Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is gaining some steam as a challenger to Donald Trump. What is the former South Carolina governor doing that other candidates is not? Acting like she is a member of the ruling class of the South -- ...

Did the elites take over social justice movements like MeToo, Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street?  Not exactly. Those movements were all totally in alignment with elite values in the northern United States. And those elites do contr...

Where does President Joe Biden’s pro-union, “from-the-bottom-up” economic policy come from? From his roots in Delaware and Pennsylvania, where the original settlers believed in getting an education-- but not too much -- and working hard -- b...

The Republican Presidential Candidate is often described as a biotech executive, a Trump wannabe, or just this news cycle’s novelty act. But Ramaswamy’s connection with voters is no pretension -- he hails from Cincinnati, Ohio, making him a ...

The song by Oliver Anthony isn’t actually liberal or conservative. It’s Appalachian. It talks about the same things that have animated singers in the Scotch-Irish-settled parts of America for 250 years, and it does it in the same musical style,...

The recent House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing on unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAPs) featured seemingly serious people suggesting the federal government has captured the aliens and their spaceship. Was the "tic-tac" covered...

Visiting Deschutes National Forest and Suttle Lodge offered a peak at the future of camping culture in the Pacific Northwest, and at the influx of wealthy people who decided to live in the Cascade Mountains full time. The mountains were once a ...

You can find poll numbers and pundits on the other podcasts. But the Compass of Power is the only place to find the candidates ranked by cultural region. In this episode, I’m going through the entire known presidential field. But in...

The Compass of Power helps you understand the limits of the possible, recognize the goodness in others, and cultivate reasonable expectations of national politics. Unlike the usual lenses for looking at politics, it helps you avoid overidentifi...

Republican presidential candidates Tim Scott and Nikki Haley challenge a lot of our preconceptions about modern politics, but they definitely carry the flame of the South Carolina spirit.

Sit back, buckle up, and let me be your designated driver in short tour through the history of drunk driving. Like a lot of other seemingly inalienable rights, our ability to drink alcohol and to vote have changed over time, and once Mothers Ag...

Americans are moving South in a big way, and a new analysis shows that Southern cultures are the most likely to experience shootings. We look at a breakdown of gun deaths by cultural region from Colin Woodard’s Nationhood Lab. Death by gunshot ...

Pundits say there's not much enthusiasm for Joe Biden's second run for president -- but I will be the cheering section! Let' s talk about what Joe's done and how much that depends on where he's from. And why there isn't another presidential con...

Warriors take big risks to strike a blow for their people. The dominate culture of Tennesse prizes warriors. From our perspective, Tennessee Republicans' decision to expel two Black Democratics for violating the rules of decorum in the state Ho...

When Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg pushed through an indictment of former President and native Manhattanite Donald Trump this week, the over-the-top moves of these New Yorkers pushed America into a first-ever charging of a former pres...

Hyperlocal blogger Emmett O'Connell knows Pacific Northwest history as well as anyone, and that gives him amazing insights into the region's politics. In this episode, he explains how election upsets, airport construction, and voting by mail al...

Seems like New Yorkers in media, politics and voting booths are distancing themselves from the same thing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has declared war upon: "wokeism." Known by a few names, this dominant strain of progressive thought is from New ...

Eastern Oregonians have been voting in favor of a plan to move their counties under Idaho's state government. The goal of the "Greater Idaho" movement is Republican rule for conservative places. They are opposed to the progressive politics of P...

When news broke that the US Department of Energy concluded the coronavirus likely escaped from a lab, Democrats were skeptical, Republicans triumphant. Shouldn't everybody be dispassionately interested in determining the origin of a pandemic th...

We’re talking about the Tweet that made “Civil War” a trending topic in America – again!Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene pitched one right down the middle for the Compass of Power when she said we need a "national divorce" between r...

As a speechwriting geek, I want to talk about the state of the union. Just where were all those hecklers from?  But we must also talk about the strange spherical object in the sky...Hot topics this week:Chinese Spy Ballo...

The death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee, is the latest high-profile incident involving Black men and law enforcement. In this episode, we explore what's different about Memphis by looking at the violent, death-strewn and musically brill...

Today we're going to talk about The Whale because it received multiple Oscar nominations. Brendan Fraser for his role as the (terribly fat) estranged dad. Hong Chau for her role as the angry sister-in-law. But it was written by Sam...

Two Department of Justice special counsels are investigating both President Joe Biden and former President Joe Biden. Both men apparently had classified documents at their homes, dating from their time in the White House. What's the difference?...

Right now, today, times have never been better for the Black middle class.And that golden age is centered in the former Confederacy. Black families are moving to the South in big numbers, where they are finding good jobs and presumably e...