Lakshya Jain is a political data analyst and co-founder of Split Ticket, a data journalism project known for its sharp election modeling and nonpartisan vote breakdowns. He currently leads the polling operation over at The Argument, a magazine devoted to making the persuasive case for liberal democracy—not by avoiding political conflict, but by engaging it head-on.

In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about the results of the 2025 US elections, what Gen Z voters want from elected officials, and whether Zohran Mamdani serves as a model for how future Democrats should campaign for office.

Show Notes

"How popular is Donald Trump?" by Nate Silver and Eli McKown-Dawson, Silver Bulletin

"It will shock you how much this shutdown never happened" by Lakshya Jain, The Argument

"Gen Z's Political Shift: Why Young Voters Are Turning on Democrats (Feat. Lakshya Jain)" from FYPod

Elizabeth Bruenig is a staff writer at The Atlantic and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. She is one of the rare journalists today whose work moves seamlessly between politics, theology, and ethics, and grief—without flattening any of them. There’s a line of hers I keep coming back to: Beauty tells you where to look. That's how she writes. And it's how she sees the world.

In this episode, I got a chance to speak with her about the pain and divinity that come from a forgiving attitude, the rightward turn of modern American Christianity, and how she wants others to remember her.

Show Notes

On Human Slaughter by Elizabeth Bruenig

I talk about the past, present, and future of this show.

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Francis Fukuyama is a Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is known for his book The End of History and the Last Man, which argued that liberal democracy represented the endpoint of humanity's ideological evolution.

In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about whether his end of history thesis holds up by modern standards, the nature of democratic backsliding in the United States, and the main contributing factors behind the decline in social trust within the country.

Show Notes

The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama

"It’s the Internet, Stupid" by Francis Fukuyama, Persuasion

"Is Social Media Destroying Democracy—Or Giving It To Us Good And Hard?" by Dan Williams, Conspicuous Cognition

Marshall Kosloff is a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center and the host of the podcast The Realignment. His work covers the nature of coalitional change in American politics since the rise of Donald Trump, and how Democrats can accomplish the policies of the Abundance agenda at the state level.

In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about his journey from the center-right to the center-left, the dearth of compelling stories in center-left discourse, and why it's so important for liberal communicators to emphasize the destination instead of just the vehicle for that destination.

Show Notes

"Ezra Klein Is Worried — but Not About a Radicalized Left" from Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

"Danielle Lee Tomson: The Story & Authenticity Gap - Why the Center-Left Keeps Losing the Plot" from The Realignment

Alitu podcast editing software (if you click on the link or use the coupon code PODSTART at checkout, you'll get 50% off your first month)

Steve Teles is a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University, and a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center. He is one of the main advocates of the abundance agenda, which champions supply-side solutions to many of the problems of modern economies, including housing unaffordability, clean energy, public infrastructure, and more.

In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about how the abundance movement has grown in recent months, the level of bureaucratic autonomy that he wants government administrators to have, and whether or not government deregulation would make authoritarianism more efficient.

Show Notes

Varieties of Abundance by Steve Teles, Niskanen Center

Cascadian Abundance Substack

Cost Disease Socialism: How Subsidizing Costs While Restricting Supply Drives America’s Fiscal Imbalance by Samuel Hammond and Daniel Takash, Niskanen Center

What libertarianism has become and will become — State Capacity Libertarianism by Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution

What State Housing Policies Do Voters Want? Evidence from a Platform-Choice Experiment from now Publishers

Allie Volpe is a correspondent at Vox. She writes extensively about the science of human connection—friendship, conversation, community, and the invisible threads that tie our well-being to the relationships around us. And let me tell you, these connections are vital.

Take loneliness, for instance. Loneliness isn’t just a feeling; it’s a state of being that affects us both psychologically and physically. When we’re lonely, we feel more tired, more pessimistic, more hopeless, and more unmotivated. And if social media isn’t the antidote to that loneliness (spoiler alert, it’s not), then we need to find other avenues.

So in this episode, I got a chance to speak with her about why she enjoys talking to strangers, how social trust has changed over time, and the extent to which it is useful for people to see threats and danger everywhere.

Show Notes

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"Talking to strangers" by Gillian M. Sandstrom

David French is an opinion columnist for The New York Times. Formerly a senior editor at The Dispatch and staff writer at National Review, David is known by many for his understanding of mainstream conservatism, and how Republican culture has changed significantly over the past decade.

In this episode, I spoke with him about the history of populism within Evangelical America, the ways that Evangelical culture led to the rise of the MAGA movement, and how the current Trump administration is weaponizing the apathy and fatigue of American citizens.

Jeremiah Johnson is the co-founder of The Center for New Liberalism, host of The New Liberal Podcast, and the writer behind the Substack Infinite Scroll.

His writing lives at the strange intersection of serious policy and unserious online discourse—and he’s one of the few people I’ve come across who is willing to take both seriously. One day he’s writing about marginal tax rates or housing vouchers; the next he’s explaining how fan drama in a K-pop subreddit is more predictive of future political radicalization than anything you’ll hear from a campaign manager. It sounds absurd, until you realize: he might be right.

In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about why he considers himself a liberal, why social media conversations tend to be both toxic and important, and why it's better to create things than to consume things.

Show Notes

"You don't care about politics. You have a politics hobby." by Jeremiah Johnson, Infinite Scroll

"Politics Is for Power: How to Move Beyond Political Hobbyism, Take Action, and Make Real Change" by Eitan Hersh

"On Consumption vs Production" by Jeremiah Johnson, Infinite Scroll

Bret Devereaux is a military historian and a Teaching Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University. He writes the blog "A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry," which covers Roman history, the nature of power and violence in society, and the best sci-fi/fantasy stories.

In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about how George Washington prevented a military coup, the unwritten rules governing the US military, and the tension between critiquing institutions and defending their existence.

Show Notes

"Collections: The American Civil-Military Relationship" by Bret Devereaux, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry