What have the trickle-down politics of Donald Trump meant for the First Coast? A local reporter examines how the political trends that have reshaped the Republican Party and recalibrated its value system on a national level now inform municipal level decision-making. The Jan. 31 episode of the investigative podcast Reveal with Al Letson recounts the Jacksonville City Council’s epic 14-hour budget meeting last September, where lawmakers were riven by disagreements over diversity, equity and inclusion spending. According to the podcast, “What became clear as the budget debate crept into the wee hours of the morning is that many local Republican elected officials are no longer taking their cues from their constituents or even deep-pocketed civic and business leaders who once held enormous sway over city elections. Instead, they are marching to the beat of — and appropriating — national politics.”
Guest: Trinity Webster-Bass, investigative journalism fellow, The Tributary
Voice of a generation
Though just 26 years old and performing jazz for less than a decade, Samara Joy has already been recognized as one of the strongest voices in the history of the genre. Joy has won five Grammy awards, including two in 2023 for Best New Artist and Best Jazz Vocal Album (a category she claimed again last year). Joy has performed at the Newport, Monterey and Montreal jazz festivals and at such storied venues as the Apollo, Carnegie Hall, the Village Vanguard and Lincoln Center. Now, jazz fans in Northeast Florida have a chance to see her as part of the Fort Mose Jazz & Blues Series. We talked to Joy about her meteoric rise and what to expect at her upcoming show.
Guest: Five-time Grammy Award-winning jazz singer Samara Joy
Gated community, gallows humor
Can HOA tensions lead to murder? The author of a new novel explores the politics of a gated community set in the eerily familiar “Costa Verde” community along Coastal Highway A1A. From the Lilly Pulitzer dresses to the English pub north of St. Augustine “in the middle of nowhere,” there are local touchstones aplenty. We ask the author how the fictional discovery of a bloodstained body opened up a path to explore the politics of insular suburbia.
Guest: Shelley Marsh, author of Dying to Live Here
Topics and guests subject to change.