Lawrence O’Donnell

If you’re one of those people who thinks of 2016 as a uniquely tumultuous and unpredictable year in American politics, the writer and MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell would like to draw your attention to a presidential contest not quite half a century ago.  His new book Playing with Fire: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics takes a dramatist’s approach to history, revisiting the year in which President Johnson declined to run again, assassins cut down two of the most iconic leaders of the moment, and fight for one party’s nomination pitted protestors against the police in an American metropolis.  The result, says the author, permanently altered the state of American politics.  In this episode, Lawrence talks with Bill Tipper about how he melded memoir and history to render a portrait of a year that he believes is still shaping our society.