Political Theater

Jason Dick and Mary Ellen McIntire look at the biggest political news of the new year and discuss how big a deal it is for the 2026 midterm election cycle, from Alaska's Senate race to Greenland -- and don't worry, they eventually discuss non-Polar climes.

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In politics, there is a lot going on, it can be hard to focus. But some polling and economic indicators are good guideposts for what is shaping the electorate as the 2026 campaign gets under way. Jason Dick and Nathan Gonzales talk about their favorite numbers to peruse, as well as some of their meh numbers. 

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The first session of the 119th Congress has been consequential: the legislative branch ceded much of its constitutional responsibilities to the executive branch, senators changed the process for confirming presidential nominees, and the House rank and file grew more emboldened to sidestep their leaders and force votes. Jason Dick and Molly Reynolds discuss these topics and much more as they put 2025 into context.

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Thomas Pynchon's latest novel, "Shadow Ticket," has a lot to say about politics, so Jason Dick checks in with Sean Carswell, the official Pynchon scholar of the Political Theater podcast.

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Despite its propensity for making itself look bad, some of the inner workings of Congress reveal lawmakers who are finding ways to work together. Can they cut through the noise and solve some real problems? Jason Dick and Justin Papp discuss the changing institution and the people who make it, or try to make it, function.

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Jason Dick and Nathan Gonzales talk about how multiple rounds of redistricting congressional boundaries and the lawsuits surrounding them are making a weird year and weird election cycle even weirder. 

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Jason Dick talks with Daniela Altimari and Mary Ellen McIntire about the new Roll Call Most Vulnerable Incumbent list, Tuesday night's election results and the latest rounds of redistricting.

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Jason Dick and Sean Carswell discuss how Thomas Pynchon’s novel “Vineland” led to Paul Thomas Anderson’s movie “One Battle After Another,” the conversation those two works have about American culture and politics, as well as the 1960s left, the Nixonian right, Reaganism, the drug war, Trumpism and, for good measure, Emerson's concept of the level of divine justice.

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Jason Dick and Chris Johnson talk about how immigration and racial issues frame the action and plot in the Paul Thomas Anderson movie "One Battle After Another," the salience of those issues in American history and culture and why movies still matter.

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Jason Dick talks with filmmaker Raoul Peck about his documentary "Orwell: 2+2=5," the importance of stepping back from the news cycle to keep things in context and how degrading language leads to degrading humanity.

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