Wright Thompson: The Ghosts of Mississippi
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hey, everybody. It's Tim Mullen from The Bulwark. I'm so excited to bring our guest for today to you here in a minute. Wright Thompson is a guy I've been reading about for a long time. And one of my favorite books the past couple of years is his book, The Barn, about basically the 30-ish square miles around the barn where Emmett Till was murdered. It's an area that he grew up in and still lives in Mississippi. And I thought that would be Just a really interesting conversation for the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. And also, as you'll see, there's just a ton of echoes and lessons from that period that I think are resonating right now. He also just tells a wonderful story about his mother that I think is going to give a lot of you.
What historical events does Wright Thompson connect to the murder of Emmett Till?
some laughter and comfort and steal you to keep getting in those facebook comment section wars so stick around for all that right is great i wanted to do a quick news thing at the top because there's just so much happening and so here's like a little brief news potpourri and tim's hot takes and uh and then we'll get you to write um the first thing is uh maria carina machado went to the White House yesterday to give Donald Trump the medal, her Nobel Peace Prize medal. Got to say, it feels like this is a little too, little too late for Maria Machado. I mean, Donald Trump likes trophies, but things are already moving down the tracks as far as him garnishing, confiscating, stealing the oil from Venezuela and putting it in a bank account in Qatar.
and letting the communist Chivista still run the country. So Donald Trump doesn't really seem to care a lot about freedom and the other things that Machado was talking about. I think maybe she was hoping that he would care about the trophy so much. But I think Donald Trump's kind of the person that says, hey, great, thank you. I appreciate the trophy. I'm going to keep it. I'm going to put it in my trophy room and then not do anything for you. That would be kind of my assessment of Donald Trump's character. I do have to mention that she gave him the medal – in this kind of framed it sort of looked like somebody ran to michael's like an hour before the event and had the metal framed next to you know some parchment paper with the president donald trump and the people of the united states it's pretty janky you know it kind of looks like
You know, the type of thing that you give out to kids for their awards at the end of a soccer season. If you're going to try to go the whole way here and make a big deal out of giving the medal, I might have done some better framing. You know, I use uptown frames here in New Orleans. They would have taken care of they would have taken care of Maria Machado a lot better on that. It would have looked better. A plus. The other thing that's worth noting on this is the Norwegian Nobel Committee says Trump can have the trophy. But once a Nobel Prize is announced, it cannot be revoked, shared or transferred to others. The decision is final and stands for all time. A medal can change owners, but the title of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate cannot.
So a little cheeky tweet from the Nobel Committee yesterday. It feels like we're pretty cooked here. We're in this situation. This is the kind of diplomacy that we're doing. And as I mentioned, this all comes in the context of Donald Trump's warmongering and saber-rattling of our own allies in Greenland. But also JVL wrote in his newsletter yesterday – you guys should go check that out – This Cutter bank account that I'm mentioning, Trump is continuing to look for ways to create other funding sources inside the executive branch so he doesn't have to go through Congress. It's pretty ominous, particularly – As we get to this next topic, as you look ahead to how he might behave after the midterms, presuming the Democrats take control of Congress, and I would assume if the Democrats had any balls, stop funding Donald Trump's various reins of terror.
Over in Minnesota, the behavior of the ICE and CBP agents continued, and the courage of the protesters there continued.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:47
2
What historical events does Wright Thompson connect to the murder of Emmett Till?
0:47–4:37
3
How does Wright Thompson describe the impact of silence on the history of Mississippi?
4:37–7:22
4
What parallels does Wright draw between past and present political violence?
7:22–11:21
5
How does Wright Thompson reflect on the cultural significance of Mississippi's history?
11:21–14:38
6
What insights does Wright provide about the role of agriculture in Mississippi's economy?
14:38–18:03
7
What are the challenges facing farmers in Mississippi today?
18:03–22:04
8
How does Wright rank SEC college towns and what criteria does he use?
22:04–1:08:04
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The Bulwark Daily
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