Weeds 2020: The Bernie electability debate
Welcome to Weeds 2020! Every other Saturday Ezra and Matt will be exploring a wide range of topics related to the 2020 race. Since the Nevada caucuses, Bernie Sanders has become the clear frontrunner...
29 Feb 202057min
Tracy K. Smith changed how I read poetry
It’s the rare podcast conversation where, as it’s happening, I’m making notes to go back and listen again so I can fully absorb what I heard. But this is that kind of episode. Tracy K. Smith is the ch...
27 Feb 20201h 27min
Barbara Ehrenreich on UBI, class conflict, and collective joy
In the late 90s Barbara Ehrenreich went undercover as a waitress to discover how people with minimum wage full-time jobs were making ends meet. It turned out, they weren’t. Ehrenreich’s book Nickled a...
24 Feb 20201h 6min
What Donald Trump got right about white America
Hello! I’m Jane Coaston, filling in for Ezra. My guest today is Tim Carney, a commentary editor at the Washington Examiner and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. In the wake of t...
20 Feb 20201h 12min
Ta-Nehisi Coates on my “cold, atheist book”
This one was a pleasure. Ta-Nehisi Coates joined me in Brooklyn for part of the “Why We’re Polarized” tour. His description of the book may be my favorite yet. It is, he says, “a cold, atheist book.” ...
17 Feb 20201h 12min
If God is dead, then … socialism?
Hello! I’m Sean Illing, Vox’s interviews writer filling in for Ezra while he’s on book tour. My guest today is Martin Hägglund, a philosopher at Yale and the author of This Life: Secular Faith and Spi...
13 Feb 20201h 3min
Tim Urban on humanity’s wild future
I’ve been a fan of Tim Urban and his site Wait But Why for a long time. Urban uses whimsical illustrations, infographics, and friendly, nontechnical language to explain everything from AI to space exp...
10 Feb 20201h 28min
Jill Lepore on what I get wrong
Jill Lepore is a Harvard historian, a New Yorker contributor, the author of These Truths, and one of my favorite past guests on this show. But in this episode, the tables are turned: I’m in the hot se...
6 Feb 20201h 23min
