Podcast Episodes

How Identity Politics Took Over the Republican Party

One problem with the conversation around political polarization is that it can imply that polarization is a static, singular thing. That our division…

5 years, 1 month ago

We’re Living in the World the War on Terror Built

The Sept, 11 attacks might have taken place almost 20 years ago, but we’re still living in the America that the war on terror built. Its legacy is no…

5 years, 1 month ago

The Good and Bad News About the Delta Variant

“The war has changed.” That’s what the leaked C.D.C. document says about the way the Delta variant has upended our coronavirus policies. Delta is ast…

5 years, 1 month ago

41 Questions For The Technologies We Use, and That Use Us

We all know by now that Zoom causes fatigue, social media spreads misinformation and Google Maps is wiping out our sense of direction. We also know, …

5 years, 2 months ago

Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Fight Over U.S. History

You’ve heard plenty by now about the fights over teaching critical race theory and the 1619 Project. But behind those skirmishes is something deeper:…

5 years, 2 months ago

Ross Douthat Has Been ‘Radicalized a Little Bit, Too’

Am I too panicked about the future of American democracy?

My colleague Ross Douthat thinks so. He points to research suggesting that voter ID laws and…

5 years, 2 months ago

How Blue Cities Became So Outrageously Unaffordable

Joe Biden’s economic agenda is centered on a basic premise: The United States needs to build. To build roads and bridges. To build child care facilit…

5 years, 2 months ago

Our Workplaces Think We’re Computers. We’re Not.

For decades, our society’s dominant metaphor for the mind has been a computer. A machine that operates the exact same way whether it’s in a dark room…

5 years, 2 months ago

Ibram X. Kendi on What Conservatives—and Liberals—Get Wrong About Antiracism

“What if instead of a feelings advocacy we had an outcome advocacy that put equitable outcomes before our guilt and anguish?” wrote Ibram X. Kendi in…

5 years, 2 months ago

How Octopuses Upend What We Know About Ourselves

I’ve spent the past few months on an octopus kick. In that, I don’t seem to be alone. Octopuses (it’s incorrect to say “octopi,” to my despair) are h…

5 years, 2 months ago