The Politics of Everything
The New Republic & Talkhouse
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Produced by The New Republic and hosted by literary editor Laura Marsh and writer Alex Pareene, The Politics of Everything is a podcast about the intersection of culture, politics, and media.
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3 days ago
The Return of the Cattle-Mutilation Conspiracy Theory (Rerun)
In the early 1970s, ranchers in the Southwest began to share strange reports of cattle mutilations—carcasses discovered with organs missing, and with no obvious physical explanation for the deaths. A variety of culprits were suggested—secret government programs, satanists, cults, or extraterrestrials—despite multiple forensic investigations that turned up nothing suspicious about the deaths. Then this spring, a minor police report about the mutilations of six cattle in Texas went from a Facebook post to multiple national articles in a matter of days. Why did such a seemingly small incident strike such a chord, and what does the American fascination with this particular conspiracy theory say about us? On episode 68 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene chat with Michael J. Goleman, a historian who researched the first great wave of cattle mutilations in the 1970s, and with cultural historian Colin Dickey, who has written extensively about American conspiracy theories, about their historical cycles and why, in the twenty-first century, they seem to have taken a very dark turn.
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Nov 22, 2023
The Road to Nowhere (Rerun)
Americans are in a toxic relationship with their automobiles. They’re bad for us—polluting, noisy, and increasingly dangerous to pedestrians—yet we remain fully committed to them. They’re also bad at their primary function: transport. Urbanists and environmentalists for years have proposed solutions to break the automotive spell: improved mass transit, walkable cities, congestion pricing. But cars (and their companion scourge, parking) still dominate our public spaces. On episode 66 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with authors Daniel Knowles and Henry Grabar about the obstacles that prevent us from constraining car culture—and, perhaps, a solution.
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Nov 8, 2023
What’s Causing Those Airline Close Calls?
Every week, it seems, brings a new report of an airport mishap or a near collision between airplanes. Why are so many of these happening now, and what does it tell us about the state of commercial air travel? On episode 74 of The Politics of Everything, co-hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with journalist and private pilot James Fallows about the particular circumstances of some of the more alarming recent incidents, and with author Ganesh Sitaraman about whether the current systems governing air travel are robust enough to support this ever-growing industry.
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Oct 25, 2023
Behind the Shoplifting Panic
On any given day, it’s easy to find a new video on the internet or social media purporting to show a violent retail theft. Such videos make riveting viewing, and—coupled with reports from chain retailers about a plague of theft affecting their bottom lines—might suggest we’re in a golden age of shoplifting. The reality, however, is likely much more complex. On episode 73 of The Politics of Everything, co-hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene chat with New York magazine staff writer James D. Walsh about how organized retail theft has evolved over the past decade, and with Amanda Mull, staff writer at The Atlantic, about the puzzling lack of data about theft and what other factors could be contributing to the perception of a great shoplifting surge.
This episode is sponsored by Cambridge University Press. To learn more, please visit www.cambridge.org/LBJsAmerica, and save 20% off with discount code LBJ20.
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Oct 11, 2023
The Battle Over “Cop City”
Since its approval by the Atlanta City Council in 2021, the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center—more commonly referred to as Cop City—has been a flashpoint of controversy. The $90 million facility is set to be built within a large forest adjacent to predominantly Black and poor neighborhoods; in protest, activists have taken up residence in the forest to try to stop its construction. In January, conflict between police and protesters turned deadly. On episode 72 of The Politics of Everything, co-hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to New Republic senior contributing editor Molly Taft about the Cop City protest as an environmental justice movement and New York magazine senior writer Sarah Jones about the novel applications of law used to charge protesters with serious crimes.
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Sep 27, 2023
Will Women’s Tennis Cross the Saudi Rubicon?
In recent years, Saudi Arabia has been flexing its financial muscle in international sports. And despite the country’s dismal human rights record, an increasing number of athletes, teams, leagues, and even entire sports have become part of the Saudi portfolio. On episode 71 of The Politics of Everything, co-hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene discuss whether women’s tennis, with its legacy of social activism, will ultimately wind up there too.
This podcast is sponsored by Cambridge University Press. To learn more, please visit www.cambridge.org/hijacked, and save 20% off with discount code WORK20.
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Sep 13, 2023
Welcome to the Anti-Woke Economy
Consumer boycotts were once thought of as a tactic primarily employed by the left, but the right has recently used them to great effect—just ask Anheuser-Busch and Target, to name just two companies that have recently been caught in conservatives’ crosshairs. Perhaps not surprisingly, given our polarized moment, there’s a movement among conservatives to create an economy of explicitly right-wing alternatives to everyday products. What caused the rupture between conservatives and big business? Is the notion of a parallel economy even realistic, or is it primarily about bringing corporations to heel on social issues? On episode 70 of The Politics of Everything, co-host Laura Marsh surveys the right’s parallel economy with Kathryn Joyce, who wrote about it in the October issue of The New Republic.
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Aug 30, 2023
Silicon Valley Is Destroying the World (Rerun)
It’s no coincidence that Stanford University was founded in Palo Alto, where many decades later scores of tech companies also got their start. Palo Alto is the birthplace of the “Palo Alto system,” an approach to training race horses that attempted to speed up the process by applying techno-scientific principles and injecting lots of cash. This ethos of optimization, argues the writer Malcolm Harris, defined Stanford, which in turn helped define Silicon Valley and the ideology it has spread throughout the world. On episode 62 of The Politics of Everything, Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with Harris about his new book, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World; the tradition of right-wing thought that underpins the tech industry; and the dark marriage of tech and military power.
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Aug 16, 2023
The Fiery Gas Stove Wars (Rerun)
We’ve known for a while that gas stoves are bad for both your health and the environment. But a few weeks ago, the discourse went into overdrive. First, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced it would consider regulations on indoor air pollution from gas stoves. Not long after, a study asserted that gas-burning stoves are responsible for roughly 12.7 percent of childhood asthma cases nationwide. Suddenly, the appliance acquired a crowd of newly passionate defenders, including Tucker Carlson, who warned that the government was coming for your gas stoves, and Florida Republican representative Matt Gaetz, who tweeted a video of a gas stovetop flame accompanied by the words: You’ll have to pry it from my COLD DEAD HANDS! #FoodieRevolt. How did the debate about whether (and how) to regulate gas stoves so rapidly morph into political Kabuki? On episode 60 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk about the fossil-fuel industry’s misinformation campaign, how our political views inform our consumer choices, and the ways the right leverages the perpetual outrage machine to avoid confronting daunting issues facing the planet. Guests include TNR deputy editor Heather Souvaine Horn; Marc Hetherington, who co-wrote Prius Or Pickup? How the Answers to Four Simple Questions Explain America’s Great Divide; and TNR staff writer Alex Shephard.
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Aug 2, 2023
The High Cost of Cheap E-Bikes (Rerun)
Fires and overheating accidents attributed to lithium-ion batteries killed 19 people in the United States in 2022, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. In New York City alone, six people were killed in these uniquely fast-burning infernos. Experts say poorly made batteries, like those often found on cheaper e-bike models, are the primary culprit. So why is it still so easy to purchase them? Does a typical bike owner know how to safely charge and maintain a bike battery? And are lower-paid workers, such as delivery people, essentially being forced to purchase unsafe bikes just to be able to do their jobs? On episode 59 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with writers Greg Smith, Stephanie Clifford, and Ross Barkan about the New York fires and the populations most at risk, the regulatory challenges of reining in the e-bike industry, and the unintended consequences of our on-demand culture.
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Jul 19, 2023
The Great AI Hallucination (Rerun)
Tech futurists have been saying for decades that artificial intelligence will transform the way we live. In some ways, it already has: Think autocorrect, Siri, facial recognition. But ChatGPT and other generative A.I. models are also prone to getting things wrong—and whether the programs will improve with time is not altogether clear. So what purpose, exactly, does this iteration of A.I. actually serve, how is it likely to be adopted, and who stands to benefit (or suffer) from it? On episode 67 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with Washington Post reporter Will Oremus about a troubling tale of A.I. fabulism; with science fiction author Ted Chiang about ramifications of an A.I-polluted internet; and with linguist Emily M. Bender about what large-language models can and cannot do—and whether we’re asking the right questions about this technology.
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Jul 5, 2023
That ’70s Show (Rerun)
Are we headed back to the 1970s? Politicians and commentators from across the political spectrum insist we are. They also make clear that nothing could be worse. Why is the decade so feared? What kinds of policy to the grim warnings justify? On episode 56 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene speak with the writer Aaron Timms about “nostophobia,” a term he coined to describe a condition that is something like the opposite of nostalgia, and “’70s syndrome,” the variant currently gripping our collective imagination. It’s hard to see how we fix the problems of today with the same failed policy solutions of the 1970s—but that isn’t stopping anyone from trying.
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Jun 28, 2023
From How To Save a Country: Capital in the 2020s (with Thomas Piketty)
Almost a decade ago, economist Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century changed the way many people understood capitalism and inequality.
In the years since, his research and ideas have helped jolt our politics out of autopilot and elevate solutions like a wealth tax into the mainstream.
This episode—recorded in Paris following a panel discussion Thomas and Felicia participated in with historian Gary Gerstle—is about what comes next.
“I think it's important that progressives . . . start thinking again not only about next week, but also about next decade and next century,” Thomas tells Felicia.
He talks about the possibility of a universal basic inheritance, the battle for progressive taxation, and what he sees as the key to prosperity: “much more investment in education, human capital, public infrastructure.”
Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundati…
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Jun 21, 2023
Are Twitter’s Troubles the Beginning of the End of Social Media? (Rerun)
For a few days in early November, it seemed like Twitter might go down in flames. That hasn’t happened—yet—but the prospect of the platform’s end has forced a reckoning. What would its loss mean for the countless journalists, academics, and politicians who rely on it? Would we be better or worse off? And could a diminished Twitter augur the death of social media in general? On episode 58 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with the writer Max Read about Twitter’s possible futures, and with Ian Bogost, a contributing writer at The Atlantic, about why we should embrace the end of social media.
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Jun 7, 2023
Dianne Feinstein’s Long Goodbye
Elderly lawmakers are nothing new in Washington. Strom Thurmond didn’t retire until he was 100; Robert Byrd was still in office when he died at 92. By those standards, Dianne Feinstein, who will turn 90 this month, is practically a youngster. But after her return to the Senate this spring following illness, questions about her ability to serve began to grow more frequent. On episode 69 of The Politics of Everything, co-hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene discuss Feinstein’s storied career—and the long-standing reluctance among senators to develop plans for succession within an institution that rewards seniority above almost all else.
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May 24, 2023
The Return of the Cattle-Mutilation Conspiracy Theory
In the early 1970s, ranchers in the Southwest began to share strange reports of cattle mutilations—carcasses discovered with organs missing, and with no obvious physical explanation for the deaths. A variety of culprits were suggested—secret government programs, satanists, cults, or extraterrestrials—despite multiple forensic investigations that turned up nothing suspicious about the deaths. Then this spring, a minor police report about the mutilations of six cattle in Texas went from a Facebook post to multiple national articles in a matter of days. Why did such a seemingly small incident strike such a chord, and what does the American fascination with this particular conspiracy theory say about us? On episode 68 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene chat with Michael J. Goleman, a historian who researched the first great wave of cattle mutilations in the 1970s, and with cultural historian Colin Dickey, who has written extensively about American consp…
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May 10, 2023
The Great A.I. Hallucination
Tech futurists have been saying for decades that artificial intelligence will transform the way we live. In some ways, it already has: Think autocorrect, Siri, facial recognition. But ChatGPT and other generative A.I. models are also prone to getting things wrong—and whether the programs will improve with time is not altogether clear. So what purpose, exactly, does this iteration of A.I. actually serve, how is it likely to be adopted, and who stands to benefit (or suffer) from it? On episode 67 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with Washington Post reporter Will Oremus about a troubling tale of A.I. fabulism; with science fiction author Ted Chiang about ramifications of an A.I-polluted internet; and with linguist Emily M. Bender about what large-language models can and cannot do—and whether we’re asking the right questions about this technology.
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Apr 26, 2023
The Road to Nowhere
Americans are in a toxic relationship with their automobiles. They’re bad for us—polluting, noisy, and increasingly dangerous to pedestrians—yet we remain fully committed to them. They’re also bad at their primary function: transport. Urbanists and environmentalists for years have proposed solutions to break the automotive spell: improved mass transit, walkable cities, congestion pricing. But cars (and their companion scourge, parking) still dominate our public spaces. On episode 66 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with authors Daniel Knowles and Henry Grabar about the obstacles that prevent us from constraining car culture—and, perhaps, a solution.
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Apr 12, 2023
In Pursuit of the Climate-Proof City
In ways large and small, the changing climate affects how we live and, for a growing number of people, where we live. Many have already relocated because conditions have become too dangerous back home, whether due to sea level rise, wildfires, or drought. Others are moving preemptively, aiming to settle in a region with less perceived climate risk. On episode 65 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to journalists Debra Kamin and Jake Bittle about the effect that small-scale climate migration is having on one “climate-proof” city—and the potential ramifications of widespread population relocation in the future.
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Mar 29, 2023
Who Are You Calling a Fascist?
As a matter of course, pundits and academics quarrel about political descriptors. Someone’s neoliberal is another’s conservative; someone’s democratic socialist is another’s Marxist. Within this realm, Donald Trump’s presidency and his continued power within the Republican Party have given rise to a passionate disagreement over the use of the term fascist. As Trump prepares his 2024 run, the debate has grown even more heated. On episode 64 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to scholars Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Daniel Bessner about the meaning of fascism itself, and how—or even if—it applies to today’s GOP.
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Mar 15, 2023
Roald Dahl and the Children’s Book Factory
Roald Dahl’s children’s books are not exactly the nicest. Dahl’s characters glory in insults and meanness. The adults are generally horrible, the children gleefully vengeful; his bullies usually get their comeuppance. So when it came out recently that Dahl’s publishers had edited new editions of his work with the help of “sensitivity” readers, it was hardly surprising—and it was also hard not to laugh. How much can a handful of essentially cosmetic changes really do? On episode 63 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with literary critics Merve Emre and Christian Lorentzen about the unpleasantness in Dahl’s work, the interest his publishers may have in making the books more palatable, and how such edits fit into a long tradition of bowdlerizing fiction, especially that aimed at children.
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Mar 1, 2023
Silicon Valley Is Destroying the World
It’s no coincidence that Stanford University was founded in Palo Alto, where many decades later scores of tech companies also got their start. Palo Alto is the birthplace of the “Palo Alto system,” an approach to training race horses that attempted to speed up the process by applying techno-scientific principles and injecting lots of cash. This ethos of optimization, argues the writer Malcolm Harris, defined Stanford, which in turn helped define Silicon Valley and the ideology it has spread throughout the world. On episode 62 of The Politics of Everything, Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with Harris about his new book, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World; the tradition of right-wing thought that underpins the tech industry; and the dark marriage of tech and military power.
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Feb 15, 2023
The End of Opposition Research?
It wasn’t long after his election to Congress last fall that people began to realize that George Santos was not what he’d seemed. But how did he get elected to begin with? Why did it take so long for the national media to pick up on Santos’s many, many embellishments? Where was the opposition research on this guy? On episode 61 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene chat with TNR staff writer Daniel Strauss about the first two months of Santos in Washington; with political consultant and campaign veteran Tyson Brody about the rules of the oppo-research game; and with TNR deputy editor Jason Linkins about Santos’s durability and what that says about the health of our political culture.
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Feb 1, 2023
The Fiery Gas Stove Wars
We’ve known for a while that gas stoves are bad for both your health and the environment. But a few weeks ago, the discourse went into overdrive. First, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced it would consider regulations on indoor air pollution from gas stoves. Not long after, a study asserted that gas-burning stoves are responsible for roughly 12.7 percent of childhood asthma cases nationwide. Suddenly, the appliance acquired a crowd of newly passionate defenders, including Tucker Carlson, who warned that the government was coming for your gas stoves, and Florida Republican representative Matt Gaetz, who tweeted a video of a gas stovetop flame accompanied by the words: You’ll have to pry it from my COLD DEAD HANDS! #FoodieRevolt. How did the debate about whether (and how) to regulate gas stoves so rapidly morph into political Kabuki? On episode 60 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk about the fossil-fuel industry’s misinfo…
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Jan 18, 2023
The High Cost of Cheap E-Bikes
Fires and overheating accidents attributed to lithium-ion batteries killed 19 people in the United States in 2022, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. In New York City alone, six people were killed in these uniquely fast-burning infernos. Experts say poorly made batteries, like those often found on cheaper e-bike models, are the primary culprit. So why is it still so easy to purchase them? Does a typical bike owner know how to safely charge and maintain a bike battery? And are lower-paid workers, such as delivery people, essentially being forced to purchase unsafe bikes just to be able to do their jobs? On episode 59 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with writers Greg Smith, Stephanie Clifford, and Ross Barkan about the New York fires and the populations most at risk, the regulatory challenges of reining in the e-bike industry, and the unintended consequences of our on-demand culture.
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Jan 4, 2023
Preview: How to Save a Country
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is known as the plan-wielding policy wonk of the progressive movement. But underlying those plans is a simple idea: We are the government.
“Government is the vehicle for letting us do together what none of us can do alone,” Sen. Warren tells Felicia and Michael. “We all contribute and it expands opportunity for all of us, and I feel like that's what's really been missing as we've become a post–New Deal nation.”
In this episode, Sen. Warren discusses how we can recapture that all-for-one ethos and build a stronger country: by investing in people and recognizing that democracy and freedom are inextricable.
Naturally, there’s plenty of policy to discuss as well. Sen. Warren talks with Felicia and Michael about the big wins of the last two years—from the American Rescue Plan and Inflation Reduction Act to student debt cancellation—and how they shaped the midterms.
“Good policy is good politics. When you do things that people want and care about a…
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Dec 28, 2022
Hollywood Blues (Rerun)
In the past decade, the number of original, scripted television shows being produced each year has more than doubled. Meanwhile, subscriptions to streaming services have surpassed one billion worldwide. We have the shows; we have the access. Why does it feel next to impossible to find anything good to see? On episode 38 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene discuss how the streaming era has transformed what we’re watching, why we’re watching it, and the way movies and TV shows are getting made. Guests include Kyle Chayka, a staff writer at The New Yorker who’s written about streaming culture, and Peter Labuza, a historian of the creative industries.
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Dec 14, 2022
Are Twitter’s Troubles the Beginning of the End of Social Media?
For a few days in early November, it seemed like Twitter might go down in flames. That hasn’t happened—yet—but the prospect of the platform’s end has forced a reckoning. What would its loss mean for the countless journalists, academics, and politicians who rely on it? Would we be better or worse off? And could a diminished Twitter augur the death of social media in general? On episode 58 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with the writer Max Read about Twitter’s possible futures, and with Ian Bogost, a contributing writer at The Atlantic, about why we should embrace the end of social media.
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Nov 30, 2022
Sick Talk on TikTok (Rerun)
Earlier this summer, TikTok users started describing strange symptoms after eating French Lentil + Leek Crumbles, a new product from the vegan food company Daily Harvest. The company received hundreds of reports of illness, and in June, it recalled the product. The Daily Harvest fiasco got special attention because people were reporting their problems on social media, but foodborne illness is far from unusual in the United States. Every year, millions of Americans get sick from something they ate. On episode 52 of The Politics of Everything, Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with New York Times writer Madison Malone Kircher and Helena Bottemiller Evich, the author of the food policy newsletter Food Fix, about what exactly happened in the Daily Harvest scandal and why food poisoning is so common in this country.
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Nov 16, 2022
The Fall of a Progressive Prosecutor
San Francisco was in meltdown, and the district attorney had lost control. That was the story that ousted Chesa Boudin, the city’s progressive prosecutor: Get rid of Boudin and San Franciscans will be safer. Now, a few months out from a successful recall, how is the city faring? What was behind the campaign to demolish the former district attorney—and, crucially, who was bankrolling it? On episode 57 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene discuss the flaws in the narrative used to unseat Boudin and what has happened since his departure. Guests include Peter Calloway, a public defender who lives in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood; California journalist Gil Duran; and Jacob Silverman, who wrote about David Sacks, one of the backers of the recall, for The New Republic.
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Nov 14, 2022
Information, Please! From The Last Archive
We’re sharing a preview from another podcast, The Last Archive. The Last Archive is a show about the history of truth -- or the lack thereof. It's about how we've arrived at the current "fake
news" moment. And it's about how we know what we know, and why it seems, these days, as if we can't agree on anything at all. Harvard historian Jill Lepore uncovers the secrets of the past
the way a detective might. In this preview, Jill explores some of the roots of human knowledge: the encyclopedia and how the idea of it has grown to information sharing via sites like
Wikipedia. Hear more of The Last Archive at https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/tla3?sid=poe.
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Nov 2, 2022
That ’70s Show
Are we headed back to the 1970s? Politicians and commentators from across the political spectrum insist we are. They also make clear that nothing could be worse. Why is the decade so feared? What kinds of policy to the grim warnings justify? On episode 56 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene speak with the writer Aaron Timms about “nostophobia,” a term he coined to describe a condition that is something like the opposite of nostalgia, and “’70s syndrome,” the variant currently gripping our collective imagination. It’s hard to see how we fix the problems of today with the same failed policy solutions of the 1970s—but that isn’t stopping anyone from trying.
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Oct 19, 2022
Rainbow Fentanyl for Halloween?
Are evil-minded strangers trying to hook your kids on candy-colored fentanyl? As Halloween approaches, a dire story is making the rounds about the threat to children of so-called rainbow fentanyl. Is there anything to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s warnings? When it comes to synthetic opioids, where do the real dangers lie? On episode 55 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene discuss how the rainbow fentanyl panic fits into a longer history of Halloween fears. Guests include Zachary Siegel, who writes about drug policy and the criminal justice system; the sociologist Joel Best, who has studied urban legends about poisoned Halloween candy; and regular TNR contributor Natalie Shure.
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Oct 5, 2022
The Slippery Politics of the Nobel Prize in Literature
Who will win this year’s Nobel Prize in literature? And what—beyond literary excellence—does the award stand for? On episode 54 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with Alex Shephard, a staff writer at The New Republic and an inveterate Nobel watcher, about the enigmatic politics of the oldest and most distinguished literary prize in the world. Will the Nobel Committee salute freedom of speech by honoring Salman Rushdie, who was brutally attacked onstage in August? Will it recognize the French memoirist Annie Ernaux, who has written movingly about illegal abortion? How apparent have the Nobel’s politics been over the years—and who definitely won’t win?
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Sep 21, 2022
Are State Governments Too Powerful?
Once upon a time, all politics was local. These days, it seems, all local politics is national. And as the states grow further and further apart on policy, and the Republican Party’s opposition to democratic institutions grows more extreme, the downsides of federalism become ever more apparent. On episode 53 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene speak with Jacob Grumbach, the author of Laboratories Against Democracy, and Aaron Kleinman, the director of research at the States Project, about the ways our decentralized system threatens democracy, how the right and the left have responded to the increasing nationalization of politics, and what’s at stake in local elections during this year’s midterms.
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Sep 7, 2022
Sick Talk on TikTok
Earlier this summer, TikTok users started describing strange symptoms after eating French Lentil + Leek Crumbles, a new product from the vegan food company Daily Harvest. The company received hundreds of reports of illness, and in June, it recalled the product. The Daily Harvest fiasco got special attention because people were reporting their problems on social media, but foodborne illness is far from unusual in the United States. Every year, millions of Americans get sick from something they ate. On episode 52 of The Politics of Everything, Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with New York Times writer Madison Malone Kircher and Helena Bottemiller Evich, the author of the food policy newsletter Food Fix, about what exactly happened in the Daily Harvest scandal and why food poisoning is so common in this country.
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Aug 24, 2022
Too Fast or Too Furious? (Rerun)
Over the past few years, deaths from car accidents in the United States have spiked dramatically. Journalists and commentators have been quick to point to pandemic-induced stress and anxiety to explain the increase. But is that account too pat? On episode 44 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with three guests about road design, automobile regulation, and what’s wrong with blaming crashes on reckless drivers. Guests include Charles Marohn, the author of Confessions of a Recovering Engineer; Jessie Singer, the author of There Are No Accidents, and Jason Slaughter, the creator of the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes.
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Aug 10, 2022
The High Cost of Ikea Furniture (Rerun)
Romania is home to one of the largest and most important old-growth forests in the world—but its trees are disappearing at an astonishing rate. Meanwhile, a spate of attacks has shaken environmentalists and activists in the country. On episode 43 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with the reporter Alexander Sammon, who recently traveled to Romania to investigate illegal logging for The New Republic. Can Europe’s forests survive the global appetite for timber?
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Jul 27, 2022
The Illiberal Upstarts Trying to Reinvent the American Right (Rerun)
Today’s youth are overwhelmingly left-wing. So who are the young conservatives? On Episode 40 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to Sam Adler-Bell, a writer and the host of the podcast Know Your Enemy, about an energetic cohort who call themselves the New Right. They differ in many ways from the median right-wing voter. They hate the Republican establishment. Their heroes are illiberal authoritarians. Are they going to remake conservatism?
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Jul 13, 2022
Where Are Legislators in the Fight Against Inflation?
Inflation hurts consumers. But the traditional solution to inflation—raising interest rates—also hurts consumers. Is it possible to fight rising prices without making people poorer? Why do politicians and the press alike treat the Federal Reserve as the only game in town? On episode 51 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene speak with the macroeconomist Claudia Sahm, the founder of Stay-at-Home Macro Consulting and a former adviser to the White House, about what causes inflation, what’s wrong with how we usually address it, and the kinds of policy that could make a difference.
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Jun 29, 2022
The Cops Who Touched Fentanyl (Rerun)
Can you overdose on fentanyl just from being near it? Over the past few years, a number of police officers have said just that. In 2016, the Drug Enforcement Administration even issued a warning to cops about the dangers of such encounters. The stories have made national news, but they’ve also invited skepticism. On Episode 35 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene discuss the phenomenon of cop overdoses with Dan McQuade, who wrote about it for Defector; Timothy McMahan King, the author of Addiction Nation, a book about the opioid crisis; and Patrick Blanchfield, who’s written about cop psychology and cop culture.
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Jun 15, 2022
Joe Biden’s Debt Cancellation Games
Since the 1990s, student loan debt in the United States has ballooned to the point that the numbers sound like a mean joke: As of May 2022, the outstanding balance of federal education loans topped $1.6 trillion. But as huge as that figure is, we’re not powerless in the face of it. In his campaign for president, Joe Biden supported the immediate cancellation of a minimum of $10,000 of student debt per person. On episode 50 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk about why the Biden administration should follow through on its promise—and why Democrats seem so reluctant to get behind the policy. Guests include Astra Taylor, a frequent contributor to The New Republic and a co-founder of the Debt Collective, and Ryan Cooper, the author of How Are You Going to Pay for That? Smart Answers to the Dumbest Question in Politics.
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Jun 1, 2022
The Rent is Too Damn High
New Yorkers may especially love telling horror stories about their housing travails, but high rents are no longer the exclusive purview of the coastal cities. Across the country, tenants are feeling the pain of low vacancy rates and astronomic prices. On episode 49 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene look into what’s driving the increase in costs, what we can expect will happen in the housing market, and what could help people remain in their homes. Guests include Dean Baker, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and Bridget Read, a features writer at New York magazine.
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May 18, 2022
How Disney World Struck a Deal With Florida to Govern Itself
When you’re in Disney World, lost in the eerily self-contained universe of its vast theme parks, it can be hard to see that you’re also in the Reedy Creek Improvement District, a special governance zone that gives the Walt Disney Company powers very like those of a county government. In April, Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida legislature passed a bill that would do away with Reedy Creek. But dissolving the district may result in a host of unfortunate consequences. On episode 48 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene discuss the surprising past and uncertain future of Disney’s Reedy Creek with Jacob Schumer, a lawyer in Maitland, Florida, and Richard Foglesong, a historian and political scientist and the author of Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando.
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May 4, 2022
So Long, DDT. See You Around Soon.
In the 1940s, the pesticide DDT exploded in popularity. Ignoring warnings that it might poison the environment and endanger human health, corporations and governments sprayed the chemical for decades—until countries finally began outlawing its use, for precisely those reasons. On episode 47 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with Elena Conis, the author of How to Sell a Poison: The Rise, Fall, and Toxic Return of DDT. They explore how corporations dismissed the dangers of DDT to protect profits, how pioneering environmentalists like Rachel Carson fought back, and why harmful chemicals may cause problems long after their usage has ceased.
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Apr 20, 2022
More Reasons to Hate the Dentist (Rerun)
Few people enjoy going to the dentist. But generally speaking, we don’t question what’s done to us when we’re there. On episode 33 of The Politics of Everything, Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene speak with Ferris Jabr and Daryl Austin, two journalists who have investigated dental overtreatment and fraud. It’s impossible to say exactly how widespread gratuitous treatment is—and it can even be difficult to know what necessary treatment is. Because of a lack of reliable research into dentistry practices, because the field operates with minimal oversight and regulation, and because of high costs and dwindling insurance reimbursements, there may be a real incentive to “creatively diagnose,” as one dentist put it. In other words: Get a second opinion. Then get a third.
This episode originally aired on July 21, 2021.
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Apr 6, 2022
The Unlikely Success of Permanent Daylight Saving Time
When the Sunshine Protection Act sailed through the Senate this March, everyone was shocked. In a deadlocked Congress that has passed almost nothing, how did a bill about daylight saving time, of all things, make it through? On episode 46 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene explore what exactly happened in the upper chamber and look into America’s chaotic history of changing the clocks. What does DST’s success demonstrate about how our country does politics? Guests include the political scientist Ed Burmila, who’s previously appeared on the show, and the journalist Paul McLeod, who wrote about DST for Buzzfeed News.
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Mar 24, 2022
The End of Russia Today
It was easy to make fun of RT America. Funded by the Russian government, the English-language news channel seemed to worry little about journalistic standards and often engaged in bald propaganda. Now that it’s gone, it’s hard to mourn it. But the closure of RT America also signals the end of an era of more open communication between Russia and the United States. On episode 45 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene discuss the aims of Russia’s experiment in American news, the grim transformation of Russian politics over the past two decades, and what’s to come. Guests include Ben Judah, the author of Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin, and Peter Pomerantsev, the author of This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality.
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Mar 16, 2022
Special Report: Ambassador Emily Haber on Germany’s Break With Russia
Last weekend, new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave a powerful speech announcing major changes in German policy in light of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
“With the invasion of Ukraine, we are in a new era,” Scholz said. He announced that Germany would take a strong role in checking Russia’s aggression through funding its military and increasing defense spending. He also announced that Germany would learn to live without the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that it had worked for years with Russia to complete and bring into service. In Berlin that day, hundreds of thousands gathered in the Tiergarten to protest the invasion and support Germany’s stand against Putin’s actions.
Emily Haber is a German diplomat who has served as the German ambassador to the U.S. since 2018. But she actually spent much of her diplomatic career based in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia. So she’s deeply familiar with the region’s painful history—inclu…
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Mar 9, 2022
Too Fast or Too Furious?
Over the past few years, deaths from car accidents in the United States have spiked dramatically. Journalists and commentators have been quick to point to pandemic-induced stress and anxiety to explain the increase. But is that account too pat? On episode 44 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with three guests about road design, automobile regulation, and what’s wrong with blaming crashes on reckless drivers. Guests include Charles Marohn, the author of Confessions of a Recovering Engineer; Jessie Singer, the author of There Are No Accidents, and Jason Slaughter, the creator of the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes.
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Feb 23, 2022
The High Cost of Ikea Furniture
Romania is home to one of the largest and most important old-growth forests in the world—but its trees are disappearing at an astonishing rate. Meanwhile, a spate of attacks has shaken environmentalists and activists in the country. On episode 43 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with the reporter Alexander Sammon, who recently traveled to Romania to investigate illegal logging for The New Republic. Can Europe’s forests survive the global appetite for timber?
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Feb 3, 2022
Boris Johnson’s Wine-Party Woes
British politics are in an uproar over … happy hour. How did Prime Minister Boris Johnson—shameless, disheveled Boris Johnson—end up here? On episode 42 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene try to make sense of the scandal gripping 10 Downing Street. Guests include Libby Watson, a British writer living in the United States; Nate Bethea, an American writer living in London; and Edward Docx, a British novelist who has written about the appeal of Johnson’s clownish persona for The Guardian.
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Jan 19, 2022
Why Joe Biden Gave Up on Covid
When Joe Biden was elected, he promised to treat the pandemic differently from his predecessor. And, for a while, it seemed that his approach was working. But a year into his administration, omicron is surging, and many of Biden’s more ambitious plans have fallen by the wayside. On episode 41 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with Melody Schreiber, a regular contributor to The New Republic, and the social epidemiologist Justin Feldman. What happened to Biden’s promises? And what has his approach cost us?
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Dec 22, 2021
Bonus episode from our partners at 5–4: Hamdi v. Rumsfeld
5-4 is a podcast about the ideological battles at the heart of the Supreme Court’s most important landmark cases, and an irreverent tour of all the ways that politics shape the law.
On this episode, hosts Peter, Michael, and Rhiannon discuss Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, which recognized the power of the U.S. government to detain "enemy combatants." A foreign "prisoner of war" can communicate with their family. An American "traitor" can argue their case in court. But according to the Supreme Court, American "enemy combatants" can do neither: They belong to a third category of prisoner that has very few legal rights. America immediately post-9/11 was very chill and normal. Follow Peter (@The_Law_Boy), Rhiannon (@AywaRhiannon), and Michael (@_FleerUltra) on Twitter.
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Dec 8, 2021
The Illiberal Upstarts Trying to Reinvent the American Right
Today’s youth are overwhelmingly left-wing. So who are the young conservatives? On Episode 40 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to Sam Adler-Bell, a writer and the host of the podcast Know Your Enemy, about an energetic cohort who call themselves the New Right. They differ in many ways from the median right-wing voter. They hate the Republican establishment. Their heroes are illiberal authoritarians. Are they going to remake conservatism?
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Nov 24, 2021
Rats on the Brain
The rats are everywhere, more of them all the time, in our streets and our apartment complexes, cavorting on picnic tables and playgrounds—or so the pandemic’s hyperventilating news reports would suggest. Is the rodential bonanza real, or are we just noticing rats more? How are outdoor dining, gentrification, and climate change implicated? And why does our anxiety about rats seem to intensify after large-scale disasters? On episode 39 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene look into what’s behind our rat fears with Robert Sullivan, the author of Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants, and Liza Featherstone, a regular contributor to The New Republic.
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Nov 10, 2021
Hollywood Blues
In the past decade, the number of original, scripted television shows being produced each year has more than doubled. Meanwhile, subscriptions to streaming services have surpassed one billion worldwide. We have the shows; we have the access. Why does it feel next to impossible to find anything good to see? On episode 38 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene discuss how the streaming era has transformed what we’re watching, why we’re watching it, and the way movies and TV shows are getting made. Guests include Kyle Chayka, a staff writer at The New Yorker who’s written about streaming culture, and Peter Labuza, a historian of the creative industries.
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Oct 27, 2021
Tax Haven, South Dakota
For the extremely wealthy who want to stash their money where nobody can find it, South Dakota is the place to go—or so recent reporting in the Pandora Papers has suggested. The state’s lax regulations have made it possible for all kinds of unsavory characters to protect unthinkable sums from taxes or scrutiny. Is it time to make South Dakota just go away? On episode 37 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene discuss how the United States has become a tax haven and what would help solve the problem. Guests include Timothy Noah, a staff writer at The New Republic; Chuck Collins, the author of Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions; and Casey Michel, whose new book, American Kleptocracy: How the U.S. Created the World’s Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History, will be published in November.
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Oct 13, 2021
Succession’s White-Collar Criminals
The acclaimed TV series Succession is a comedic drama about a handful of monstrously rich, often monstrous people fighting over who will succeed the patriarch in running the family business. But is Succession also a crime show? On Episode 36 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with Jennifer Taub, the author of Big Dirty Money: Making White Collar Criminals Pay, about what the show gets right about how we deal with white-collar crime as a society. Daniel D’Addario, the chief television critic at Variety, discusses how the series treats politics—and the money behind the political scenes.
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Sep 29, 2021
The Cops Who Touched Fentanyl
Can you overdose on fentanyl just from being near it? Over the past few years, a number of police officers have said just that. In 2016, the Drug Enforcement Administration even issued a warning to cops about the dangers of such encounters. The stories have made national news, but they’ve also invited skepticism. On Episode 35 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene discuss the phenomenon of cop overdoses with Dan McQuade, who wrote about it for Defector; Timothy McMahan King, the author of Addiction Nation, a book about the opioid crisis; and Patrick Blanchfield, who’s written about cop psychology and cop culture.
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Sep 16, 2021
The Lyme Vaccine That Got Away
How does a vaccine get developed, studied, approved, distributed, and administered, and then just … disappear? On Episode 34 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene explore what happened to LYMErix, a vaccine for Lyme disease that has been called the only safe and effective vaccine ever to have been voluntarily withdrawn from the market in the United States. What does the story of LYMErix tell us about vaccine hesitancy, liability, and how pharmaceutical companies decide what to sell? And can we expect another Lyme vaccine anytime soon? Guests include Rebecca Onion, who wrote about LYMErix for Slate, and Andrew Zaleski, who wrote about new prophylactic treatments for Lyme for Outside magazine.
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Sep 1, 2021
Libertarian vs. Bear (Rerun)
In the early 2000s, a group of libertarians moved to a small town in New Hampshire, where they set about slashing the municipal budget. The newcomers wanted to be free from taxes and government regulation, and they envisioned an experiment that would show the world the virtues of their political philosophy while allowing them to live as they liked. But before long, they found themselves fighting off packs of black bears. On Episode 19 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling, the author of A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (and Some Bears), about the ensuing chaos, and the political lessons to be drawn from it.
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Aug 18, 2021
Monopoly is Tyranny (Rerun)
The economy as we know it is populated by gigantic corporations, behemoths that have bought up not only their competition but also the businesses supplying or otherwise supporting them. Such monopolies act as a “rival form of government,” explains Zephyr Teachout, the author of Break ’Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom From Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money. On Episode 12 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with Teachout about the dangers of allowing these outsize companies to grow unchecked, and what should be done about them. This episode originally aired July 29, 2020.
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Aug 4, 2021
The Unnatural Endurance of Bipartisanship (Rerun)
Joe Biden ran for president promising to revive the spirit of bipartisanship and bring Americans together after an era of painful division. But when facing an intransigent, extremist Republican Party that has little to gain from compromise, such a vision of politics can seem quaint at best. On Episode 26 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene examine the history of bipartisanship as an ideal. The show features Paul Blest, a co-founder of Discourse Blog; Ed Burmila, the author of a forthcoming book on the mistakes of the Democratic Party; Osita Nwanevu, a TNR contributing editor; and Julian Zelizer, a professor of history at Princeton University. Does bipartisanship have a future in American politics? And, more to the point, should it?
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Jul 21, 2021
More Reasons to Hate the Dentist
Nobody enjoys going to the dentist. But, generally speaking, we don’t question what’s done to us when we’re there. On Episode 33 of The Politics of Everything, Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene speak with Ferris Jabr and Daryl Austin, two journalists who have investigated dental over-treatment and fraud, about whether we should. It’s impossible to say exactly how widespread gratuitous treatment is—and it can even be difficult to know what constitutes necessary treatment. Because of a lack of reliable research into dentistry practices, because the field operates with minimal oversight and regulation, and because of high costs and dwindling insurance reimbursements, there may be a real incentive to “creatively diagnose,” as Jeffrey Camm memorably put it in an article for ADANews, the newspaper of the American Dental Association. In other words: Get a second opinion. Then get a third.
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Jul 7, 2021
Against Remote Work (Rerun)
As its boosters have long argued, remote work offers a slew of obvious benefits. Companies save money on rent; employees don’t have to commute; and everyone, without the distractions of the office, can be more efficient. But for decades, telecommuting simply failed to take hold. On Episode 23 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with the writer Richard Cooke about why that is. And now that the pandemic has changed our habits so drastically, what does our historical reluctance to work from home augur for the post-pandemic future? Later in the show, Katie McDonough, a deputy editor at The New Republic, investigates the fantasy of escaping from work altogether, with a look at the politics of early-retirement advice.
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Jun 23, 2021
An Herbal Viagra Scam and the Hard Truth About the Dietary Supplement Industry
In the early 2000s, a man named Erb Avore started selling a male sexual enhancement supplement he called Stiff Nights. The pills were amazingly effective—but the list of ingredients failed to mention a key component, and soon the FDA came calling. On Episode 32 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to the journalist Matt Hongoltz-Hetling about the poorly regulated world of dietary supplements, Avore’s long quest to find an all-natural alternative to Viagra, and how the internet huckster tangled with the law. Hongoltz-Hetling’s article about Stiff Nights, “The Rise and Fall of an Herbal Viagra Scammer,” appeared in the July-August issue of The New Republic.
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Jun 10, 2021
The Case of the Sick Spies (Rerun)
In late 2016, staff at the American Embassy in Havana began hearing strange noises and experiencing odd symptoms: headaches, nausea, dizziness. Had they been targeted by a secret weapon, perhaps deployed by Russia? Or was there some other explanation for the ailments? Hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to four people who have closely followed Havana syndrome, as it came to be known: Jack Hitt, who covered the story for Vanity Fair in 2019; Tim Weiner, author of The Folly and the Glory: America, Russia, and Political Warfare 1945–2020; Adam Gaffney, a physician; and Natalie Shure, a columnist for TNR who covers health policy. What was the diplomatic context in which Havana syndrome appeared? Why is the secret weapon theory so attractive? And is there a likelier explanation for the mysterious illness?
The show, which originally aired in February 2021, has been updated to account for more recent developments.
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May 27, 2021
Music for Nothing
It’s easier than ever to listen to practically the entirety of recorded music. But for musicians, it’s harder than ever to make money. On Episode 31 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk about the economics of the industry with David Turner, who writes the newsletter Penny Fractions, and the English musician Tom Gray, who founded the #BrokenRecord campaign. Did streaming save music, or is it killing it? Should we blame Spotify or the record labels? And what should be done to make the music business more equitable?
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May 5, 2021
Andrew Yang Takes New York
Andrew Yang—a man who has never held public office, nor even voted in a New York City mayoral election—is currently the frontrunner in the race to be the city’s next mayor. Why is Yang so popular? And what kind of mayor would he be? On Episode 30 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene discuss the unsettling success and national implications of Yang’s campaign with two guests: Annie Lowrey, who profiled Yang in The Atlantic, and Harry Siegel, who’s written about Yang’s candidacy for the New York Daily News.
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Apr 21, 2021
Mark Bittman’s Beef with Capitalism
What we grow determines how we eat, and what we eat determines how we live and die. These simple but overlooked truths drive the work of the longtime food writer Mark Bittman, whose new book, Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, From Sustainable to Suicidal, takes an ambitious look at the flaws of the industrialized food system and the politics of transforming it. On Episode 29 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with Bittman about the difficulty of eating ethically, the way food connects to nearly every other important issue of our time, and how change starts less with what we buy or cook than how we vote—and organize.
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Mar 31, 2021
Andrew Cuomo, the Creepy Tyrant of Albany
Andrew Cuomo has been mired in scandal for weeks, for actions that, in some cases, date back years. To what extent has the governor’s bullying been hiding in plain sight? On Episode 28 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene look into the long history of Cuomo’s coercive approach to state politics, why he’s so keen to hang onto his seat in the face of widespread censure, and how much his character and governance style can be explained by his relationship to his father, Mario Cuomo. Guests include Rebecca Traister, who reported on the governor’s toxic workplace for New York Magazine; Ross Barkan, the author of a forthcoming book about the governor; and Julia Salazar, a state senator for New York’s 18th district.
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Mar 17, 2021
The Cousinhood that Rules Britain
It’s no secret that Britain has in recent years been something of a mess. Yet the Conservative Party’s popularity continues unabated. Why don’t British voters blame Boris Johnson or his party for the chaos of Brexit, a botched pandemic response, or surging poverty? And why have the Tories been so successful over the decades? On Episode 27 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to Samuel Earle and Ash Sarkar, two British journalists, about what explains the Tories’ extraordinary dominance.
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Mar 4, 2021
The Unnatural Endurance of Bipartisanship
Joe Biden ran for president promising to “revive” the spirit of bipartisanship, put an end to factional battles, and bring Americans together after an era of painful division. Yet faced with an intransigent, extremist Republican Party that has little to gain from compromise, such a vision of politics seems quaint at best. On Episode 26 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene look into the history of bipartisanship as an ideal. The show features Paul Blest, a co-founder of Discourse Blog; Ed Burmila, the author of a forthcoming book on the mistakes of the Democratic Party; Osita Nwanevu, a staff writer at The New Republic; and Julian Zelizer, a professor of history at Princeton University. Does bipartisanship have a future in American politics? And, more to the point, should it?
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Feb 17, 2021
Mistakes Were Made, But Not By Us
What’s it like to be wrong? We have no idea. On Episode 25 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene discuss being right all the time. TNR staff writers Walter Shapiro and Matt Ford review their spot-on analyses of Trump and the Republican Party; Wired columnist Paul Ford talks about how the internet today looks exactly as he would have predicted in 2000; and the social psychologist Carol Tavris explains cognitive dissonance, the mechanism that protects people who do get things wrong—unlike the hosts, producers, editors, and guests of this podcast—from ever realizing it.
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Feb 3, 2021
The Case of the Sick Spies
In late 2016, staff at the American embassy in Havana began hearing strange noises and experiencing a range of odd symptoms: headaches, dizziness, ringing in the ears. Suspicion arose that they had been targets of a secret weapon. In the years since, doctors, scientists, journalists, and government officials have tried—with limited success—to get to the bottom of the illness that came to be known as Havana Syndrome. On Episode 24 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to four people who have followed the story closely: Jack Hitt, who covered it for Vanity Fair; Tim Weiner, the author of The Folly and the Glory: America, Russia, and Political Warfare 1945-2020; Adam Gaffney, a physician; and the journalist Natalie Shure. What was the diplomatic context in which Havana Syndrome appeared? How have Republicans, Democrats, and the foreign policy establishment exploited the secret weapon theory? And is there a likelier explanation for the mysterious s…
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Jan 13, 2021
Against Remote Work
As its boosters have long argued, remote work offers any number of obvious benefits. Companies save money on rent; employees don’t have to waste time commuting; and everyone, without the distractions of the office, can be more efficient. But for decades, telecommuting simply failed to take hold. On Episode 23 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with the writer Richard Cooke about why, and what our historical reluctance to work from home augurs for the future.
Later in the show, Katie McDonough, a deputy editor at The New Republic, investigates the fantasy of escaping from work altogether, with a look at the politics of early-retirement advice.
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Dec 16, 2020
How Pandemics End
On December 11, the Food and Drug Administration authorized Pfizer to begin distributing its vaccine for Covid-19. The triumphant moment comes on the brink of a grim winter, amid record case levels across the United States, and it is accompanied by countless unknowns. For Episode 22 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to Nicholas Christakis, a physician and sociologist at Yale University and the author of Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live, about what to expect in the coming year and beyond—what it will take to recover from the pandemic’s devastation, and how our lives may be permanently changed. Later in the show, Melody Schreiber, a frequent contributor to The New Republic, and Rebecca Coyle, the executive director of the American Immunization Registry Association, join to discuss the challenges of the vaccine rollout. When will vaccines be available to ordinary people? What kinds of p…
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Dec 2, 2020
American Military Supremacy is Not Inevitable
The country with the most powerful military in the world likes to pretend it has no choice in the matter. If the United States didn’t maintain order, the story goes, disorder would prevail. But as decades of messy wars drag on, this justification grows less and less plausible. On Episode 21 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to the historian Stephen Wertheim about how the U.S. took on its role as a military superpower, and what might happen if we relinquished it.
Later in the episode, TNR staff writer Alex Shepherd analyzes the runoff elections in Georgia that will determine which party controls the Senate. Republican Kelly Loeffler, who’s favored to win, is a political newbie with an insider trading scandal in her past. Why don’t voters care?
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Nov 18, 2020
Fantasizing About Joe Biden’s Cabinet
Who should President-elect Biden ask to join his cabinet? Everyone has an opinion, and most of the opinions are terrible. On Episode 20 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene interpret our cabinet dreams. What do they say about us, and what do they say about Joe Biden? Jason Linkins, a deputy editor at The New Republic, and Osita Nwanevu, a staff writer at the magazine, bravely join to help Alex and Laura appoint their own fantasy cabinet.
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Nov 2, 2020
Libertarian vs. Bear
In the early 2000s, a group of libertarians moved to a small town in New Hampshire, where they set about slashing the municipal budget. The newcomers wanted to be free from taxes and government regulation, and they envisioned an experiment that would show the world the virtues of their political philosophy while allowing them to live as they liked. But before long, they found themselves fighting off packs of black bears. On Episode 19 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling, the author of A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (And Some Bears), about the ensuing chaos, and the political lessons to be drawn from it.
Later in the episode, TNR contributor Colette Shade explores the unhelpfulness of self-help tips in a collapsing society.
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Oct 21, 2020
Can the Supreme Court Be Fixed?
With the likely confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett this week to the Supreme Court, conservatives will secure a majority they can use to strike down liberal legislation for years to come. Why do nine people who are not elected hold so much power over laws in this country? And what do you do when the justices favor one party so strongly over another? On Episode 18 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to Samuel Moyn, a professor of history and law at Yale, about the dangers of maintaining such a powerful court and the best strategies for reform.
Later in the episode, TNR staff writer J.C. Pan and David Roth, a frequent contributor to the magazine, look back at the Melania tapes and how a story gets lost in the news cycle.
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Oct 7, 2020
Is California Doomed to Keep Burning?
What will it take to save California? Around the world, fire season is growing increasingly severe and increasingly lethal. This year, wildfires have destroyed more than five million acres in the American West alone. The August Complex fire, which is burning California’s Mendocino Forest, has become the largest in the state’s history. On Episode 17 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene speak with the historian and urban theorist Mike Davis about the decades of poor decisions in residential development and fire management that led us here. In the second segment, Naomi Klein, the author of On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal, explores how the converging disasters of 2020 should shape the future of climate policy.
Later in the episode, campaign reporter Walter Shapiro previews the vice presidential debate. If it’s anything like past VP debates, it won’t alter the race and it’ll be entirely forgettable—but are there other reason…
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Sep 23, 2020
The Strangely Persistent Myth of the Suburbs
While Democrats pin their electoral hopes on turning wealthy suburbs blue, Donald Trump tells “Suburban housewives” on Twitter that Joe Biden will “destroy” their “American dream.” But who are suburban voters really? On Episode 16 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene speak with four guests about how the suburbs have transformed since the 1960s, and what those changes mean for electoral politics. Katie McDonough, a deputy editor at The New Republic, offers a tour of the suburban fantasy by way of real estate listings. Brian Goldstone, an anthropologist and journalist, and Willow Lung-Amam, an associate professor in urban studies and planning at the University of Maryland, discuss the shifting economic and racial profile of the areas outside the urban core. And Lily Geismer, the author of Don’t Blame Us: Suburban Liberals and the Transformation of the Democratic Party, describes the mistakes politicians are making in their efforts to capture the…
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Sep 10, 2020
Dangers of the Lame Duck
Why is the period between Election Day and inauguration so long in the United States? What kind of trouble have past outgoing presidents made during the interregnum? And in the event Joe Biden wins, how can we expect Donald Trump to behave? On Episode 15 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene interview six guests about the presidential transition and how we might prepare for it: Michael Kazin, a professor at Georgetown University and co-editor of Dissent; Jason Linkins, a deputy editor at The New Republic; TNR staff writers Matt Ford, Melissa Gira Grant, and Libby Watson; and longtime campaign reporter and TNR staff writer Walter Shapiro.
* On this episode, one of our guests suggested that Congress could change the date of the presidential inauguration if it wanted to. That’s true of Election Day, but changing the date of the inauguration would require a constitutional amendment. We regret the error.
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Aug 26, 2020
The Chaos of Reopening Schools
Teachers feel frustrated and afraid. Parents are overburdened. Guidance from officials has been scant. For the schools preparing to welcome students back next month, nothing about the planning process has been easy. On Episode 14 of The Politics of Everything, the writer Keith Gessen joins hosts Alex Pareene and Laura Marsh to talk about why the city’s fight to safely return kids to public schools has been so difficult.
Later in the episode, J.C. Pan, a staff writer at The New Republic, explains what makes the current downturn a “shesession,” and how efforts to alleviate its effects on women must take more than gender into consideration.
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Aug 12, 2020
The Women Who Still Can’t Vote
As we celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment this month, it’s tempting to assume that women’s suffrage is complete. Yet millions of women—because they are incarcerated or on parole, because their legal name doesn’t match certain documents, because the polls are open only during the hours they are at jobs or caring for their families—still don’t have the franchise, either in effect or by law. On Episode 13 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk Melissa Gira Grant, a staff writer at The New Republic, about who remains locked out of the vote, why they’ve been excluded, and what the work of suffrage looks like today.
Later in the episode, Alex Shephard explores how Trump is changing the books we buy.
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Jul 29, 2020
Monopoly is Tyranny
The economy as we know it is populated by gigantic corporations, behemoths that have bought up not only their competition but also the businesses supplying or otherwise supporting them. Such monopolies act as a “rival form of government,” explains Zephyr Teachout, the author of Break ’Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money. On Episode 12 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with Teachout about the dangers of allowing these outsize companies to grow unchecked and what should be done about it.
Later in the episode, Osita Nwanevu, a staff writer at The New Republic and a regular guest on the podcast, discusses liberals’ fears of so-called cancel culture. Will it really undermine liberalism itself? And if not, why is everyone so worked up?
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Jul 15, 2020
The Long War on Objectivity
The mess of hystrionics and misinformation that passes for right-wing media these days didn’t spring from nowhere. How did this increasingly influential and well-funded sphere become what it is? On Episode 11 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with Moira Weigel, a postdoctoral scholar at the Harvard Society of Fellows and a founding editor of Logic magazine, about the early careers of pivotal figures such as Matt Drudge and Andrew Breitbart, and the regulatory and technological changes that paved the way for their success.
Later in the show, veteran politics reporter Walter Shapiro offers an update on the state of the Trump campaign, whose strategists have settled on two important goals: 1) Make a lot of money and 2) don’t get fired.
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Jun 17, 2020
The Political Power of Protests
After three weeks of protests against police violence, the energy of the demonstrations remains undiminished. Episode 10 of The Politics of Everything explores what is motivating the actions, the political effects they’ve already had, and what’s to come.
Hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, the founder of the African American Policy Forum and a regular contributor to The New Republic, about the connection between police killings and Covid-19’s disproportionate toll on black Americans. Osita Nwanevu, a staff writer at the magazine, explores how protest shapes policy. And Patrick Blanchfield, the author of Gunpower: The Structure of American Violence, explains “coptalk”—how police use euphemism and officialese to paper over the harms they commit.
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Jun 3, 2020
Vaccines Don't Make Money
Victory in the so-called race for a coronavirus vaccine rests on the skills of a handful of private companies whose primary motivation is hardly the public good. Can the Big Pharma deliver what we need to recover from this pandemic and prevent others from occurring? On Episode 9 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene interview Alexander Zaitchik, a regular contributor to The New Republic, about patent monopolies, the history of vaccine development in the United States, and the promise of alternative models of drug production.
Later in the episode, Alex and Laura talk with the book and film critic Lidija Haas about Rodham, Curtis Sittenfeld’s counterfactual novelization of the life of Hillary Clinton.
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May 20, 2020
Is Baseball Safe?
Will the United States get a baseball season this year? Do we deserve one? What is at stake—economically, emotionally, mortally—in the effort to start up sports again? On Episode 8 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to David Roth, a former editor of Deadspin and a frequent contributor to The New Republic, about the challenges and questionable wisdom of reopening sports in a country still battling a pandemic.
Later in the episode, Laura and Alex consider the plight of the New York City subway system, which recently suspended late-night service. Given the MTA’s drastic budget shortfalls, it’s hard not to wonder whether New Yorkers will ever ride trains at night again. What is the post-Covid future of public transit?
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May 7, 2020
Reimagining the Post-Covid Economy
The Covid-19 pandemic interrupted the usual functioning of the national economy with shocking speed and violence. Now, as states around the country move to “reopen”—in most cases far earlier and faster than is safe—and politicians hold forth about how best to restart economic activity, it seems imperative to consider the nature of the economy getting restarted. Do we really want to go back to the pre-pandemic status quo? How can we remake the system so it works better for everyone?
For Episode 7, The Politics of Everything assembled an ad hoc council to address these questions, asking six guests to offer their best and least expected ideas for reform: Dean Baker, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research; Jason Linkins and Katie McDonough, deputy editors at TNR; Libby Watson, a TNR staff writer; and TNR contributors Aaron Timms and Liza Featherstone.
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Apr 23, 2020
The Polarization Problem
Political polarization is something liberals have grown fond of naming as an obvious societal ill. And it is bad—but does it need to get worse before it can get better? On Episode 6 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to Osita Nwanevu, a staff writer at The New Republic, about the history of polarization, its role in politics today, and what gets lost when you to try to find the sources of political division in evolutionary psychology, as Ezra Klein does in his recent book, Why We’re Polarized.
Later in the show, campaign reporter Walter Shapiro describes how newspapers buried or outright ignored the 1918 Spanish flu, and how, in an unnerving parallel to this moment, the shoddy media coverage encouraged state and local governments to do as little as possible about that long ago pandemic.
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Apr 9, 2020
The Socially Distanced Protester
Much of the emotional power of a march or demonstration comes from being there. Successful labor organizing likewise depends in part on the intimacy and convenience of working near other people. Can you trust that your colleagues will risk their jobs for a strike when, as with many gig workers, you’ve never met? Is it logistically possible to organize when social distancing measures prevent you from gathering in person? On Episode 5 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with Micah Sifry, author of The Big Disconnect: Why the Internet Hasn’t Transformed Politics (Yet), about how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting political participation. Digital platforms can help us communicate—and even rally—but at what cost to our privacy, not to mention our enthusiasm? It’s hard to imagine a swarm of heart icons on a screen inspiring lasting political commitment. Who does virtual protest leave out, or leave cold?
Later in the show, Josephine Living…
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Apr 3, 2020
HEATED: Kate Aronoff - "It's a Great Time to be Evil"
You may remember Emily Atkin from the first episode of The Politics of Everything, "Are Kids Bad for the Planet?" Emily has launched a new limited-run podcast, HEATED, that shows how Covid-19 and the climate crisis cannot be separated. Here is Episode 2 of HEATED.
On the show, The New Republic staff writer Kate Aronoff shares some creative policy solutions to the climate and pandemic crises. We couldn't help but notice that Washington has zero interest in creative policy right now. Quite the opposite: The fossil fuel and legacy polluters are clamoring for some of that sweet, sweet Covid-19 relief money, jamming their usual policy agenda while Republicans are shamelessly screaming that it’s “not the time” to talk about climate. This seems like a good moment to have a serious heart to heart with your congressional representatives.
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Mar 26, 2020
An Emergency Decades in the Making
How does an outbreak evolve into an epidemic and finally a pandemic? In Episode 4 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene discuss how the coronavirus crisis has been mishandled by the Trump administration, as well as the history of institutional and governmental response to public health crises. Their guest, Laurie Garrett, is a Pulitzer Prize–winning science writer and the author of The Coming Plague, a book about emerging diseases in the twentieth century. The current fiasco may feel like it came out of nowhere, but it’s the result of countless concerted policy decisions. “You can’t do public health by privatizing it,” Garrett points out. “The societies that have tried have seen it fail.”
Later in the episode, Walter Shapiro speculates about Biden’s choice of vice president. Media hype notwithstanding, chances are the selection won’t be all that consequential—unless, that is, it’s a really bad one.
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Mar 16, 2020
The Electability Trap
It’s impossible to know whether a political candidate is electable until they’ve actually been elected—but that hasn’t stopped pundits from speculating ad nauseam about the question. Episode 3 of The Politics of Everything investigates where the concept of electability comes from, the nature of the historical moments in which it crops up, and the risks we invite by using the term. How central to Joe Biden’s appeal is his ostensible electability? What do supposedly unelectable candidates have in common? How much are voters prizing familiarity or “safety” over policy, and will this calculation get us into trouble? Hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to Seth Ackerman, the executive editor of Jacobin; Matt Karp, a historian at Princeton; and Rebecca Katz, the founder of New Deal Strategies, a progressive consulting firm.
Later in the episode, campaign reporter Walter Shapiro considers how coronavirus may shape the rest of the Democratic primary. Will the convention b…
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Feb 27, 2020
Why the New Right Loves Nootropics
A class of supplements bills itself as neuroenhancers or nootropics—compounds you don’t need a prescription for that promise to augment your mental functioning without side effects. A notable subset of the people interested in these brain pills—and sometimes hawking them—are on the right. It’s not hard to see how today’s pressures might make a person want to amplify their cognitive abilities, but is there something about the idea of chemically optimizing one’s mind that meshes especially well with conservative politics? In Episode 2 of The Politics of Everything, the Australian writer Richard Cooke joins hosts Alex Pareene and Laura Marsh to talk about vitamin regulation, the history of amphetamine usage in the arts, how nootropics fit into the tradition of right-wing snake-oil peddling, and the unmistakable influence of the movie Limitless, which celebrates a mysterious substance that vastly improves its protagonist’s brainpower—and spurs him to commit a murder.…
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Jan 27, 2020
Are Kids Bad for the Planet?
Is it irresponsible to bring a child into a warming world? For some who are plagued by this question, the problem is the carbon footprint their offspring will leave. Others anguish about the difficulties their children will encounter on a ruined planet. But is population the proper target in our efforts to combat global warming? In the inaugural episode of The New Republic’s new podcast, The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to Emily Atkin, a contributing editor at the magazine, about her investigation into how climate anxiety may be altering a whole generation’s approach to reproduction—and whether it really should. Laura and Alex also discuss the future of Alex’s vaping habit, and check in with veteran campaign reporter Walter Shapiro about the state of the 2020 presidential race.
Introducing: The Politics of Everything, a new podcast from The New Republic.
Hosted by literary editor Laura Marsh and staff writer Alex Pareene, The Politics of Ever…
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