Landslide

Landslide

In the mid-1970s, the Republican Party looked on the verge of self-destruction. Until 1976. A political earthquake: A cutthroat, razor-close, deeply personal battle for the Republican nomination, and the party's identity. It resurrected the GOP, remade it as a conservative party, and pulled the country sharply to the right. Landslide is the story of the closest presidential primary race in American history, what followed, and how it reshaped the political parties — opening the partisan rifts that divide us today. Hosted by award-winning public radio journalist Ben Bradford.

Episodes

Introducing Landslide

February 12, 2024 • 2 mins
When President Richard Nixon resigns in disgrace, three unlikely candidates emerge to fill the vacuum: Gerald Ford, savvy veteran of partisan wars. Ronald Reagan, fringe reactionary. Jimmy Carter, cutthroat political animal. These presidents aren't who you thought they were, and their battles against each other redefined the American political landscape. The result: the hot-button issues, the culture war, and the path to t...
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Trust

February 22, 2024 • 39 mins
Gerald Ford had planned to retire. But in the days and weeks after Watergate, the new president looks to rebuild Americans' collapsing trust in their government. His attempts to cool partisan tempers prove poisonously divisive. A conservative mutiny brews within his own political party, and a former actor leads a challenge against him — Ronald Reagan.

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Lightweight

February 29, 2024 • 42 mins
The idea that Ronald Reagan can win is laughable. "Suicidal," writes the New York Times. Too extreme, too gaffe-prone, too unserious a candidate, the faded former actor has no chance to unseat the sitting president in the primaries — and if he does it will signal the end of the Republican Party. But Reagan seizes a message that entwines optimism and culture war, the power of which was not fully appreciated at the time.
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The New Right

March 7, 2024 • 41 mins
The 1976 Republican primary looks finished. After a string of losses to Ford, Reagan's aides prepare to concede. But a network of right-wing groups has quietly organized, drumming up anger over integration, women's rights, gun laws, and textbooks. It is known as the New Right, and it will help spring an improbable comeback that will change the battle lines of American politics.

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Shootout

March 14, 2024 • 39 mins
With the primaries over, the nomination hangs in the hands of a few remaining "unbound" delegates. Ford and Reagan scramble to win them over, as the battle to lead the Republican Party — and to decide its direction — comes down to a national convention known as the Shoot-Out in Kansas City. There, a series of gambits, promises, and betrayals culminates with a nominee, a conservative platform, and the modern GOP.

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Ordinary Man

March 21, 2024 • 41 mins
An unexpected contender ambushes the Democratic field. The one-term Georgia governor Jimmy Carter has planned a campaign of military precision for the Democratic nomination. With a wide grin, cold blood, and a dose of luck, he rises from unknown to the 1976 nomination. But he leaves questions in his wake, even as he establishes a new paradigm for Democratic presidential candidates: the small-government outsider.

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Outsider

March 28, 2024 • 37 mins
Bruised after the primaries, the unpopular Ford looks headed for a blowout defeat in the 1976 general election. But his campaign adopts a clever strategy, and Carter struggles in the spotlight as the frontrunner. Gaffes, attack ads, Playboy magazine, and a new institution — a series of presidential debates — build to a razor-close election. It marks a turning point for the types of candidates America will elect.
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Landslide

April 4, 2024 • 51 mins
Four years later. Jimmy Carter is now an embattled president, unpopular and facing a tough primary challenge. Meanwhile, Ronald Reagan storms to the Republican nomination, while wooing a powerful new bloc of voters into his conservative coalition — the Christian Right. Still, amid worries that Reagan is too extreme and too old, the 1980 general election remains tight until the very end. How did it lead to an ideological se...
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Making Abortion Partisan

April 18, 2024 • 21 mins
Even in the years after Roe vs. Wade, the issue of abortion did not divide the political parties — or most Americans. But as Reagan, the New Right, and the Christian Right took control in the Republican Party, they saw its potential to galvanize voters. In this bonus episode, legal historian Mary Ziegler joins Landslide host Ben Bradford to trace how abortion transformed from a muted sectarian issue with blurry, sometimes ...
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New Right TV

April 25, 2024 • 24 mins
Before Fox News, the grassroots conservative activists known as "the New Right" spent decades attempting — and failing — to launch their own television news channel. In this bonus episode, Purdue historian Kathryn Cramer Brownell chronicles the New Right's TV efforts, why they failed, and how it all ultimately culminated in a stunning success — the creation of today's media ecosystem. Other tidbits include Richard Nixon's ...
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When Money Became Speech

May 2, 2024 • 17 mins
After Watergate, both parties cracked down on political spending with a new, strict campaign finance law. But instead of money in politics shrinking, it exploded. In this bonus episode, historian Marc C. Johnson joins Landslide host Ben Bradford to talk about what happened, the legal saga that threw open the doors to spending by outside groups, and how it radically changed not just presidential campaigns, but every race fo...
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The Exoneration of Richard Nixon

July 3, 2024 • 21 mins
If the new Supreme Court decision, Trump v. U.S., had applied back in 1974, could President Richard Nixon have been prosecuted for Watergate? Or, would this decision shield Nixon from criminal charges? In this special bonus episode of Landslide, host Ben Bradford explores the scope of the new ruling by looking back at the case against Nixon, the charges he looked likely to face without a pardon, and whether his most brazen...
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Engines of Outrage Pt. 1

February 6, 2025 • 32 mins
Just a few decades ago most people used — and trusted — the same news sources. Now, Americans are siloed in separate ecosystems, consuming conflicting depictions of reality. Misinformation runs rampant. Conspiracy theories flourish. And extremism grows. What can bring us back to a shared, fact-based understanding?

A new miniseries from Landslide explores America's information divide — starting with a coordinated ca...
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Engines of Outrage Pt. 2

February 13, 2025 • 30 mins
In the early 2000s, key tech companies made a series of choices that shaped the future of the internet. They "gave away"" their products "for free." From an initial tweak to Facebook's NewsFeed to conspiracy theories about permanent markers in the 2020 election, that decision — and the relentless hunt for engagement that followed — paved the way for outrage-fueled content, viral conspiracy theories, and polarizing misinfor...
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Engines of Outrage Pt. 3

February 20, 2025 • 31 mins
Librarians in Ukraine. Rural newspapers. A tweak to social media algorithms. The infrastructure of a political campaign. All of these offer lessons about how to beat back misinformation and conspiracy theories. But are they enough to pierce the right-wing media bubble?

This episode looks at solutions — from the anodyne to the unsavory — to defuse the engines of outrage and ultimately bring Americans back to a shared...
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Engines of Outrage Pt. 4

February 27, 2025 • 28 mins
How does the internet work to polarize us on an individual level?

As tech and media companies, battle for online engagement, they feed their users — they feed us — content that will grab attention, elicit emotion, and confirm existing beliefs. In a way, it traps everyone in their own bespoke bubble, often without our realizing it.

After previous episodes analyzed the right-wing media ecosystem, Landslide: Eng...
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Introducing the American Storytelling collection

February 10, 2026 • 1 min
What does it mean to be an American? There’s no one way. At NPR, we think of the American identity as a story - one that's always being rewritten by the people who live it. The American Storytelling collection gathers stories from local stations across the NPR Network - from small town struggles, to natural phenomena, to the intricate histories that build the constantly-evolving tale of our nation. These are our biggest li...
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Are we doomed?

April 28, 2026 • 38 mins

Historically, societies fall. Civilizations collapse. But is that what’s happening now in the United States? With the help of historians, a former CIA-funded researcher on political instability, and one grumbling dad, Ben Bradford looks at the warning signs that can precede collapse — from polarization and political division to outside shocks and cascading crises. How much of that is visible in America right now? What woul...

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