In 2004, historian Thomas Frank proposed a theory about the rightward drift of the white working class. Was he a prescient king whose work presaged the rise of Trump — or a bumbling fool with a broken thesis?  Unfortunately it turns out he is a secret third thing that takes one hour and six minutes to explain.

Special thanks to Julia Valdés for her help with this episode!

Where to find us: 

• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• The Thesis That Drove American Politics Crazy: The Emerging Democratic Majority
• What’s the Matter with What’s the Matter with Kansas?
• Class is Dismissed
• The White Working Class and the Democratic Party
• It’s time to bust the myth: Most Trump voters were not working class.
• How the diploma divide came to dominate American politics
• The 'Diploma Divide': Does It Exist for Racial and Ethnic Minorities?
• Blind Retrospection: Why Shark Attacks Are Bad For Democracy
• Nationally poor, locally rich: Income and local context in the 2016 presidential election
• Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government
• Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America
• Political Landscapes of Donald Trump
• The White Working Class and the 2016 Election
• Partisanship by family income, home ownership, union membership and veteran status
• The Elites Had It Coming
• What Explains Educational Realignment Among White Americans?

Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

Peter and Michael discuss the book that launched the phenomenon of New Atheism and asked the question: What if we hated Muslims, but in a secular way?

Where to find us: 

• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• Views of Violence
• Carnival Booth: An Algorithm for Defeating the Computer-Assisted Passenger Screening System
• The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over
• Does intuitive mindset influence belief in God? 
• Terrorism science: 5 insights into jihad in Europe
• Analytic cognitive style predicts religious and paranormal belief
• What Is "Islamophobia"?
• Essays In Defense of Profiling
• To Profile or Not to Profile
• Chapter 2 The Making of Jihadist Social Actors in Europe in
• Who are the new jihadis?
• Disbelief - Prometheus Books 
• God and the Ivory Tower
• Religion’s evolutionary landscape: Counterintuition, commitment, compassion, communion
• The Evolution of Religion: How Cognitive By-Products, Adaptive Learning Heuristics, Ritual Displays, and Group Competition Generate
• Talking to the Enemy

 Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

What should workers do when they get laid off? In 1998 a bleak, asinine bestseller told them to find another whey. 

Where to find us: 

• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America
• Downsizing in America
• Temp:  How American Work, American Business, and the American Dream Became Temporary
• The Disposable American
• Spencer Johnson, ‘Who Moved My Cheese?’ Author, Dies at 78
• What was the New Economy?
• Boss, Employees Share Large Cheese Platter
• Tarpon's big cheese has aides reading
• Why doesn’t downsizing deliver?
• On the Battlefields of Business, Millions of Casualties
• Shareholder Value and Workforce Downsizing, 1981-2006
• Long-Term Earnings Losses Due to Job Separation During the 1982 Recession
• Does Employee Downsizing Really Work?
• Layoffs, Top Executive Pay, and Firm Performance
• Emerging Conceptions of Work, Management and the Labor Market
• A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Why Organizations Downsize
• Organizational Downsizing: Constraining, Cloning, Learning
• The Decline and Fall of the Conglomerate Firm in the 1980s

 Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

New York’s favorite criminal is in the news, so here is our episode about his ridiculous life.

To hear all of our bonus episodes, support us on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod

Is fact-checking a legitimate enterprise? Is America's most famous fact-checker nothing more than a dweeb? Michael and Peter discuss.

To hear the rest of the episode, support us on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod

A memoir about parenting very badly and then getting weirdly defensive when anyone asks you about it.

Where to find us: 

• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• Effects of Authoritative Parental Control on Child Behavior, Child Development
• Types of Parenting Styles and Effects On Children
• Does “Tiger Parenting” Exist? Parenting Profiles of Chinese Americans and Adolescent Developmental Outcomes
• Associations of parenting dimensions and styles with externalizing problems of children and adolescents: An updated meta-analysis
• Do the associations of parenting styles with behavior problems and academic achievement vary by culture? Results from a meta-analysis
• Parenting Styles: A Closer Look at a Well-Known Concept
• Impact of Behavioral Inhibition and Parenting Style on Internalizing and Externalizing Problems from Early Childhood through Adolescence
• The One Weird Trait That Predicts Whether You’re a Trump Supporter
• Investigating Correlates of Self-Regulation in Early Childhood with a Representative Sample of English-Speaking American Families
• Amy Chua thinks identity politics on both sides are to blame.
• How the 'Tiger Mom' Convinced the Author of Hillbilly Elegy to Write His Story

 Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

Is social media to blame for the teen mental health crisis? It's complicated!

Thanks to Emily Weinstein, Amy Orben, Andrew Przybylski, Dean Burnett, Michael Mullarkey and Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz for help researching and fact-checking this episode!

Where to find us: 

• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• Emily Weinstein's book, "Behind Their Screens"
• Positive and negative uses of social media among adolescents hospitalized for suicidal behavior
• The Sisyphean Cycle of Technology Panics
• The Relationship Between Online Social Networking and Depression: A Systematic Review of Quantitative Studies
• Online "predators" and their victims
• The Coddling of the American Parent
• No More FOMO: Limiting Social Media Decreases Loneliness and Depression
• How technology is transforming the ways in which children play
• Banning mobile phones in schools in Spain
• No One Knows Exactly What Social Media Is Doing To Teens
• Windows of developmental sensitivity to social media
• Smartphones are bad for some teens, not all
• How Smartphones Affect the Social-Emotional Development of Adolescents
• Social media use and its impact
• Time Spent on Social Network Sites and Psychological Well-Being
• A School-Level Analysis of Adolescent Extracurricular Activity

 Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

To celebrate ("celebrate") Donald Trump choosing JD Vance as his running mate we are re-releasing our "Hillbilly Elegy" episode. Enjoy!

Peter and Michael discuss "The Origins of Woke," a glimpse into the dark aspirations of the Republican Party and the mind of a very unusual man.

Where to find us: 

• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• What Speech Does "Hostile Work Environment" Harassment Law Restrict? 
• Tunis v. Corning Glass Works, 698 F. Supp. 452 (S.D.N.Y. 1988)
• Pakizegi v. First Nat. Bank of Boston, 831 F. Supp. 901 
• Tesla Settles Discrimination Suit With Former Factory Worker - The New York Times
• Menial Tasks, Slurs and Swastikas: Many Black Workers at Tesla Say They Faced Racism - The New York Times 
• Diaz v. Tesla, Inc.
• Making Hispanics: How Activists, Bureaucrats, and Media Constructed a New American
• Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination 
• Meta-analysis of field experiments shows no change in racial discrimination in hiring over time | PNAS
• Systemic Discrimination Among Large U.S. Employers 

 Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

Peter and Michael discuss the media coverage of the protests at Columbia — from the crazed, bloodthirsty ravings of right-wing media to the more muted, respectful bloodthirst of centrist media.

To hear the rest of the episode, support us on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod