this interview include:

Trump Says Birthright Citizenship Was for ‘the Babies of Slaves.’ He’s Wrong https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/opinion/birthright-citizenship-supreme-court.html

Black women in politics are no longer a ‘first.’ They are a force. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/13/black-women-politics-are-no-longer-first-they-are-force/?hpid=hp_save-opinions-float-right-4-0_opinion-card-a-right%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

How Native American Women Inspired the Women’s Rights Movement https://www.womensvote100.org/the-suff-buffs-blog/2020/4/17/how-native-american-women-inspired-the-womens-rights-movement

In Women’s Suffrage, a Spotlight for Unsung Pioneers https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/13/insider/suffrage-anniversary.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Reader%20Center

20 Suffragists To Know for 2020 https://www.nps.gov/subjects/womenshistory/20-for-2020.htm

It’s Time The ‘Truth Be Told’ About Black Women’s Leadership In The Fight For The Vote https://www.forbes.com/sites/marianneschnall/2020/08/05/its-time-the-truth-be-told-about-black-womens-leadership-in-the-fight-for-the-vote/#7342dc855915

Sojourner Truth https://www.nps.gov/people/sojourner-truth.htm

Ida B. Wells https://www.nps.gov/people/idabwells.htm

Nannie Helen Burroughs https://www.nps.gov/people/nannie-helen-burroughs.htm

Mary McLeod Bethune https://www.nps.gov/people/mary-mcleod-bethune.htm

Septima Poinsette Clark https://www.nps.gov/people/septimapoinsetteclark.htm

Dr. Mabel Ping-Hua Lee https://www.nps.gov/people/mabel-lee.htm

Tye Leung Schulze https://www.nps.gov/people/tye-leung-schulze.htm

Zitkala-Ša (Red Bird / Gertrude Simmons Bonnin) https://www.nps.gov/people/zitkala-sa.htm

Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin https://www.nps.gov/people/marie-louise-bottineau-baldwin.htm

Wilhelmina Kekelaokalaninui Widemann Dowsett https://www.nps.gov/people/wilhelmina-kekelaokalaninui-widemann-dowsett.htm

Rose Schneiderman https://www.nps.gov/people/rose-schneiderman.htm

The 19th Amendment: An Important Milestone in an Unfinished Journey https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/15/opinion/19th-amendment-centennial-suffrage.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

The 19th amendment is a reminder that the right to vote is unfinished business https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/18/the-19th-amendment-is-a-reminder-that-the-right-to-vote-is-unfinished-business

The Women Who Fought Against the Vote https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/us/anti-suffrage-movement-vote.html?action=click&module=Editors%20Picks&pgtype=Homepage

In 1920, Native Women Sought the Vote. Here’s What’s Next. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/style/19th-amendment-native-womens-suffrage.html?searchResultPosition=1

Before Kamala Harris, There Was Charlotta Bass https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/04/obituaries/charlotta-bass-vice-president-overlooked.html?action=click&module=Editors%20Picks&pgtype=Homepage

What ‘The New York Times’ Won’t Tell You About Woman Suffrage https://www.thenation.com/article/society/new-york-times-suffrage/

The Great American Lie – Soraya Chemaly

Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, and First Partner of California Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s newest documentary is The Great American Lie. The film exposes social and economic immobility, viewed through the lens of our gendered values.

After the response to her first film, Miss Representation, which came out in 2011, Jennifer Siebel Newsom created The Representation Project.

Our guest today on Radio Goes to the Movies is Soraya Chemaly. She is the Executive Director of The Representation Project, which has produced two more feature length documentaries examining the harmful impacts of the role gender exerts in our culture for both males and females, as shown in the second film, The Mask You Live In.

The third film, which is being screened at the 2020 BZN International Film Festival, is THE GREAT AMERICAN LIE.
Soraya Chemaly is an award-winning writer, activist, and media critic. She writes and speaks frequently on topics related to social justice, free speech, violence, and technology. The former director and co-founder of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project, she has long been committed to expanding women’s civic and political participation and the power of socially transformative storytelling.

Her work as a writer, activist, and organizer is featured widely in media, books, and academic research. She is the author of the seminal book, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger.
Soraya currently serves on the national boards of the Women’s Media Center, Women in Journalism, and the DC Volunteer Lawyers Project. We spoke with her on August 12, 2020.

Newsome interviewing journalist Charles M. Blow for The Great American Lie

Here is the link to the article cited in the interview:

Treatment of vice presidential contenders highlights struggle to overcome patriarchal status quo By Jennifer Siebel Newsom and Soraya Chemaly https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/Treatment-of-VP-contenders-shows-struggle-to-15465771.php

Zac Titus & Alexis Titus – TWO YELLOW LINES

Father-daughter actors, Zac Titus and Alexis Titus joined us on Radio Goes to the Movies to discuss their film, TWO YELLOW LINES, which is premiering at the virtual 2020 BZN International Film Festival. It won the Best Narrative Feature Award at the festival.

“Veteran smokejumper Jack Elliot fells trees on a steep mountain slope high in the Montana wilderness. He’s one of a five-man crew harvesting beetle-infested pines. It’s a long road from the frenetic lifestyle of a smokejumper, but after losing most of his unit in a runaway backcountry fire, the tranquility of a quiet wood is a welcomed peace.His phone rings. Jack’s estranged ex-wife can’t pick up their teenage daughter from camp in Wyoming.After the fire, Jack lost himself, and consequently lost his family. He hasn’t seen either of them in five years. Hesitant at first, he agrees.When Jack arrives at Sky Camp, it’s not exactly what he was expecting. He pulls in on his ’98 Dyna, sleeping bags latched to the back, eating the dust of a black G-Wagon. When Hanna sees her Dad, out in the middle of nowhere, atop a twenty year old Harley, it’s not exactly what she’d had in mind, either. Reluctantly she gets on.Over the next four days, we watch these two strangers battle as they ride across the wild Montana landscape and sleep beneath her bounty of stars. Watching his baby grow into a young woman, and seeing her hero shrink to a man, a battle that starts off as face to face, slowly becomes back to back.

But the mountains, the passersby, and the small seat of a motorcycle can only do so much to bring them together. The rest is up to them.” from the website, https://www.twoyellowlinesfilm.com/

Laney Lou and the Bird Dogs – Lena Schiffer & Brian Kassay

Laney Lou and the Bird Dogs are a relentlessly energetic bluegrass-Americana band based in Bozeman, MT.

Combining soaring four-part harmony and rock ‘n’ roll drive, they get people dancing to original tunes and covers alike.

With a combined 30 years of experience in blues, rock, country, metal, folk, and indie bands, the members found their common ground in bluegrass in 2013, bringing a unique sound to the folk scene.

This edition of Ecotones includes four of their songs, three of which are from their live album, Live at the Filling Station.

You can find out much more about them on their website:

http://www.thebird-dogs.com/

Henry Giroux

On the day that Henry Giroux finished his latest book, Race, Politics, and Pandemic Pedagogy: Education in a Time of Crisis, he graciously joined us for an interview. It will be published in 2021.

Henry Giroux is Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy and Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest at McMaster University.

He has written more than 56 books since his first book, Ideology, Culture and the Process of Schooling was published in 1981, and he has been generous with his time over the years as he published books such as Zombie Politics in the Age of Casino Capitalism; Disposable Youth: Racialized Memories, and the Culture of Cruelty; The Violence of Organized Forgetting: Thinking Beyond America’s Disimagination Machine; Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of Spectacle; America at War with Itself; American Nightmare: The Challenge of US Authoritarianism; and The Terror of the Unforeseen.

We spoke with him on August 2, 2020 about the multiple crises with which we are faced.

Articles referenced in the interview:

President Trump, White Supremacy and the Confederate Flag https://billmoyers.com/story/president-trump-white-supremacy-and-the-confederate-flag/

The Ugly Terror of a Fascist Abyss Lurks in the Background of This Pandemic https://truthout.org/articles/the-ugly-terror-of-a-fascist-abyss-lurks-in-the-background-of-this-pandemic/

Racist violence part of a plague of inequity https://www.thespec.com/opinion/contributors/2020/07/01/racist-violence-part-of-a-plague-of-inequity.html

Bill Barr and the Ghost of Fascism https://billmoyers.com/story/bill-barr-and-the-ghost-of-fascism/

The plague of inequality in the age of pandemic: This uprising is about more than George Floyd https://www.salon.com/2020/06/20/the-plague-of-inequality-in-the-age-of-pandemic-this-uprising-is-about-more-than-george-floyd/?fbclid=IwAR05LrIayPmc8xYXQJaifT_nmSh4r3AzdLW2J3yL3Jm-Y_ODuM9Aic0g_UU

Racist Violence Can’t Be Separated From the Violence of Neoliberal Capitalism https://truthout.org/articles/racist-violence-cant-be-separated-from-the-violence-of-neoliberal-capitalism/

Racial Domestic Terrorism and the Legacy of State Violence https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/06/01/racial-domestic-terrorism-and-the-legacy-of-state-violence/

Criminogenic Politics as a Form of Psychosis in the Age of Trump https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/05/26/criminogenic-politics-as-a-form-of-psychosis/

Why it is dangerous to use the language of war about COVID-19 https://www.thespec.com/opinion/contributors/2020/05/20/why-it-is-dangerous-to-use-the-language-of-war-about-covid-19.html

Militarization in a Time of Pandemic Crisis https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/24/militarization-in-a-time-of-pandemic-crisis/?fbclid=IwAR0_lngGcbrFRs5L7lKN62Qpt8BJ95mPmJ3EpazssGhQmrMbxz5lOdzG05c

There’s more than one pandemic ravaging our embattled society https://www.thespec.com/opinion/contributors/2020/04/21/theres-more-than-one-pandemic-ravaging-our-embattled-society.html

The COVID-19 Pandemic Is Exposing the Plague of Neoliberalism https://truthout.org/articles/the-covid-19-pandemic-is-exposing-the-plague-of-neoliberalism/

Trump Is Now Openly Defying the Supreme Court https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/daca-donald-trump-supreme-court.html?via=taps_bottom

Removing monuments is the easy part. We must make America a real democracy https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/01/us-real-democracy-voting-rights-healthcare-schools

Tom Cotton calls slavery ‘necessary evil’ in attack on New York Times’ 1619 Project https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/26/tom-cotton-slavery-necessary-evil-1619-project-new-york-times

Playing War While Dressed to Kill in Portland https://www.thenation.com/article/society/federal-agents-portland-military/

Donald Trump Is Writing A Terrifying New Chapter In The History Of Political Repression https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-portland-american-repression_n_5f231c9cc5b68fbfc8809a1d

Trump badly miscalculated in Portland – and even he knows it https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/31/trump-portland-antifa-voters-miscalculated

‘These are his people’: inside the elite border patrol unit Trump sent to Portland https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/27/trump-border-patrol-troops-portland-bortac

Anti-fascists linked to zero murders in the US in 25 years https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/27/us-rightwing-extremists-attacks-deaths-database-leftwing-antifa

Texas hospital forced to set up ‘death panel’ as Covid-19 cases surge https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/26/covid-19-death-panels-starr-county-hospital-texas

‘Disturbing—and Dangerous’: Journalists Denounce Judge’s Order for Outlets to Turn Over Protest Footage to Seattle Police https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/24/disturbing-and-dangerous-journalists-denounce-judges-order-outlets-turn-over-protest?cd-origin=rss&utm_term=AO&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_content=email&utm_source=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_medium=Email

God Brought Us Trump To Show Us Our Weaknesses https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQmlytREqXk

Moms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwaklEmDn_0

Paul Pierson – Let Them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality

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Paul Pierson is the John Gross Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley. LET THEM EAT TWEETS: HOW THE RIGHT RULES IN AN AGE OF EXTREME INEQUALITY is one of several books he has written with Jacob Hacker, who is director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies and a Political Science Professor at Yale University. Their other books include American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper, Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer–and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class; Off Center: The Republican Revolution and The Erosion of American Democracy. Professor Pierson has also written many other books including the prize winning, Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher and the Politics of Retrenchment.

Some articles referenced or relevant to the interview:

Wisconsin court upholds Republican laws curbing powers of Democratic officials https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/09/wisconsin-court-upholds-laws-curbing-powers-of-democratic-officials

Julian Zelizer on the rise and fall of Newt Gingrich: The man who was Trump before Trump https://www.salon.com/2020/07/14/julian-zelizer-on-the-rise-and-fall-of-newt-gingrich-the-man-who-was-trump-before-trump/

Joe Biden Expresses An Openness To Eliminating The Senate Filibuster https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-filibuster_n_5f0dcfa1c5b648c301eff41e

Democrats Will Be Lost Without the Senate https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/senate-democrats-biden/

Grover Norquist’s Anti-Tax Group Took Money From the Paycheck Protection Program https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/grover-norquist-ppp-coronavirus.html?via=recirc_engaged

Sanders: “Richest 1 Percent Is Responsible for 70 Percent of All Unpaid Taxes” https://truthout.org/articles/sanders-richest-1-percent-is-responsible-for-70-percent-of-all-unpaid-taxes/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=a7771b1b-9aeb-4d90-aa38-cec6e4aaf0ef

Dozens of Trump veterans cash out on K St. despite ‘drain the swamp’ vow https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/08/trump-administration-veteranslobbying-348273

Chief Justice John Roberts Is Carrying Out Corporate America’s Long-Term Plan Perfectly https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/07/john-roberts-supreme-court-chief-justice-chamber-commerce

How Could Human Nature Have Become This Politicized? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/opinion/trump-politics-psychology.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Unpresidented https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/07/23/trump-unpresident-unredeemed-promise/

Trump Has Emergency Powers We Aren’t Allowed to Know About https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/opinion/trump-coronavirus-emergency-powers.html?searchResultPosition=1

What 11 Republican senators had to say about Trump’s racism https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/06/silent-republican-lawmakers-are-handmaidens-white-supremacy/

The Day the White Working Class Turned Republican https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/books/review/the-hardhat-riot-david-paul-kuhn.html?action=click&algo=bandit-all-surfaces_desk_filter&block=editors_picks_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=108758887&impression_id=284217827&index=0&pgtype=Article&region=footer&req_id=857707508&surface=home-featured