Explain It to Me

Dylan talks to John M. Barry, distinguished scholar at Tulane University and author of The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, about the Spanish flu of 1918-1919, its parallels to Covid-19, and what that pandemic’s end tells us about how this one might end.

References:

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History

Hosts:

Dylan Matthews (@dylanmatt), senior correspondent, Vox

Credits:

Sofi LaLonde, producer and engineer

Libby Nelson, editorial adviser

Amber Hall, deputy editorial director of talk podcasts

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Dylan, Jerusalem, and special guest Bryan Walsh discuss the slowing population growth in America, and what a smaller-than-expected America could mean. They also talk about which immigration and child care policies could speed up population growth. Finally, they discuss a paper on why Europe is so much more equal than America.

References:

The Great Population Slowdown

How immigration could reverse population decline

The rise of childlessness

The climate case that it’s okay to have kids

The link between fertility and income

The complex relationship between housing prices and fertility

Changes in abortion access in a post-Roe America

Romania’s abortion ban and its effect on fertility

Recent research on global fertility patterns and cohabitation

What is the relationship between gender equality and fertility rates? 

The Conservative Fertility Advantage

White paper: “Why Is Europe More Equal than the United States?”

A critique of the paper’s approach to health care

Hosts:

Dylan Matthews (@dylanmatt), senior correspondent, Vox

Jerusalem Demsas (@jerusalemdemsas), policy reporter, Vox

Bryan Walsh (@bryanrwalsh), editor for Future Perfect, Vox

Credits:

Sofi LaLonde, producer and engineer

Libby Nelson, editorial adviser

Amber Hall, deputy editorial director of talk podcasts

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How does someone get radicalized? What do political scientists see as the building blocks of political violence? Is there anything we can do to stop radicalization? One year after the insurrection on January 6, 2021, Vox policy reporter Jerusalem Demsas talks with Peter Neumann, a professor of security studies at King’s College in London, to answer these questions. 

References:

Vox’s Zack Beauchamp on where the crisis in American democracy might be headed

Peter Neumann’s paper: The trouble with radicalization

A Q&A with a French philosopher about the fear of replacement within white nationalism

Colin Clarke writes for Politico on what happened after January 6

Northwestern University research about the perceived threat of a racial demographic shift in the US

Hosts:

Jerusalem Demsas (@jerusalemdemsas), policy reporter, Vox

Credits:

Sofi LaLonde, producer and engineer

Libby Nelson, editorial adviser

Amber Hall, deputy editorial director of talk podcasts

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Dylan and Dara are joined by Vox’s Libby Nelson to talk about the policy merits and political implications of plans to cancel some or all student loans. They also discuss whether President Joe Biden has the power to cancel student debt unilaterally. And, Vox’s Jerusalem Demsas joins Dylan and Dara for a white paper about prisoners of war and genetics. 

References:

Hosts:

Credits:

Sign up for The Weeds newsletter each Friday: vox.com/weedsletter 

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Vox senior reporter Rebecca Leber (@rbleber) joins The Weeds to explain the problem of migration caused by climate change, such as that due to wildfires, rising seas, and crop failures. She explains how a warming planet is forcing people to move both in the US and internationally, and how policymakers are and aren’t adapting. Vox reporters Dylan Matthews and Jerusalem Demsas continue the conversation with ProPublica’s Dara Lind, discussing a new white paper arguing that social mobility in America rose in the 20th century.

References:

• How climate change is driving up flood insurance premiums in Canarsie, Brooklyn

• The case for “managed retreat” from coastal areas

• A New York Times feature on how climate migration will reshape America

• Why Greg Clark is pessimistic that social mobility even exists

• White Paper of the Week: Intergenerational Mobility in American History: Accounting for Race and Measurement Error, Zachary Ward

Hosts:

Dylan Matthews (@dylanmatt), senior correspondent, Vox

Jerusalem Demsas (@jerusalemdemsas), policy reporter, Vox

Dara Lind (@DLind), immigration reporter, ProPublica

Credits:

Sofi LaLonde, producer & engineer

Libby Nelson, editorial adviser

Amber Hall, deputy editorial director of talk podcasts

Sign up for The Weeds newsletter each Friday: vox.com/weeds-newsletter 

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In the final episode of our series, America’s Public Health Experiment, Dylan, Dara, and Jerusalem discuss how the CDC and the FDA failed the American public in the early months of the pandemic. Plus, a white paper about excess deaths in the first year of Covid-19.

References: 

How the experts botched masking advice

Zeynep Tufekci on the case for masks (in March 2020)

Inside the Fall of the CDC

Can the CDC be fixed?

How the CDC failed to detect Covid early

Scott Gottlieb on CDC versus FDA turf wars

The Government Asked Us Not To Release Records From The CDC’s First Failed COVID Test. Here They Are.

Zeynep Tufekci in the Atlantic: ​​The CDC Is Still Repeating Its Mistakes

Dylan Scott on FDA approval of controversial Alzheimer's drug

White paper: Excess Deaths in the United States During the First Year of COVID-19

What happened to drug deaths in 2020

Hosts:

Dylan Matthews (@dylanmatt), senior correspondent, Vox

Jerusalem Demsas (@jerusalemdemsas), policy reporter, Vox

Dara Lind (@dlind), immigration reporter, ProPublica

Credits:

Sofi LaLonde, producer & engineer

Libby Nelson, editorial adviser

Amber Hall, deputy editorial director of talk podcasts

Sign up for The Weeds newsletter each Friday: vox.com/weedsletter 

Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts

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In the penultimate episode of our series America’s Public Health Experiment, Vox policy reporter Jerusalem Demsas talks to Arnab Datta, senior counsel at Employ America, about automatic stabilizers: what they are and how they could help during a crisis that affects the economy, such as a global pandemic.

References:

Vox's Emily Stewart on Democrats abandoning automatic stabilizers

Recession Ready: Fiscal Policies to Stabilize the American Economy

Structuring Federal Aid To States As An Automatic (And Autonomous) Stabilizer 

A Historic Decrease in Poverty

GOP Governors Reject Extra Federal Unemployment Payments

Host:

Jerusalem Demsas (@jerusalemdemsas), policy reporter, Vox

Credits:

Sofi LaLonde, producer & engineer

Libby Nelson, editorial adviser

Amber Hall, deputy editorial director of talk podcasts

Sign up for The Weeds newsletter each Friday: vox.com/weedsletter 

Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts

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Dylan and Jerusalem are joined by Vox Policy Editor Libby Nelson to talk about the current state of Covid-19 and schools. They discuss vaccine mandates, rapid testing – or a lack thereof – and teacher burnout. Plus, a white paper about college majors and GPA requirements. 

References:

Why schools weren’t “back to normal” this year

The pandemic caused huge levels of learning loss, especially in districts with less in-person schooling, and especially in poor countries

Can pandemics affect educational attainment? Evidence from the polio epidemic of 1916

Some schools are going remote on Fridays to address “burnout”

Schools cre closing classrooms on Fridays. Parents are furious.

Do school closures and school reopenings affect community transmission of COVID-19? A systematic review of observational studies 

Quarantines are driving down attendance

The “test to stay” alternative to quarantines

How school districts have used their Covid relief funds

White Paper: “College Major Restrictions and Social Stratification”

Hosts:

Dylan Matthews (@dylanmatt), senior correspondent, Vox

Jerusalem Demsas (@jerusalemdemsas), policy reporter, Vox

Libby Nelson (@libbyanelson), policy editor, Vox

Credits:

Sofi LaLonde, producer & engineer

Libby Nelson, editorial adviser

Amber Hall, deputy editorial director of talk podcasts

Sign up for The Weeds newsletter each Friday: vox.com/weedsletter 

Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts

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In the second episode of our series, America’s Public Health Experiment, Weeds co-host Dara Lind looks at two government agencies that went from quietly to loudly broken during the Covid-19 pandemic. Dara is joined by the Washington Post’s Jacob Bogage (@jacobbogage) and Jeremy McKinney (@McKJeremy) from the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Host:

Dara Lind (@dlind), immigration reporter, ProPublica

Credits:

Sofi LaLonde, producer & engineer

Libby Nelson, editorial adviser

Amber Hall, deputy editorial director of talk podcasts

Sign up for The Weeds newsletter each Friday: vox.com/weedsletter 

Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts

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Dara and Dylan talk to Jerusalem about her new article defending rent control laws. The three discuss the policy impacts of rent limits and the politics driving their adoption in large American cities. Finally, they discuss a new paper on declining fertility in 18th-century France.

References:

Jerusalem’s case for rent control

A poll of leading economists, who almost all oppose rent control

Economist Rebecca Diamond on the effects of rent control

Manhattan Institute fellow Michael Hendrix’s case against rent control

Time for revisionism on rent control? 

The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn by Suleiman Osman

Review of the literature by the Urban Institute

White paper: “The Cultural Origins of the Demographic Transition in France” by Guillaume Blanc

Blanc’s Twitter summary of his paper

The demographic transition for beginners

Hosts:

Dylan Matthews (@dylanmatt), senior correspondent, Vox

Jerusalem Demsas (@jerusalemdemsas), policy reporter, Vox

Dara Lind (@dlind), immigration reporter, ProPublica

Credits:

Sofi LaLonde, producer & engineer

Libby Nelson, editorial adviser

Amber Hall, deputy editorial director of talk podcasts

Sign up for The Weeds newsletter each Friday: vox.com/weedsletter 

Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices