Happy leap day! Super Tuesday is tomorrow. Voters in 14 states will cast votes in Democrat and Republican primaries and caucuses. In this unprecedented election cycle on the Republican side, we have an establishment that is terrified at the prospect of Donald Trump being the standard bearer of its party, and a primary electorate that is more engaged and perhaps more outraged, than ever before. For the Democrats, Hillary Clinton is riding the wave of a big victory in South Carolina on Saturday, and after tomorrow, there are five more states on the election schedule next weekend.
Tom's guest this morning is eminently qualified to provide perspective on this election, and the factors that have, over the last 70 years, contributed to a political polarity that has many people deeply concerned about...well, the future of the republic. E.J. Dionne Jr. is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, and a professor at Georgetown University. His latest book, Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism from Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond is a probing analysis of the American conservative movement's evolution since the 1960s and how the rising influence of right-wing radicals threatens the movement's future. E.J. Dionne joins Tom from NPR studios in Washington, D.C.
