Listen to two conversations Josh, Ben and Megan had at WelcomeFest, the center-left organizing conference: one with San Francisco DA Brooke Jenkins, and the other with Tejano singing legend-turned-congressional candidate Bobby Pulido.

More next week, and thanks to those of you who joined us for our happy hour in Washington last week. Sign up for updates about the show and future happy hours at www.centralairpodcast.com.

This week: Reihan Salam of the conservative Manhattan Institute on the state of the center and the right in cities. Why have we been asked to support politicians like Andrew Cuomo who discredit the center? Is Zohran Mandani really doing such a bad job? Can conservatives and cities be persuaded to take interest in each other again? All subscribers hear that conversation.

Paying subscribers hear the rest of the conversation with Reihan about why people can’t leave Israel out of municipal politics, and what it’s like to run a conservative think tank in the age of Trump. Also: Ben, Megan and Josh discuss the “Save our Bacon Act” and the ethical obligations we have toward livestock, and finally, the implosion of the “Freedom 250” festival.

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As noted last week, we don’t have a regular episode this week, due to the Memorial Day holiday. We’ll be back with two episodes next week — one with Reihan Salam, president of the Manhattan Institute, and one with content from Welcomefest, including an interview with Mark Cuban. We do have some bonus content for you: a Substack Live chat we did with Nate Silver of Silver Bulletin on Wednesday, reacting to Tuesday’s primary election in Texas and assessing Democrats’ odds of retaking the Senate. There’s also a free preview of that for free subscribers. Enjoy!

On this week's show: Why is Europe poor? Megan wrote about the issue this week, and Sam Bowman of Works in Progress magazine joins us from London to discuss our differences in work culture, leisure, and how we dry our clothes. Plus, we talk about the ignominious unpopularity of Keir Starmer’s Labour, which has not delivered on its promise to build instead of block, even though Britain’s central government has all the authority over planning and zoning that Abundance advocates here dream about.

That’s for all free listeners. Yes, the paywall is here — for paying subscribers, we also chat with Sam about Christopher Nolan’s forthcoming film ‘The Odyssey,' the Long Island Rail Road strike, and we discuss central New Jersey’s missing congressman, Tom Kean Jr., who hasn’t been seen since early March. Is he in a mental institution? We discuss that possibility with Ben, who is an alumnus of America’s most prestigious mental institution.

Upgrade your subscription (and find instructions for setting up your private paid podcast feed) at www.centralairpodcast.com and RSVP to our D.C. happy hour on June 2 here.

On this week's show: Robinson Meyer, executive editor of the excellent Heatmap News, talks with us about why oil has not gotten even more expensive, if there is hope for permitting reform, why Republicans hate windmills so much, and if there ever been a greater environmental advocate than ‘Degrowth Donald.' And where can we put data centers so they won’t bother anyone?

Also this week: Josh's despair at the continued unwinding of the social contract, and Democrats’ despair over the Virginia Supreme Court.

Plus, exciting news: we’ll be having a listener gathering in Washington, D.C., the evening of Tuesday, June 2. More details on that soon. Sign up for updates from Central Air at www.centralairpodcast.com.

On this week's show: Gary Leff, author of the View From the Wing blog on the airline industry, joins us to discuss who killed Spirit Airlines — the airline made strategic errors, but it could have been profitably acquired by JetBlue years ago if not for a series of Biden-era anti-trust policy failures. The Trump administration tried to commit its own policy error — it wanted to buy the airline, making Spirit’s troubles into taxpayers’ problem — but fortunately, Spirit’s existing creditors refused to be crammed down, and there was no deal to be had.

We have a wide-ranging conversation for you with Gary on the relationship between the government and the airlines — whether United could really be allowed to buy American, what’s going to become of the financially-troubled JetBlue, why Europe has a more robustly competitive low-cost airline industry than the U.S. does, and much more.

Also this week: We discuss hopeful federal news on housing policy and a grim housing policy outlook in our nation’s capital.

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On this week's show: Sean Trende joins us to discuss the continued devolvement of the gerrymandering wars. Sean is an election analyst for Real Clear Politics and lecturer in political science at The Ohio State University. With this week’s Supreme Court decision in Callais, even more opportunities to seek partisan advantage will arise. We talk with Sean about how to define and measure ‘fairness,’ and about the ways the gerrymandering debate remains stuck in the 2010s.

Also this week, we talk about food inflation. Sean had a viral tweet in 2023 bemoaning how a family-size DoorDash order from Outback Steakhouse had climbed to $125. Well, today that same order would be $190, in part due to the spiraling cost of lobster tails. This sounds trivial, but it gets at a key fact about politics — inflation bothers everyone, from those scraping by to those who simply notice that the things they like to buy cost more than they used to.

Plus, Ben, Megan and Josh talk about the assassination attempt on President Trump, and the low-intensity public response to it — why is it no longer even that interesting when someone tries to kill the president?

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On this week's show: We joined in the discourse about whether dog owners have gotten too big for their britches. (Dogs are sycophants, I say — at least cats have self-respect.) We discussed the wisdom of New York’s proposed tax on fancy pied-à-terre apartments. Axios reporter Alex Thompson, who caused a bit of consternation at last year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, joined us to talk about whether there should even be a White House Correspondents’ Dinner. And we even discussed a controversy that’s literally about air conditioning.

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On this week's show: Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini joins to discuss the strength of Trump's multiracial populist coalition amid the Iran war. He offers his take on how the Republican party can avoid a cataclysm in this year’s midterm — it has, in part, to do with the semiquincentennial — and we discuss whether every election is going to be a “change” election from now onward.

Also this week, Ben, Megan and Josh discuss what “everybody knew” about Eric Swalwell, and whether we’d be better off with more insider gossip thrown out into the open. And we look at the prospect of a United Airlines-American Airlines merger, which United CEO Scott Kirby reportedly floated to the president himself.

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On this week's show: Daniel Biss joins to discuss the changing way Democrats are relating to Israel. Daniel is the mayor of Evanston, Ill., and very likely soon to be a member of Congress representing Chicago’s north side and northern suburbs. He just won the Democratic nomination in a hugely expensive primary election — over $10 million was spent, much of it by AIPAC-linked groups dissatisfied with his positioning as a “progressive Zionist.”

Plus: Medicare for All, a check in on the Iran war, and Gavin Newsom’s emergent strategy when fighting Republicans on the internet (calling them gay). Jamie Kirchick sits in for Ben who’s off this week.

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