Podcast Episodes

083: Classical Liberalism and Michel Foucault (w/ Mark Pennington)

Note: There were some issues with my guest's audio that make a few of his answers difficult to hear. So he kindly wrote out his answers and sent them to me. You can read those here: https://www.patre…

Published on 4 months ago

082: Reclaiming the Internet (w/ Mike Masnick)

Episode 86

What's happened to Twitter, or now X, is the clearest example of why it's actually not great that so much of our digital communication is controlled by just a few firms and, through them, the whims o…

Published on 4 months, 1 week ago

081: How Trump is Using the Surveillance State Against Us (w/ Patrick G. Eddington)

The government's power to see is its power to oppress. The more the state knows about us, the more levers it has to control us. Understanding that connection, its history and its application, is crit…

Published on 4 months, 2 weeks ago

080: Liberty Means Taking Equality Seriously (w/ Jonathan Blanks)

Equality is central to the liberal project. Thomas Jefferson failed, dramatically and unforgivably, to live up to this ideal, but he stated in correctly when, in a letter, he wrote that "the mass of …

Published on 4 months, 4 weeks ago

079: What the Right Gets Wrong About Men (w/ Toby Buckle)

The Trumpist right has a very clear picture of what they imagine masculinity to be, and are quite upset that it's not a picture all men find all that appealing. It's one of violence, belligerence, an…

Published on 5 months ago

078: Why the Far-Right Pretends to Like Democracy (w/ Zack Beauchamp)

The authoritarian right loves to talk about how they're upholding democracy. Trump didn't lose the 2020 election, because if he had, democracy would've been against him. So instead it was stolen from…

Published on 5 months, 2 weeks ago

077: Forging an Opposition to Trump (w/ Adam Gurri)

The first few months of the Trump administration have proven not just how willing much of America was to embrace and celebrate fascism, but how crucial careful, clear-eye, and thoughtful reporting an…

Published on 5 months, 3 weeks ago

076: The Crank Theory of Everything (w/ Alysia Ames)

As we've talked about a fair amount on the show, gender is at the center of the ideological clashes defining our political moment. Trumpism is, at its heart, a misogynistic movement, and the fractiou…

Published on 6 months ago

075: Ayn Rand Would've Hated Elon Musk (w/ Paul Crider)

Many very rich men who support Trump fancy themselves heroes from the novels of Ayn Rand. I've never done an episode of this show on Rand's ideas, because I'm not a Randian, and don't think about pol…

Published on 6 months, 2 weeks ago

074: How State Attorneys General are Taking the Fight to Trump (w/ Carolyn Fiddler)

I wanted to try to do a hopeful episode. The world look pretty grim right now, and many of us feel discouraged. The unlawful and authoritarian actions of the Trump administration keep coming at a rel…

Published on 6 months, 3 weeks ago