Interesting Times

How should America respond to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine? This week, Jane Coaston sought out perspectives of a particular group on this complex question: conservatives. The group has long been divided on foreign policy and, more recently, over Putin and Russia. Could loyalty to Donald Trump lead some Republicans to support Putin?

In today’s episode, these questions are tested by two conservative writers — and their answers are far from aligned.

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review. He feels strongly that the United States and NATO should avoid further involvement in the conflict and argues that a declaration of neutrality by Ukraine would be a good path forward. “I think neutrality is a real strategic position that can help some countries remain independent, sovereign and avoid war,” he says.

David French is a senior editor at The Dispatch. He sits on the opposite side; He is for NATO expansion and believes the United States should further help to defend Ukraine. “It’s so necessary for the West — without risking nuclear conflict with Russia — to demonstrate for a generation, if possible, that this form of aggressive warfare is going to cost far, far more than anything that Russia will gain,” he says.

Whether you’re a Republican, Democrat, independent or none of those, we want to hear from you. What’s your take on Ukraine, and how do you think the Republican Party should be reacting? Share your thoughts in the comments on this page after you’ve listened to the debate.

This week, an antiwar protester interrupted a Moscow broadcast with a sign in Russian reading: “Stop the war. Don’t believe the propaganda. They are lying to you here.” With the Russian government promoting propaganda on news channels and most recently passing a law to punish people spreading “false information” about the Ukraine invasion, it’s been hard to distill what is actually going on in both Russia and Ukraine right now. The confusion has resulted in what Masha Gessen recently described as parallel realities transpiring in Russia and an outright denial of war in Ukraine.

So how can you make sense of what is true in our world of information, especially when anyone can use propaganda not only to change your mind but also to overwhelm you?

Jane Coaston talks to the Soviet-born British journalist Peter Pomerantsev to talk about propaganda and how those in power — and the everyday person — use it to undermine the fabric of society and our collective understanding. Pomerantsev is a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University and the author of the 2019 book “This Is Not Propaganda.” He talks to Jane about Vladimir Putin’s mythmaking and propaganda machine and how we as information consumers can make sense of what we know as truth.

We’re headed into the third year of pandemic life, and one thing is clear: We’re all exhausted from Covid. Virus caseloads are waning across the country, masks are coming off, people are traveling more, and office workers have new return dates. Does that mean the pandemic is over? Maybe. And maybe not.

On Feb. 25, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention relaxed its guidelines on mask wearing and social distancing, saying that 70 percent of Americans no longer need to heed those recommendations. But for a lot of people, like parents of kids under 5 and those who are immunocompromised, this presents more challenges. It’s clear the burden of managing Covid risk increasingly rests on the individual, so what are we supposed to do now?

It’s a lot to contemplate. So on today’s show, Jane puts that question to two experts to help the rest of us.

Dr. Monica Gandhi is an infectious-disease physician whose previous work on H.I.V. informs her assessment of public health messaging during this pandemic. Dr. Aaron E. Carroll is the chief health officer at Indiana University and has spent the pandemic thinking about how to keep his community safe. The good news? Both of them think we’ve got the tools to move forward safely.

It’s been a week since Russia invaded Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled Ukraine and Russia continues to target major Ukrainian cities with powerful weapons. And amidst the chaos of war – President Biden held his first State of the Union address. Yara Bayoumy, the world and national security editor for Times Opinion, and the columnists Thomas Friedman and Ross Douthat joined Lulu Garcia-Navarro, a Times Opinion podcast host, to discuss what could happen next.

Listen to Jane's interview this week with retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman in our previous episode.

In the days since Vladimir Putin ordered Russian forces to invade Ukraine, its citizens have taken up arms to defend their borders and their right to self-determination. Where is the rest of the world in all of this?

To help understand the current situation and how we got here, Jane Coaston talks with Alexander Vindman, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who was the director for European and Russian affairs at the National Security Council from 2018 to 2020. Vindman was also a key witness at Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial, having listened in on the notorious 2019 call in which Trump asked President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. Vindman says of the Western response to the invasion, “We need to drop these incremental approaches that are intended for a kind of peacetime environment,” because “we’re in a new Cold War.”

What is your take on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? We want to hear from you. Share your thoughts in the comments on The New York Times website once you’ve listened to the debate.

An American flag, football, the national anthem, “Make America Great Again” — all of these can be symbols of American patriotism, but to whom? In 2022, the notion of being a patriot is complex to say the least, and in a divided nation one might ask: Who gets to be called a patriot, and what does patriotism really mean in America?

This week, Jane and her guests dig into how each of them feels about patriotism and how our two dominant political parties use the idea to their own ends.

Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser from 2009 to 2017, posits that a fundamental sense of patriotism still holds in America today. “This has always been about the story we tell about ourselves and that we don’t live up to,” Ben says. “I think patriotism is basically about the effort to live up to the better version of the story that America tells us about itself.”

Jamelle Bouie is a columnist with Times Opinion and resists the idea that it’s possible to forge a unifying sense of patriotism across the country. America is simply too large and too diverse to unite on a baseline of meaning. Patriotism, he argues, rests at the individual level: “I think all you have to do is identify what are the things that are valuable to you? What are the things that are important to you? And you pursue them,” he says.

What does patriotism mean to you? Would you call yourself a patriot? We want to hear from you. Share your thoughts in the comments on The New York Times website once you’ve listened to the debate.

The U.S. State Department recently ordered all nonemergency diplomats and embassy employees to leave Ukraine, signaling that its personnel believe a Russian invasion of Ukraine may be imminent. Such a move by Russia would be the most consequential invasion in Europe since World War II.

If Russia acts, what is America’s responsibility to Ukraine?

Two of Jane’s Opinion colleagues, Bret Stephens and Farah Stockman, join her to tackle that question today. Both Bret and Farah have reported on foreign policy. Bret, a columnist for Times Opinion, told Jane: “I think Ukraine ought to be what Ukrainians want it to be. Vladimir Putin is unwilling to let Ukrainians decide their own future.”

Farah, a member of the Times editorial board, sees wars as dirty pursuits that are often antithetical to democracy and freedom. Farah argues that America needs to focus on its own battles before engaging in international conflicts. “We need to do a better job picking our battles, we really do, because we have to protect ourselves and our own democracy first,” she says. “We cannot help anyone else if we’re in disarray. And guess what? We’re in disarray right now, we really are.”

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear two cases, one involving Harvard and the other the University of North Carolina, that could reshape college admissions. Both schools are being accused of race-based discrimination in their admission practices. In the coming year, the court will examine whether it’s lawful for college admissions offices to consider a student’s race.

These cases and others have brought into focus the role affirmative action plays in higher education, and whether it helps or impedes the overall goal of achieving racial equity on college campuses.

So the question Jane debates this week is: Should we end affirmative action?

On today’s episode, the Opinion writer Jay Caspian Kang sets the stage by sharing with Jane his view that affirmative action policies merely make for “cosmetically diverse” campuses, rather than contributing to broader social justice initiatives.

Jay and Jane’s conversation is followed by a debate between two guests with starkly different views. Ian Rowe, the former chief executive of Public Prep, a nonprofit charter school network, believes that race-based affirmative action needs to be retired in favor of class-based solutions. Natasha Warikoo, a professor of sociology at Tufts University, believes affirmative action is worth saving, and we should find ways to reframe it.

What is your take on affirmative action: end it, or keep it? We want to hear from you. Share your thoughts in the comments on this page once you’ve listened to the debate.

With the midterm elections just nine months away, the Democrats face some hefty existential questions that need answers: Who are they in this post- and possibly pre-Trump era of American politics? Are they simply the anti-Trump party? Or are they the party of progress? Who are the voters they need to turn out in November? Should they excite the base by building a coalition united against white supremacy, or should they moderate their message to win over Republican-defectors?

This week on “The Argument,” Jane Coaston brings together two voices that represent the factions in the Democratic Party’s existential struggle. Lanae Erickson is the senior vice president of social policy, education and politics at the center-left think tank Third Way. She argues that Democrats need to make their platform as broadly popular as possible in order to bring more voters under the party’s big tent. That’s the way to win, and then enact progressive policies.

Steve Phillips disagrees. He’s the founder of the political media organization Democracy in Color and author of the book “Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority.” He counterargues that the Democrats must run and win as the party united around a vision of a multiracial, just society, unapologetically calling out racism on the other side of the ticket.The two political strategists strongly disagree on what the party needs to do to win in November, but they agree on one thing: Democrats are afraid and need to answer the question of who they are, fast.

A year into the Biden administration, most of us can agree on one thing: The United States remains a deeply divided nation, with polarizing opinions on all sides. But what about the voices from the middle, the independents? Swing voters are arguably one of the most consequential groups for the midterm elections, so we wanted to hear from them about how they view President Biden’s first year and the current state of American democracy.

So this month the veteran G.O.P pollster Frank Luntz convened a focus group of 14 self-identified independents and moderates to get their perspectives. And there seems to be a striking theme: They’re exasperated. As Nick from Pennsylvania put it, “We’ve been promised a lot by past politicians, and it just seems that nothing ever changes.”

This week, Luntz debriefs Jane on the group’s findings — namely, that independents are very disappointed and don’t see much hope for either party. His takeaway? “Independents are simple rejecters. They reject both the left and the right. They reject the past president and the current president. And in some ways they’re actually even more negative because they don’t see a way out.”