Lean Out with Tara Henley

For decades now in Canada, there has been a bipartisan, pro-immigration consensus. But in recent weeks, we have watched that consensus fall apart. Our guest on today’s program has been covering this development in his columns for The Globe and Mail. He argues that it was the Liberal government that broke the consensus — and it must be the Liberals who restore it. 

Tony Keller is a veteran Canadian journalist and a columnist for The Globe and Mail. 

(This podcast was recorded before Immigration Minister Marc Miller’s announcement  that the federal government will cap international student visas. You can read Tony’s latest column on that development here.)

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

In Ontario, where Tara lives, schools were closed for 135 days during the pandemic. Both there and in the United States, there was very little critical media coverage on this unprecedented public policy. But our guest on today’s program was reporting on those left behind by school closures from the very beginning. Now, he’s covering an element of the aftermath that’s not getting much attention — the crisis in absenteeism.

Alec MacGillis is an author and an award-winning investigative journalist. He’s a reporter at ProPublica, and his latest piece, published both there and at The New Yorker, is “Has School Become Optional?”

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

2024 is an election year for the United States. And one of the stories so far is the political realignment that we’re continuing to witness — with the working class moving to the right. This is something that is also happening here in Canada. My guests on today’s program have written an entire book about the phenomenon, and what it might mean for the future of politics.

John B. Judis is editor-at-large at Talking Points Memo, a former senior writer at The National Journal, and a former senior editor at The New Republic.

Ruy Teixeira is a contributing columnist at The Washington Post, a cofounder and politics editor of The Liberal Patriot newsletter on Substack, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Their new book is Where have all the Democrats gone? The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes.

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

The Lean Out podcast kicked off two years ago this week, aiming to push back on mainstream media conformity, to reaffirm old school journalistic values like viewpoint diversity and curiosity and respect — and, in some small way, to help widen the Overton window of ideas considered acceptable for discussion and debate. Happily, this approach seems to be resonating with a lot of you. We’re pleased to say that we now have listeners in 150 countries and close to 5,000 cities worldwide.

For our anniversary episode today, we're delighted to be joined by a journalist we admire, whose work we have looked to as an example for our times.

Michael Powell is a staff writer at The Atlantic and a former reporter at The New York Times, where he covered free speech, college campuses, and identity politics.  He’s also the author of Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Season on the Navajo Nation.

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

This year has not been an easy one for a lot of people. Not only are many coping with economic instability, but our culture is polarized and often extremely hostile. But our guest on today’s program — the last episode of the year — wants to leave us with a vision of unity. And of hope for a better, and more harmonious, 2024.

Monica Harris is the author of The Illusion of Division. She’s also the executive director of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism.

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

With the pandemic finally in the rearview mirror, a lot of people are eager to put it behind us — and move on. But our guest on today’s program says it’s important that we take a look at the mistakes that were made, and understand what went wrong.

Joe Nocera is a veteran business journalist and a columnist at The Free Press. His latest book, co-authored with Vanity Fair’s Bethany McLean, is The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind.

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

On Thanksgiving weekend, an essay started circulating — and it was an essay that I felt like I’d been waiting a long time to read. The essay explores a troubling trend: a renewed skepticism of interracial relationships, and, indeed, of interracial families. Its author is a white man, married to a Black woman. And while progressives had applauded their wedding back in 2007, he writes that it now felt as if he no longer had the right to parent his own children.

Paul Kix is an American journalist, and the author of You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live. His latest essay, for The Free Press, is “Liberals Once Embraced Interracial Marriages Like Mine. What Changed?”

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

In times of crisis, artists often feel the need to take a stand, to engage in activism. But our guest on today’s program says we should recognize that art and politics have very different agendas. “These are different realms,” he writes, “and the values of one can be inhospitable — even deadly — to the values of the other.”

George Packer is a staff writer at The Atlantic, and the author of ten books. His latest essay is “Why Activism Leads To So Much Bad Writing.”

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

This week on Lean Out, we turn our attention to freedom of expression in the arts. Our guest on today’s program is an acclaimed and controversial choreographer who says the UK’s creative industries are in crisis — experiencing a culture of widespread fear and intimidation. And she’s launched a new organization to address this.

Rosie Kay is the CEO and artistic director of the Kay2CO dance company, and a founder of Freedom in the Arts.

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

This week in New York City, a longtime defender of free speech was honoured by her peers. My guest on today’s program accepted the Judy Blume Lifetime Achievement Award at the National Coalition Against Censorship benefit. She returns to the podcast to mark that occasion — and to talk through the big issues of our current moment, including rising antisemitism. 

Nadine Strossen is the former president of the American Civil Liberties Union, and a senior fellow with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Her new book is Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know. She also hosts a new documentary film series, Free To Speak. 

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com