Some weeks feel like one big headline.

This one felt like ten.

In this episode of A Couple Thinks, we unpack a week that revealed multiple fissures inside the MAGA coalition.

The Supreme Court delivered a 6–3 ruling limiting Trump’s use of emergency powers for tariffs—an unusually clear moment of institutional guardrails holding. Trump quickly pivoted, adjusting percentages and leaning on temporary authority, leaving economic uncertainty in his wake.

Meanwhile:

* New information but still few consequences around the Epstein files continues to frustrate factions that expected sweeping accountability.

* “Make America Healthy Again” voters are upset over executive action tied to Roundup production.

* America First isolationists are uneasy about possible military escalation with Iran.

* Attempts to suppress media moments—like Stephen Colbert’s interview controversy—only amplified attention online.

We also talk about the partial shutdown, Mitch McConnell’s maneuvering on the SAVE Act, and whether Democrats will hold firm on issues like masked ICE enforcement.

And because we don’t only live in politics, we end with joy: walking to the Cal Women’s Basketball game in Berkeley, soaking up the energy, and celebrating Bay Area skater Alysa Liu (who now has free ice cream for life at Fenton’s—well deserved).

If you’re feeling the fault lines shifting, this episode is for you.

🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts.📬 Email us at [email protected]📝 Take our survey at survey.acouplethinks.com

This week we’re talking about elections and voting rights because a lot is swirling right now.

We focused mainly on the proposed SAVE Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act), which would require proof of citizenship at registration and when voting, including for mail-in ballots. It would also take effect immediately.

That “immediately” part matters.

States would need to create systems to process documentation, verify identity, and protect sensitive information — all while running elections. Election workers could even face personal liability if procedures aren’t followed exactly right. That’s not a small administrative tweak. That’s a major overhaul midstream.

And here’s the bigger question: what problem are we solving?

Actual voter fraud is extraordinarily rare. Decades of data show minuscule numbers of fraudulent votes, nowhere near enough to alter outcomes. So when new requirements make voting more expensive, more complicated, or more time-consuming, the burden falls hardest on people without easy access to documents, time off work, or extra funds.

Security matters. Access matters too.

If your vote truly didn’t matter, there wouldn’t be so much effort spent trying to limit it.

So what can you do?

✔️ Check your voter registration.✔️ Look at FiveCalls.org for current issues to weigh in on.✔️ Pay attention to town halls while members of Congress are home.✔️ Stay informed — calmly and factually.

And yes, we also shared some joy this week: a birthday dinner with carrot cake and a small, hilarious live theater performance with Rotary friends. Community and civic engagement aren’t opposites. They fuel each other.

🎧 If you’d like the full conversation, including our breakdown of Real ID, proof of citizenship, and what the Constitution says about poll taxes, listen to this week’s episode.

Thanks for thinking with us.

p.s. here’s the pic of Tucci participating in our podcast recording session:

This week on A Couple Thinks, we found ourselves talking about something that feels both personal and civic: the unraveling of one of America’s most important newspapers.

Lisa was in her last two years of high school in the DC suburbs in the late ’70s, when the Washington Post was the local paper and a powerhouse investigative paper. It covered local school boards and sports scores alongside national politics, and it still carried the gravitas of its Watergate reporting. The Post showed what was possible when local knowledge, national power, and serious investigative journalism lived under the same roof.

Fast forward to the present, and that legacy feels painfully fragile.

In this episode, we talk through why the Post’s recent layoffs, leadership failures, and editorial decisions feel like more than just internal drama. When subscriptions were canceled after the paper pulled its presidential endorsement and declined to run Ann Telnaes’ cartoon, it wasn’t about partisan loyalty, it was about trust. And last week when the paper began shedding reporters, editors, and entire sections, the cost wasn’t just financial. It was civic.

Aaron reflects on reporting that only fairly recently set the standard with innovative timelines, visual explainers, and deeply sourced investigations like the January 6th reconstruction. We also discuss why losing international reporters weakens local and national coverage alike, and why stories like Watergate—originally a local break-in—might never surface without strong metro reporting.

We compare the Post’s decline to institutions like the New York Times, and to magazines like The Atlantic. And yes, we wrestle with the uncomfortable reality of billionaire ownership, including Jeff Bezos’s role and the unanswered questions about power, pressure, and responsibility.

Still, this episode isn’t just a post-mortem. It’s a reminder.

A free press isn’t a luxury. It’s infrastructure.

Our founders understood that. The First Amendment exists for a reason. And in a moment when newspapers are folding, local reporting is vanishing, and public trust is being actively undermined, supporting serious journalism may be one of the most meaningful acts available to us.

We also share concrete actions you can take this week, from calling your representatives using Five Calls, to supporting pro-democracy efforts, to voting with your wallet by subscribing to outlets doing the hard, unglamorous work of truth-finding. And, as always, we close with joyful moments—because connection, beauty, and community are part of resistance too.

🎧 Listen to the full episode of A Couple Thinks wherever you get your podcasts.If this conversation resonates, share it, rate the show, or send us a note at [email protected]. You can also help shape future episodes by filling out our listener survey at survey.acouplethinks.com.

Reliable journalism doesn’t survive on vibes alone. It survives because people decide it matters.

And we think it still does.

p.s. Here are some of the articles and “love letters” to the Washington Post that we used as source materials:

The Murder of the Washington Post by Ashley Parker

An Elegy for My Washington Post by Carlos Lozada

‘Washington Post’ CEO departs after going AWOL during massive job cuts by David Folkenflik

This week on A Couple Thinks, we did something both sobering and clarifying: we went through our Constitution’s amendments.

And then we asked a simple but unsettling question: Which of these constitutional protections are being violated right now?

As it turns out… more than you might want to sit with all at once.

In this episode, we walk through several amendments, including the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Tenth, and Fourteenth, and talk plainly about how they’re being ignored, twisted, or outright trampled by the current federal government, particularly through the actions of ICE, the Department of Justice, and Homeland Security. (Shout out to this article from the Constitutional Accountability Center for laying it all out so clearly.)

We talk about:

* The erosion of free speech, free press, and peaceful assembly

* Unreasonable searches and seizures, including armed home invasions without warrants

* The gutting of due process

* Federal overreach into state sovereignty

* And the parallels between today’s actions and the original intent of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed to protect people from state-sanctioned violence and racial terror

One of the most striking things about this conversation was seeing all of these violations lined up together. We often hear about attacks on a right — the First Amendment here, the Fourth Amendment there — but stepping back and viewing the pattern makes it much harder to dismiss what’s happening as isolated incidents or bureaucratic mistakes.

This is not about policy disagreements.This is about whether constitutional rights still mean what they say.

We also talk about what to do with this information. Because as bleak as this moment can feel, it is not hopeless and it is not over.

In the latter part of the episode, we share concrete actions:

* Calls you can make right now using the Five Calls app

* Upcoming protests, including the next No Kings Day on March 28th

* Ways to support local and state-level efforts that are still making real progress, including Postcards to Voters

* and more!

As always, we end with Joyful Moments, because resistance without repair isn’t sustainable, and joy itself is part of how we keep going. Here’s the link to Aaron’s Radio Show if you want to listen to the new 80s episodes on Tuesdays at noon pacific time!

🎧 Listen to the full episode If this conversation resonates with you — or unsettles you — we hope you’ll listen, share it, and talk about it with the people in your life.

You can also reach us anytime at [email protected], and our listener survey is open at survey.acouplethinks.com.

We’re glad you’re here.

This week’s episode is different.

Usually, we come to the microphone with an outline and some scripting to help us make sense of the moment we’re living in. But on Saturday, January 24th, that didn’t feel possible or honest.

We were still processing the news out of Minneapolis: another protester killed by ICE agents. As the day went on, more videos surfaced. More angles. More details. And instead of clarity, what emerged was something far more disturbing: a widening gap between what federal officials were saying and what we could see with our own eyes.

In this episode, we talk through that shock in real time.

We talk about the speed at which official narratives are now deployed, often before facts are verified, and these days even in direct contradiction to video evidence. We talk about how corrosive that is, not just to public trust, but to the idea that government actors should be accountable to the truth at all. We also name the feeling many of us are sitting with: not just anger or grief, but overwhelm.

We wrestle with something we’ve returned to again and again on this podcast: how to stay informed without completely losing your peace.

Lisa shares the tension between relying on responsible journalism, where verification takes time, and the emotional pull of social media, where information (and misinformation) moves instantly. Aaron reflects on the deeper, meta-level damage caused when federal officials appear to lie without consequence, and what that does to any remaining faith in institutions.

And yet, as heavy as this episode is, we look for the light.

As always, we talk about action—practical ways to stay engaged without burning out. We talk about calling representatives, using tools like Five Calls, supporting campaigns with postcards to voters, and preparing for the protests and primaries ahead with organizations like Indivisible (https://indivisible.org/)

Finally, we make room for joy. Not as denial. Not as distraction. But as something essential. A haircut. A basketball game. A cat who insists on being adored. Small, human moments that remind us why staying connected, to each other and to this work, still matters.

This is a raw episode. A seat-of-the-pants conversation. No outline. No easy answers. Just two people trying to process a moment that feels both unbearable and unavoidable.

🎧 Listen to this week’s episode of A Couple Thinks wherever you get your podcasts.If this conversation resonates, consider sharing it with someone who’s also trying to make sense of this moment—and finding their way from anger to action, one step at a time.

This week on A Couple Thinks, we spent some time sitting with a question that’s been hovering in the background for a while now: what is going to happen between now and the post-Trump era?

Our conversation was sparked by a New York Times opinion piece by conservative column by Ross Douthat titled “Trump’s Second Term Has Ended the Conservative Era.” This particular piece caught our attention because Lisa finished the entire piece, which rarely happens with this particular writer.

Douthat uses a real-estate metaphor to frame Trump as a developer who didn’t renovate conservatism so much as demolish it—tearing down long-standing pillars like limited government, Reagan-era foreign policy, religious moralism, and institutional trust. What’s being erected in its place, he argues, is unfinished, unstable, and deeply idiosyncratic to Trump himself: loud, gaudy, and built on weak foundations.

What made the piece especially striking wasn’t just the criticism of Trump, it was also the acknowledgment, from a conservative writer, that there may not be a coherent “after” yet. The factions circling Trumpism don’t share the same goals, policies, or even worldview. Trump himself embodies contradiction: isolationist rhetoric paired with aggressive foreign action; economic nationalism mixed with chaos; cultural grievance without a governing philosophy.

In our conversation, we zoomed out from the essay itself to talk about what this moment feels like to live through. That sense that we’re still in the “worse before it gets better” phase. That unsettling realization that decline doesn’t always arrive as a single event—it can look like a long stretch of not-good things, punctuated by flare-ups of cruelty, vindictiveness, and institutional stress.

We also talked about something that feels newly important: even conservative voices are starting to speak more plainly about Trump’s legacy. Less hedging. Less “I don’t like him, but…” More acknowledgment that real damage has been done to norms, to institutions, and to the country’s credibility at home and abroad.

From there, the conversation widened again. When Trump is eventually gone, what happens to the people, systems, and incentives that enabled him? What does accountability look like? What does repair look like—both institutionally and socially? How do communities coexist after years of open bigotry, public flags, hats, and declarations that can’t simply be tucked away again?

We didn’t pretend to have answers. But we did talk about what now looks like: resistance, protest, disruption, participation in primaries, pressure on elected officials, and refusing to disengage just because the process feels long and exhausting.

As always, we closed with actions you can take this week—and with our joyful moments, because holding onto joy is not frivolous. It’s part of staying human while we push back.

🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear the entire conversation

👉 Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or head to acouplethinks.com to stream the episode.

And as always, you can reach us at [email protected] with questions, ideas, or future episode suggestions—and our survey is open at survey.acouplethinks.com.

We’re still in the middle of it. But we’re not just watching.

It’s been a heavy start to the year.

Between the destabilization of Venezuela and the murder of Renee Nicole Goode in Minneapolis, the cruelty and chaos of this moment feels sharper, more frightening, and more relentless than many of us expected. In this week’s episode, we talk honestly about that weight—about the despair, anger, and helplessness that can creep in when it feels like we’re watching harm unfold in real time.

We also talk about something just as important: where power actually lives right now, and what that means for how we respond.

While the presidency and the Supreme Court feel largely locked in, Congress remains a critical and underused lever. Laws can be written. Oversight can happen. Accountability is still possible. And yet, too often, it feels like members of Congress are frozen by fear, political calculation, or sheer unwillingness to challenge this administration. That frustration is real.

At the same time, we reflect on signs that we are not alone—and that resistance is not just theoretical. From the rapid, nationwide turnout for ICE Out for Good protests to court rulings that have slowed or blocked some of the administration’s cruelest actions, there are cracks in the façade. People are paying attention. Infrastructure exists. Momentum is building rather than fading.

We also talk about the long view: the 11 months between now and the midterms. How do we push back now while also preparing for November? How do we sustain ourselves emotionally and politically when the pace of harm feels faster than the pace of accountability?

As always, we share concrete actions you can take, like calling your representatives, using tools like Five Calls, staying connected to protest and postcard efforts, and inviting others into the work by making your own actions visible. And, because survival matters too, we close with joyful moments that reminded us why staying human, curious, and connected is part of resistance.

This is not an easy episode, but we needed to talk through the downs and the ups. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, discouraged, or unsure how to keep going without burning out, we hope this conversation helps you feel a little less alone.

🎧 Listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcastsAnd if you have thoughts, ideas, or questions, reach us at [email protected] or fill out our ongoing survey at survey.acouplethinks.com.

We’re in this together—and we’re not done yet.

Happy New Year.In our first episode of the year, we decided to do something a little different: we zoomed out and asked the question, “What’s our political action plan for the whole year?”

Because let’s be honest: this moment isn’t about one phone call, one protest, or one election. It’s about endurance. It’s about showing up consistently, in ways that are sustainable, meaningful, and aligned with our values.

We begin the episode by acknowledging the deeply troubling and illegal actions taken by the Trump administration in Venezuela. Whatever one thinks of Nicolás Maduro as a leader, unilateral military action without congressional approval sets a dangerous precedent—one that undermines international law, weakens democratic norms, and erodes any moral authority the U.S. claims on the world stage. We reference Heather Cox Richardson and her recent video that highlights these concerns. That reality is sobering, and it makes the need for civic engagement feel even more urgent.

From there, we walk through how we’re thinking about political action quarter by quarter:

* January–March: calling members of Congress, demanding accountability, reinforcing our identity as voters, and responding quickly to unfolding events

* April–June: protest season, voter registration, canvassing, and finding ways to get involved that stretch us just enough

* July–September: shifting into pre-election mode, supporting turnout efforts, and helping where the margins are tight

* October–December: election protection, ballot curing, and—hopefully—celebration and repair after months of sustained effort

A big theme of A Couple Thinks has been and continues to be: doing something is better than doing nothing. Not everyone needs to do the same thing. Some people will make phone calls. Others will canvas. Some will travel. Some will help behind the scenes. The point isn’t perfection, it’s participation and progress.

Here are some of the resources to use to help you participate:

* 5Calls.org for scripts and phone numbers to call your electeds.

* Postcards to Voters for content and addresses to mail to voters around the country

We also talk about how to frame these conversations with elected officials in a way that transcends party labels. This isn’t about Democrat versus Republican. It’s about the Constitution, the rule of law, and the basic guardrails of democracy.

And because this is A Couple Thinks, we close, as always, with joyful moments—including our anniversary getaway to Santa Cruz, a reminder that rest, connection, and beauty aren’t distractions from the work. They’re what make the long haul possible.

🎧 Listen to the full episode for a practical, honest, and hopeful conversation about how to plan your political action for the year ahead—and how to stay engaged without burning out.

If you want to share how you’re planning to show up this year, or if you’re looking for ideas that fit your comfort level and capacity, we’d love to hear from you. You can email us at [email protected] or take our listener survey at survey.acouplethinks.com.

We’re in this together. Let’s plan accordingly.

This episode is not safe for work—or for young ears—because sometimes polite language just doesn’t cut it.

In this week’s episode of A Couple Thinks, we unpack an essay, posted in August, by John Pavlovitz, that caught our attention: the idea of a F*ck It List! It’s a rethinking of the classic bucket list for a moment when waiting for things to “settle down” no longer makes sense.

The core idea is simple but unsettling: pretending that normal is just around the corner is keeping many of us quiet, cautious, and stuck. Instead of waiting to speak up, live fully, or pursue what brings us joy, Pavlovitz argues it may be time to stop sacrificing our integrity, voice, and energy to preserve systems and relationships that are actively harming people.

In the episode, we explore three big areas where “f*ck it” might apply:

* Relationships – What do we do with people in our lives who repeatedly supported Trump and the ensuing harm caused by him? Is disengaging a moral failure—or an act of self-preservation?

* Voice & authenticity – How much have we edited ourselves to avoid conflict, and what has that silence actually cost us?

* Joy & deferred dreams – Trips not taken, projects postponed, passions shelved “until things get better”—what if that time never comes?

We wrestle honestly with the tension between compassion and boundaries, strategic patience and moral clarity, and the reality that our time and energy are finite. As always, we also share concrete actions you can take right now—and end with our joyful moments, because joy itself is a form of resistance.

🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear the full conversation, our disagreements, our laughter, and where we ultimately land.

We’ve been producing this podcast for a year now, and we wanted to take a moment to reflect back on our first episode that we recorded on Sunday, December 8, 2024. It was released on January 7 of this year, 2025.

The episode was titled “Keeping Your Peace”, and we were reminding listeners – and each other – how important it was to not let the news overwhelm us, and that a calm and organized mind is so much more powerful than a frightened and paralyzed one.

Before we reprise that episode, we give a quick update of the recommendations that we gave for keeping your peace and how we have fared with them. Spoiler (it’s been mostly successful!)

Take a listen!