Smash Notes
The Ezra Klein Show
Ezra Klein brings you far-reaching conversations about hard problems, big ideas, illuminating theories, and cutting-edge research. Want to know how Mark Zuckerberg intends to govern Facebook? What Barack Obama regrets in Obamacare? The dangers Yuval Harari sees in our future? What Michael Pollan learned on psychedelics? The lessons Bryan Stevenson learned freeing the wrongly convicted on death row? The way N.K…
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Most-covered episodes
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Melinda Gates (live!) on stopping climate change, ending malaria, and the problems money can’t solve
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‘This Is Nuts.’ An OpenAI Insider Explains Why He Quit.
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Is There an A.I. Bubble? A Debate.
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Intelligence Isn't Power
Episodes
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Is There an A.I. Bubble? A Debate.
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Intelligence Isn't Power
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‘This Is Nuts.’ An OpenAI Insider Explains Why He Quit.
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Melinda Gates (live!) on stopping climate change, ending malaria, and the problems money can’t solve
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40 Acres: The old Jim Crow
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40 Acres: $14 trillion and no mules
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40 Acres: The original promise
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What Clarence Thomas really thinks
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Even Better: Don't call it a budget
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The quest for authenticity
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Even Better: Setting your boundaries
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Your gut instinct is usually wrong
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Even Better: Workplace equality 2.0
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Why we're still postmodern (whatever that means)
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Even Better: Activism when you don't know where to start
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The Supreme Court's power grab
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How middlemen took over the economy
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The necessity — and danger — of free speech
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Hacking coral sex to save the reefs
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The price of keeping secrets
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Does China control Hollywood?
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Steve Bannon is still at war
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The Fortress of Solitude saw it all coming
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The Philosophers: Stoic revival
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Station Eleven's creator on the end of the world
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The racist origins of fat phobia
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The fight for Ukraine — and democracy
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The war on trans people
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Michael Ian Black on being a better man
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Carmen Maria Machado's haunted feminine
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The rise and fall of America's monuments
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The Philosophers: America's philosophy, with Cornel West
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Why accidents aren't accidental
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Rethinking the "end of history"
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Anita Hill finally gets even
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Elites have captured identity politics
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The moral dangers of dirty work
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Did the sexual revolution go wrong?
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Who decides how to conserve nature?
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The Philosophers: Loneliness and totalitarianism
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The War in Ukraine, Explained — Part 4: The future of Europe
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Michael Lewis on why Americans distrust experts
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The War in Ukraine, Explained — Part 3: The nuclear threat
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The case for regret
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The War in Ukraine, Explained — Part 2: Sanctions
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The spirituality of parenting
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The War in Ukraine, Explained — Part 1: Why did Putin go to war?
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The philosopher who resisted despair
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What happened to American conservatism?
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The limits of forgiveness
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The madness behind The Method
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David Cross is disappointed in you guys
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Author Kiley Reid on why we read novels
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The conversation about guns we're not having
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Why does middle school suck?
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Russia's war with Ukraine — and reality
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Robert Glasper on why Black Radio is back
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Could we lose delicious foods forever?
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What Don't Look Up is really about
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Democracy in crisis, part 2: The two-party problem
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Why we can't pay attention anymore
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Democracy in crisis, part 1: Ross Douthat isn't too worried
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Pod Save the Democrats
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A Yellowjackets creator spills his guts
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A scientist's case for "woo-woo"
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Imagine a future with no police
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Novelist Lauren Groff on the other Matrix
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Are we living in a simulation?
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Rep. Jamie Raskin on living through the unthinkable, twice
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Best of: Why fascism in America isn't going away
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Best of: Clint Smith III on confronting the legacy of slavery
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Best of: We need to talk about UFOs. Seriously.
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Chris Bosh on winning (and losing everything)
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The cult of toughness
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Is ethical investing a scam?
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The good life is painful
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The father of environmental justice
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Jill Lepore on Elon Musk's imaginary world
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E.O. Wilson's plan to save the world
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Workers of the world, stay home!
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How progressives get back in the game
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The highs and lows of the "creator economy"
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Why Chris Hayes thinks we're all famous now
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The stories soul food tells
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The paradox of American freedom
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Nonbinary parenthood
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John McWhorter, the anti-antiracist
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The overwhelming, invisible work of elder care
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How Big Tech benefits from the disinformation panic
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Fannie Lou Hamer and the meaning of freedom
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What the internet took from us
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Trapped inside with Susanna Clarke's Piranesi
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Bryan Stevenson on the legacy of enslavement
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What's your status?
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Is there a hack for enlightenment?
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Fighting a world on fire with fire
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Revolutionary Love
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How to make meaning out of suffering
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Ken Burns's latest on The Greatest
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The road from 9/11 to Donald Trump
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Rep. Pramila Jayapal on immigrants and America after 9/11
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Why America's obsession with rights is wrong
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The news is by — and for — rich, white liberals
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Clint Smith on confronting the legacy of slavery
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Was the cruelty the point?
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How seashells shaped the world — and predict our future
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Is political comedy even possible anymore?
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Robert Reich wants you to take on the system
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Marty Baron on the future of news
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The death of cool
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We need to talk about UFOs. Seriously.
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Philadelphia's progressive prosecutor
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Fareed Zakaria on the fate of democracy
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Jane Goodall on the power of hope
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Why we love drugs
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Rewriting our story
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How to forgive
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What makes a great conversation?
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Introducing: Now & Then
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The science of dating
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Honoring Juneteenth with Ibram X. Kendi
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Digital dictatorship
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The man who proposed reparations in the 1860s
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What pandemic recovery should look like
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The gift of getting old
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Freedom, and what it means to have a body
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Why are we so worried about Satan?
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How to be wrong less often
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The complicated history of wildlife conservation
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How to replace everything in the industrialized world
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Patricia Lockwood's big, beautiful internet brain
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Who is the real George Soros?
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Introducing Unexplainable
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The border, explained by someone who knows it intimately
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"Wintering," wisdom, and weathering life's darkest times
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Reframing America's race problem
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Who owns the Western?
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A Watchmen writer on race, TV, and tech giants
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Uncovering the history of psychedelics in Christianity
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Biden's immigration architect on racism, reform, and the Obama legacy
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The Capitol Siege and American Revolution
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Why fascism in Post-Trump America isn't going away
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The Joe Biden experience
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What it means to be a "good" rich person
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Peter Kafka and Kevin Roose on big tech's power and responsibility
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Sam Sanders and Olivia Nuzzi on President Trump’s last days
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Best of: We don’t just feel emotions. We make them.
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Best of: Ending the age of animal cruelty, with Bruce Friedrich
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Best of: The moral philosophy of The Good Place
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Best of: Michael Lewis reads my mind
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Best of: Tracy K. Smith changed how I read poetry
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What I’ve learned, and what comes next.
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Best of: An inspiring conversation about democracy with Danielle Allen
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Michael Pollan on the psychedelic society
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Best of: Robert Sapolsky on the toxic intersection of poverty and stress
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Joe Biden and "the new progressivism"
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Best of: Frances Lee on why bipartisanship is irrational
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The most important book I've read this year
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Best of: Alison Gopnik changed how I think about love
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Best of: Vivek Murthy on America’s loneliness epidemic
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What Democrats got wrong about Hispanic voters
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Antitrust, censorship, misinformation, and the 2020 election
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The crisis isn’t Trump. It’s the Republican Party.
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The Joe Biden experience
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Chris Hayes and I process this wild election
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Stacey Abrams on minority rule, voting rights, and the future of democracy
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Nate Silver on why 2020 isn't 2016
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Sarah Kliff grades Biden and Trump's health care plans
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Trumpism never existed. It was always just Trump.
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What should Democrats do about the Supreme Court?
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Marilynne Robinson on writing, metaphysics, and the Donald Trump dilemma
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The case for Trump’s foreign policy
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Fareed Zakaria on how Biden and Trump see the world
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How a climate bill becomes a reality
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The meat we eat affects us all
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A dark, dangerous debate
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A radical — or obvious? — plan to save American democracy
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RBG, minority rule, and our looming legitimacy crisis
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David French and I debate polarization, secession, and the filibuster
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The Matt Yglesias Show
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Race, policing, and the universal yearning for safety
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How to think about coronavirus risk in your life
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Black Republicans, Donald Trump, and America's "George Floyd moment"
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Andrew Yang on UBI, coronavirus, and his next job in politics
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Why the hell did America invade Iraq?
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How to decarbonize America — and create 25 million jobs
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Isabel Wilkerson wants to change how we understand race in America
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What it would take to end child poverty in America
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Hannah Gadsby on comedy, free speech, and living with autism
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What would Keynes do?
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A devastating indictment of the Republican Party
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How inequality and white identity politics feed each other
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Best of: Jia Tolentino on what happens when life is an endless performance
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Dadding out with Mike Birbiglia
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A rabbi explains how to make sense of suffering
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The crisis in the news
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Bryan Stevenson on how America can heal
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What a post-Trump Republican Party might look like
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Free speech, safety, and ‘the letter’
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The frightening fragility of America's political institutions
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Can artificial intelligence be emotionally intelligent?
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Danielle Allen on the radicalism of the American revolution — and its lessons for today
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Land of the Giants: the Netflix Effect
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Nicholas Carr on deep reading and digital thinking
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Your questions, answered
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Which country has the world's best healthcare system?
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The transformative power of restorative justice
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Ross Douthat and I debate American decadence
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A serious conversation about UFOs
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A former prosecutor's case for prison abolition
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Why Ta-Nehisi Coates is hopeful
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Are humans fundamentally good? (with Rutger Bregman)
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From politician to priest
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Robert Frank's radical idea
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Why “essential” workers are treated as disposable
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"The world’s scariest economist” on coronavirus, innovation, and purpose
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A mind-bending conversation about quantum mechanics and parallel worlds
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Why the coronavirus is so deadly for black America
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Jenny Odell on nature, art, and burnout in quarantine
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An unusually honest conversation about wielding political power
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What should the media learn from coronavirus?
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Bill Gates’s vision for life beyond coronavirus
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An epic conversation with Madeline Miller
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The loneliness pandemic/Betraying “essential workers”
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Why Bernie Sanders lost and how progressives can still win
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Scott Gottlieb on how, and when, to end social distancing
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Toby Ord on existential risk, Donald Trump, and thinking in probabilities
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Elizabeth Warren has a plan for this, too
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What social solidarity demands of us in a pandemic
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Coronavirus has pushed US-China relations to their worst point since Mao
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Is the cure worse than the disease?
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An economic crisis like we’ve never seen
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"The virus is more patient than people are"
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A master class in organizing
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Weeds 2020: The coronavirus election
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Dan Pfeiffer on Joe Biden, beating Trump, and saving democracy
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Are you a "political hobbyist?" If so, you're the problem.
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What would a Sanders or Biden presidency look like?
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Rebecca Solnit on Harvey Weinstein, feminism, and social change
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Weeds 2020: The Bernie electability debate
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Tracy K. Smith changed how I read poetry
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Barbara Ehrenreich on UBI, class conflict, and collective joy
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What Donald Trump got right about white America
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Ta-Nehisi Coates on my “cold, atheist book”
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If God is dead, then … socialism?
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Tim Urban on humanity’s wild future
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Jill Lepore on what I get wrong
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Is Tom Steyer the solution to our dysfunctional politics?
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Why We're Polarized, with Jamelle Bouie (live!)
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Antisemitism now, antisemitism then
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Book excerpt: A better theory of identity politics
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The war on Muslims (with Mehdi Hasan)
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Post-debate special!
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An “uncomfortable” conversation with Cory Booker
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The conservative mind of Yuval Levin
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How an epidemic begins and ends
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Nathan Robinson’s case for socialism
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How to topple a dictator (with Erica Chenoweth)
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Ask Ezra Anything
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Best of: Work as identity, burnout as lifestyle
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Republicans vs. the planet
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The geoengineering question
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How to solve climate change and make life more awesome
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Paul Krugman on climate, robots, single-payer, and so much more
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The moral philosophy of The Good Place (with Mike Schur and Pam Hieronymi)
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When doing the right thing makes you a criminal
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Peter Singer on the lives you can save
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ICYMI: The age of "mega-identity" politics
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Because podcast
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There’s more to life than profit
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Having a bad day? Dave Eggers can help.
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How Whole Foods, yoga, and NPR became the hallmarks of the modern elite
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How social media makes us antisocial
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ICYMI: Edward Norton’s theory of mind, movies, and power
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Introducing Reset
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What a smarter Trumpism would sound like
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The climate crisis is an oceans crisis
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Edward Norton’s theory of mind, movies, and power
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We live in The Good Place. And we’re screwing it up.
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Neoliberalism and its discontents
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The four words that will decide impeachment
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We don’t just feel emotions. We make them.
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How politics became a war against reality
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The loneliness epidemic
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Ibram X. Kendi wants to redefine racism
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Malcolm Gladwell’s Stranger Things
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An inspiring conversation about democracy
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Samantha Power’s journey from foreign policy critic to UN ambassador
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When meritocracy wins, everybody loses
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Nikole Hannah-Jones on the 1619 project, choosing schools, and Cuba
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Randall Munroe, the genius behind XKCD
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Julián Castro's quiet moral radicalism
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Political animals (with Leah Garcés)
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John McWhorter thinks we're getting racism wrong
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The rocky marriage between libertarians and conservatives
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A mind-bending, reality-warping conversation with John Higgs
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Jia Tolentino on what happens when life is an endless performance
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The original meaning of “identity politics” (with Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor)
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Are bosses dictators? (With Elizabeth Anderson)
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The Constitution is a progressive document
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Matt Bruenig’s case for single-payer health care
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Can Raj Chetty save the American dream?
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Astra Taylor will change how you think about democracy
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Introducing Land of the Giants
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Is big tech addictive? Nir Eyal and I debate.
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Generation Climate Change
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Is the media amplifying Trump’s racism? (with Whitney Phillips)
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Rutger Bregman’s utopias, and mine
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How white identity politics won the Republican civil war
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George Will makes the conservative case against democracy
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What deliberative democracy can, and can’t, do (with Jane Mansbridge)
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Rod Dreher on America’s post-Christian culture war [CORRECTED]
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White threat in a browning America (Jennifer Richeson re-air)
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Behind the panic in white, Christian America
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An enlightening, frustrating conversation on liberalism (with Adam Gopnik)
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The cognitive cost of poverty (with Sendhil Mullainathan)
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Failing towards Utopia
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Why liberals and conservatives create such different media (with Danna Young)
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Stacey Abrams and Lauren Groh-Wargo (Live!)
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This changed how I think about love (with Alison Gopnik)
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The plan behind Elizabeth Warren’s plans
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Michael Lewis reads my mind
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How Mitch McConnell convinced Michael Bennet to run for president
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How the brains of master meditators change
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Why good people are easily corrupted (with Lawrence Lessig)
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The art of attention (with Jenny Odell)
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Matt Yglesias and Jenny Schuetz solve the housing crisis
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What kind of news is cable news? (With Brian Stelter)
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Contrapoints on taking the trolls seriously
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The purpose of political violence
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Ask Ezra Anything 3: Endgame
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The disillusionment of David Brooks
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Emily Oster schools me on parenthood
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Lessons from Vox’s first 5 years
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Work as identity, burnout as lifestyle
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How social democrats won Europe — then lost it
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In defense of white-backlash politics
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Identity, nationalism, and fatherhood
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An ex-libertarian’s quest to rebuild the center right
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How whiteness distorts our democracy, with Eddie Glaude Jr.
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Pete Buttigieg’s theory of political change
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Meet the policy architect behind the Green New Deal
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The somewhat fractured state of American conservatism
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American politics after Christianity, with Ross Douthat
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Why Gov. Jay Inslee is running for president on climate change
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ICYMI: Julia Galef
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The roots of extremism, with Deeyah Khan
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ICYMI: Paul Krugman
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Pop music can make you smarter
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Life after climate change, with David Wallace-Wells
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Pramila Jayapal thinks we can get to Medicare-for-All fast
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Noah Rothman on the "unjustice" of social justice politics
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Why should we care about deficits?
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Anniversary special: Rachel Maddow
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Andrew Sullivan and I work out our differences
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The core contradiction of American politics
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Leftists vs. liberals, with Elizabeth Bruenig
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The world according to Ralph Nader
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This conversation will change how you understand misogyny
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Ending the age of animal cruelty, with Bruce Friedrich
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Robert Sapolsky on the toxic intersection of poverty and stress
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Frances Lee on why bipartisanship is irrational
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Sean Decatur doesn’t see a free speech crisis on campus
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Cal Newport has an answer for digital burnout
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Eric Holder’s plan to save democracy
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Anil Dash on the biases of tech
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Jill Lepore on America’s two revolutions
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Best of: N.K. Jemisin
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Best-of: Bryan Stevenson
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Kara Swisher interviews me on the Future of Journalism (Live!)
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TED’s Chris Anderson on the lessons of listening
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Rep. Katie Porter on how capitalism is failing
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How Hasan Minhaj is reinventing political comedy
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Adam Serwer on white political correctness
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Will Storr on why you are not yourself
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How to be a better carnivore
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Peter Beinart on anti-Semitism in America and illiberalism in Israel
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Where Jonathan Haidt thinks the American mind went wrong
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The Impact: Deportation without representation
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Molly Ball on Nancy Pelosi’s future and Paul Ryan’s failure
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Whitney Phillips explains how Trump controls the media
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Ask Ezra Anything
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Presidents in crisis with Slow Burn’s Leon Neyfakh
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Sandy Darity has a plan to close the wealth gap
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How identity politics elected Donald Trump
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Rep. Mark Sanford on losing the Republican Party to Donald Trump
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Doris Kearns Goodwin (live!) on how great presidents are made
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What Nate Silver's learned about forecasting elections
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Jay Rosen is pessimistic about the media. So am I.
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Why Bill Gates is worried
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Reihan Salam makes the case against open borders
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Jose Antonio Vargas on living undocumented in Trump’s America
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Rebecca Traister: Women's rage is transforming America
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Patrick Deneen says liberalism has failed. Is he right?
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Francis Fukuyama’s case against identity politics
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Carol Anderson on the myth of American democracy
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Martha C. Nussbaum on how fear deforms our politics
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David French on “the Great White Culture War"
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Your attention is being hijacked. Chris Bailey can help.
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Anand Giridharadas on the elite charade of changing the world
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