It’s easy to forget that the United States started as an experiment: a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, with liberty and justice for all. That was the idea. On this weekly show, we check in on how that experiment is going. 
The Experiment: stories from an unfinished country. From The Atlantic and WNYC Studios. 
Be part of The Experiment. Use the hashtag #TheExperimentPodcast, or write to us at theexperiment@theatlantic.com. Listen and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts

Music by Ob (“Ghyll” and “Mog”), Parish Council (“Socks Before Trousers” and “Durdle Door”), and water feature (“richard iii (duke of gloucester)”). Additional audio from C-SPAN, Senator Chris Murphy, Lawrence University, the House Judiciary Committee, Washington Post reporter Rebecca Tan, and the City of Lake Worth Beach.
 

Que Viva la Pepa: Introducing The Experiment

Each week, we tell the story of what happens when individual people confront deeply held American ideals in their own lives. We're interested in the cultural and political contradictions that reveal who we are.

Society & Culture

Personal Journals

History

Philosophy

Places & Travel

Government

Documentary

Host Julia Longoria is back with a new season of More Perfect, from WNYC Studios.
We’re taught the Supreme Court was designed to be above the fray of politics. But at a time when partisanship seeps into every pore of American life, are the nine justices living up to that promise? More Perfect is a guide to the current moment on the Court. The show brings the highest court of the land down to earth, telling the human dramas at the Court that shape so many aspects of American life — from our religious freedom to our artistic expression, from our reproductive choices to our voice in democracy.
In the season trailer, Julia returns to the place where she first fell in love with SCOTUS: high school.
Subscribe to the podcast here.
Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project by Justia and the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.
Support for More Perfect is provided in part by The Smart Family Fund.
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and Twitter @moreperfect.

The Experiment Introduces More Perfect

The Experiment is coming to an end. For our final episode, we contemplate our strange, sometimes beautiful, often frustrating country. We go back to some of the people we met and fell in love with while making the show, and ask them how their version of the American experiment is going.
A transcript of this episode is available. 

Be part of The Experiment. Use the hashtag #TheExperimentPodcast, or write to us at theexperiment@theatlantic.com.
This episode was produced by Alyssa Edes, Gabrielle Berbey, Julia Longoria, and Tracie Hunt, with editing by Michael May and Emily Botein. Fact-check by Sam Fentress. Sound design by David Herman. Transcription by Caleb Codding.
Music by Water Feature (“Richard III (Duke of Gloucester)”), Naran Ratan (“Forever time Journeys”), H Hunt (“C U Soon”), Parish Council (“Heatherside Stores” and “Durdle Door”), and Ob (“Ghyll”), provided by Tasty Morsels.

The End of This Experiment

In The Atlantic’s new series How To Start Over, Olga Khazan takes listeners on a journey of reinvention. How To Start Over is your guide to navigating life’s gray areas, whether knowing it’s time to make a career switch, repairing strained family ties, or forging new connections in a post-pandemic world.  

Be part of The Experiment. Use the hashtag #TheExperimentPodcast, or write to us at theexperiment@theatlantic.com.

The Experiment Introduces: How To Start Over With Olga Khazan

Deep in Yellowstone National Park, there’s a glitch in the U.S. Constitution where, technically, you could get away with murder. Lawmakers didn’t seem interested in fixing the problem until Mike Belderrain stumbled into the “Zone of Death” while hunting the biggest elk of his life. In a world with so many preventable deaths, The Experiment documents one attempt to avert disaster.
This episode of The Experiment originally ran on February 4, 2021.
A transcript of this episode is available.

Be part of The Experiment. Use the hashtag #TheExperimentPodcast or write to us at theexperiment@theatlantic.com. 
This episode was produced by Julia Longoria and Alvin Melathe, with editing by Katherine Wells and sound design by David Herman.
Music by Water Feature (“In a Semicircle or a Half-Moon”), R McCarthy (“Big Game,” “She’s a Gift Giver, She’s a Giver of Gifts,” and “Melodi 2”), Ob (“Ell” and “Ere”), Parish Council (“Mopping”), H Hunt (“11e”), Column (“Quiet Song”), and Bwengo (“Première Mosrel”); catalog by Tasty Morsels. Additional audio from Montana State University Library’s Acoustic Atlas, the National Park Service’s Sound Library, C. J. Box, CNBC, C-SPAN, Vox, NPR’s All Things Considered, Idaho News 6, @ItsKeyes, and C-SPAN’s Book TV.

The 50-Square-Mile Zone Where the Constitution Doesn't Apply

In June 1964, at the height of the civil-rights movement, the Ku Klux Klan burned a Black Methodist church to the ground in the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi, and murdered three civil-rights workers in cold blood. This crime became one of the most notorious of its era, shocking the nation on the eve of the passage of the Civil Rights Act and later inspiring a Hollywood blockbuster: Mississippi Burning.
But when the reporter Ko Bragg started questioning how this history is being preserved in Philadelphia, she was confronted with a town that would much rather forget its violent past. Bragg finds a few Black residents taking it upon themselves to keep the story of this crime alive, and she asks where the burden of safeguarding history should lie. 
A transcript of this episode is available. 
Further reading: “Who Will Remember the Mississippi Murders?”

 Be part of The Experiment. Use the hashtag #TheExperimentPodcast, or write to us at theexperiment@theatlantic.com.
This episode of The Experiment was produced by Gabrielle Berbey, with help from Salman Ahad Khan. Editing by Michael May and Julia Longoria. Reporting by Ko Bragg. Fact-check by Naomi Sharp. Sound design by Hannis Brown with additional engineering by Jennifer Munson. Transcription by Caleb Codding.
Music by Naran Ratan (“East of Somewhere Else”) provided by Tasty Morsels. Additional music by Hannis Brown. Additional audio from Iowa PBS, HelmerReenberg, AP Archive, MGM, CBS Evening News, NBC News, C-SPAN.

Que Viva la Pepa: Introducing The Experiment

Download our free app to listen on your phone