Democracy In Power: A History Of US Electrification | Sandeep Vaheesan | TMR
January 12, 2025
4,237
214
8
5.24%
Search the Record
IndexedEvery word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
Sam Seder Episodes Around January 12, 2025
See what was published immediately before and after this episode.
21:24Now PlayingDemocracy In Power: A History Of US Electrification | Sandeep Vaheesan | TMR
YouTube Description
as posted by the channelLive-steamed on January 9, 2025
Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director at the Open Markets Institute, discusses his recent book Democracy In Power: A History of Electrification in the United States.
Sandeep Vaheesan then joins, briefly unpacking his initial reactions to the environmental catastrophes unfolding in California right now and the incremental technocratic improvements to the US’ climate agenda under Biden, before diving into the surprising buoying of US energy infrastructure on – get this – publicly owned or cooperative utilities. Expanding on that latter point, Vaheesan parses through the history of the public sector’s role in US energy infrastructure, starting with the New Deal’s attempt to address the dearth of electrification in rural and farming communities, with FDR moving to recognize electricity as a necessity, rather than a luxury, and establishing the Rural Electrification Agency, which helped to expand access farmer access to electricity from 1 in 10 to 9 in 10, before diving deep into the extensive and overwhelming response from private industry, from the expansive propaganda effort – reviewing, rewriting, and replacing textbooks, purchasing newspaper space, and more – through their powerful push against regulatory institutions. Moving forward through the beginning of the neoliberal turn, Sandeep brings Emma through the process of the privatization of energy grids under this deregulation process, making room for the atrocious grid management we see from Texas nowadays, before wrapping up with the recent reemergence of initiatives for expanding publicly-owned utilities.
Watch the Majority Report live MondayFriday at 12 p.m. EST on YouTube OR listen via daily podcast at ...OR become a member at JoinTheMajorityReport.com
#SamSeder #EmmaVigeland #majorityreport #politics #news
Get all your MR merch at our store
Gift a Majority Report subscription here
Get the free Majority Report App!
Go to and use coupon code majority to get 20% off your purchase!
CHECK OUT MORE from the MR crew:
Matt Binder DOOMED
Brandon Sutton DISCOURSE
Emma Vigeland ESVN
Matt Lech LEFT RECKONING
OTHER LINKS:
Our alt YouTube
AMQuickie newsletter
The Majority Report with Sam Seder
Links & Promotions
Guests & Subjects Covered
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.