Trump has already shown that when he moves back to the White House, he's likely to use the strategies of dictators he admires, such as Viktor Orbán of Hungary: pack courts and agencies with ideological cronies, intimidate and harass the press, and continue to denigrate opponents as “evil,” “low IQ,” "vermin" and “enemies from within.” Harvard professor Steven Levitsky, co-author of How Democracies Die and Tyranny of the Minority, tells us why it could take years to rescue America’s democracy. Even if you heard this episode when we first posted it, we think you’ll want to listen again now that Trump is returning to the Oval Office.

John Marks says yes - and he and the organization he founded, Search for Common Ground, have made it happen. He tells us surprising stories about how they get people to listen to each other, across hard lines of hatred and suspicion: Russian and American intelligence officers, Iranians and Americans, Israelis and Arabs, Hutus and Tutsis in Africa - and more. John's memoir, From Vision to Action: Remaking the World Through Social Entrepreneurship, is like a how-to guide - filled with candid accounts of his successes and failures.

Scientist Michelle Fournet and her colleagues from the University of New Hampshire hang out with humpback whales in Alaska, recording their daily communications - and then sending whale recordings back to the giant animals to see if and how they respond. Some of her latest findings could break new ground: she can identify individual whales by their sounds. Michelle tells us the moving story of how she morphed from broke actor to internationally-respected whale researcher - and how she hopes research on humpbacks' "language" can help humans protect them.