Welcome to RE: Something Interesting, The Realignment's new Saturday podcast focused on more casual conversations about American culture and society with people who've released something worth diving into. Today's guest is Georgia Tech's Johnny Smith, author of Jumpman: The Making and Meaning of Michael Jordan. Marshall and Johnny discuss how racial politics shaped Michael Jordan's career, the role of sports in society, how American culture shifted during the 1980s and 1990s, and why the country's 1990s-era racial optimism seems to have transitioned into racial pessimism during the 2010s and 2020s.

RE: Something Interesting | Johnny Smith on What Michael Jordan Meant for 1990s America, the Colorblind Racial Ideal, and Sports in Politics

The United States is in the midst of a dramatic political realignment with shifting views on national security, economics, technology, and the role of government in our lives. Saagar Enjeti and Marshall Kosloff explore this with thinkers, policymakers, and more.

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In the latest edition of The Realignment's weekend Ask Me Anything and discussion series, Saagar and Marshall evaluate whether the campus protests sweeping schools across the country are effective, analyze the question of whether bipartisan policy failure in the Middle East is due to ignorance, and discuss why third parties and their candidates such as Ross Perot and RFK Jr. fail to translate their initial ballot success into long-term political change.

Saagar & Marshall Supercast AMA & Discussion Preview: Campus Protests, the Cost of Middle East Ignorance, and the Roots of Third Party Political Failure

David E. Sanger, White House & National Security Correspondent for the New York Times and author of New Cold Wars: China's Rise, Russia's Invasion, and America's Struggle to Defend the West, joins The Realignment. Marshall and David discuss how the U.S. found itself in a volatile, nuclear-powered rivalry with Xi Jinping's China and Vladimir Putin's Russia, the economic, political, military, and technological aspects of the contest for supremacy, and whether the U.S. is up to the task.

474 | David E. Sanger: New Cold Wars - China & Russia Against America the West

Dmitri Alperovitch, author of World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century, joins The Realignment. Marshall and Dmitri discuss why he believes that Xi Jinping is preparing to invade Taiwan this decade, why a Chinese invasion would be disastrous for the U.S. and the world, how to apply the lessons from Vladimir Putin's preparations for his Ukraine invasion to the Taiwan question, and the strategies the U.S. and her allies can pursue to deter, and win if necessary, a conflict over Taiwan.

473 | Dmitri Alperovitch: Why the Fight for Taiwan Will Define the 21st Century

Dana Mattioli, Wall Street Journal reporter and author of The Everything War: Amazon's Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power, joins The Realignment. Marshall and Dana discuss Amazon's rise through the lens of debates about corporate power, why FTC Chair Lina Khan's 2017 law review article kicked off a new era of government antitrust regulation, and why the FTC's 2023 monopoly lawsuit against Amazon could be one of the largest antitrust cases of the 21st century.

472 | Dana Mattioli: Amazon's Quest for Domination, Antitrust's Return, and the Rise of Lina Khan

Natalie Foster, author of The Guarantee: Inside the Fight for America’s Next Economy and President & Cofounder of the Economic Security Project, joins The Realignment. Marshall and Natalie discuss how the 2016 election and the COVID pandemic created the opportunity to shift the conventional wisdom about the American economy away from the neoliberal status quo, what an economy built around "guarantees" would look like, lessons from UBI experiments and the expansion of the Child-Tax-Credit, and how progressives should respond to post-COVID inflation's dampening of support for government spending programs.

RE: Something Interesting | Johnny Smith on What Michael Jordan Meant for 1990s America, the Colorblind Racial Ideal, and Sports in Politics

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