The Purple Principle Podcast

Series produced by Fluent Knowledge

Caption: The Purple Principle Podcast , Credit: Fluent Knowledge
Image by: Fluent Knowledge 
The Purple Principle Podcast  

The Purple Principle is a non-partisan podcast for independent-minded Americans exploring the perils of partisanship in U.S. politics, society and daily life.

By most measures, the US has over 40 million independent or unaffiliated voters (that’s a large audience!) representing more than a third of the electorate. Yet despite large and growing numbers, independents are often missing from the national conversation.

Independents have no cable channel or national newspaper. You rarely encounter an independent perspective on a major network or opinion page. And there’s a surprising lack of scholarship on them as well. Yet independents loom large come election time precisely because of their large numbers and low predictability.
At the Purple Principle, our audience is those independent-minded and unaffiliated Americans.

These questions lie behind every episode of The Purple Principle: How did these United States get so thoroughly partisan? How do we get less partisan? Can independent-minded Americans help bridge the divide?

Along our podcast journey, we interview experts from many different backgrounds: neuroscientists, comedians, mediators, legislators, musicians, non-partisan groups, political scientists and statisticians.

At the end of each episode, we ask this Exhausted American Majority tired of partisan political battles, to share their own purple tales as mediators between blue and red family members and friends. Hide full description

By most measures, the US has over 40 million independent or unaffiliated voters (that’s a large audience!) representing more than a third of the electorate. Yet despite large and growing numbers, independents are often missing from the national conversation. Independents have no cable channel or national newspaper. You rarely encounter an independent perspective on a major network or opinion page. And there’s a surprising lack of scholarship on them as well. Yet independents loom large come election time precisely because of their large numbers and low predictability. At the Purple Principle, our audience is those independent-minded and unaffiliated Americans. These questions lie behind every episode of The Purple Principle: How did these United States get so thoroughly partisan? How... Show full description


77 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
Caption: Episode 21: Natalie Jackson and Brian Schaffner
How was so much polling inaccuracy possible again in 2020 at nearly all levels? Episode 21 of the Purple Principle, “2020 Polling in Hindsight: Som...

  • Added: Jan 27, 2021
  • Length: 35:08
Caption: Episode 22: Polarization as Plague
Episode 22, “Polarization as Plague,” is Part One of our two-part season finale. We start off in the neuroscience laboratory with previous featured...

Bought by RadioFreePalmer


  • Added: Feb 09, 2021
  • Length: 21:24
  • Purchases: 1
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To some degree, all Americans realize we’ve become more polarized in recent times. Those at one extreme obsess about the other, while those in betw...

  • Added: Feb 23, 2021
  • Length: 29:19
Caption: Episode 1: Portrait of the Arsonist as a Young Congressman
Does history create vulnerabilities that any number of populist politicians could seize upon? Or do exceptional populists create those opportunitie...

  • Added: Mar 09, 2021
  • Length: 34:19
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We’ve all seen and heard the sad decline of civil discussions at congressional town hall forums over the past decade or two. The anger, the shoutin...

  • Added: Mar 23, 2021
  • Length: 28:35
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In this episode of The Purple Principle, we wonder, what’s behind those red and blue maps of American political and social geography and our deepen...

  • Added: Apr 06, 2021
  • Length: 32:20
Caption: Episode 4: The Senate Filibuster: Weapon of Obstruction or Shield Against Polarization?
Our guests on Season 2, Episode 4 are two of the most informed writers on this topic: Adam Jentleston, former Deputy Chief of Staff to Democratic M...

  • Added: Apr 20, 2021
  • Length: 37:40
Caption: Season 2 Episode 5, "The Politics Industry at work: And How would you like your gridlock?"
This episode’s featured guest, Katherine Gehl (co-author of The Politics Industry) provides this sorely needed new perspective on our two-party duo...

  • Added: May 05, 2021
  • Length: 38:48
Caption: Vaccines Prevent Viruses; What Combats COVID Vax Skepticism? An Interview with Dr. Jeanine Guidry, Director of VCU’s Health & Media Lab
In this episode, the Purple Principle speaks with Dr. Jeanine Guidry, Director of the Media and Health Lab at Virginia Commonwealth University, on ...

Bought by RadioStPete Florida, KSFR, and KUCR 88.3 fm Riverside, Calif.


  • Added: May 18, 2021
  • Length: 31:52
  • Purchases: 3
Caption: Season 2, Episode 7, "Online Conspiracies & Virtual Cults: Social Extremes in Our Hyperpartisan Age"
Join us for “Online Conspiracies & Virtual Cults” and reflect whether group dynamics have overwhelmed logic and conviction in your life, or that of...

  • Added: Jun 01, 2021
  • Length: 35:35
Caption: Online Conspiracies & Virtual Cults Part 2: Celebrity Makes the World Go Flat
Do we live in an age where online conspiracies and cults proliferate ever more frequently and powerfully? We continue to explore this question by f...

  • Added: Jun 15, 2021
  • Length: 27:48
Caption: Embrace Complexity To Overcome Polarization? Discussing a Way Out with Dr. Peter Coleman of The Difficult Conversations Lab
Police reform, gun violence, global warming... When did you last have a civil, informative, productive conversation with someone of differing opini...

  • Added: Jun 29, 2021
  • Length: 29:10
Caption: Episode 10: Nicest Troll in Town, featuring Dr. Chris Bail
Social media is not fundamentally a source of information or a competition of ideas, but a competition of identities. With that and other provoca...

Bought by KUCR 88.3 fm Riverside, Calif.


  • Added: Jul 21, 2021
  • Length: 26:59
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Hollywood Presidents for a Partisan Nation (Part One): Hail the Independent Commander in Chief
In a time of extreme polarization, how does Hollywood portray a POTUS with broad audience appeal? That question is at the heart of our multi-part ...

  • Added: Dec 16, 2022
  • Length: 34:11
Caption: Episode 12: Hollywood Presidents for a Partisan Nation (Part Two)
Imagine creating a television series premised on a U.S. Capitol building attack, then watching a less-lethal yet all too real version of that event...

  • Added: Aug 24, 2021
  • Length: 21:40
Caption: Woking up to Backlash: New York Times Contributing Writer Thomas Edsall on Reason & Responsibility in Polarized Politics
“The rise of the conservative movement on the right and the decline of liberalism on the left have been a preoccupation of mine for 40 years or mo...

Bought by KOWS


  • Added: Aug 24, 2021
  • Length: 39:54
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Episode 14: A Civic Way to Reverse Polarization? New Vitality in Education & Legislation
In “A Civic Way to Reverse Polarization,” The Purple Principle takes on these questions with four special guests well versed in civics, kicking off...

  • Added: Sep 07, 2021
  • Length: 39:53
Caption: Liberty  & Justice For Some: Two Centuries of Independent Black Leaders & Political Movements
Here’s a seemingly inexplicable historical event: How did the anti-slavery Republican party take the White House in 1861, only six years after its ...

  • Added: Sep 21, 2021
  • Length: 32:00
Caption: Amazing Grace For Our Partisan Times: Sarah and Beth, Creators of Pantsuit Politics
Is it possible to have grace-filled conversations during these ingracious times of ours? After 500 episodes heard by hundreds of thousands of lis...

  • Added: Oct 05, 2021
  • Length: 29:42
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In this episode we talk to David Mandel head writer and showrunner of the iconic HBO satire, Veep.

  • Added: Oct 19, 2021
  • Length: 39:26