Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition

Megan and Clayton are taking a bit of a break while they apply for jobs. But, because they are so nice and don't want to just vanish, they've brought a special guest on to explain the academic job market, why being on market necessitates a break in the first place, and how getting a job as a professor actually works.

The United States as a whole broadly likes to claim that is is focuses on equality and "not seeing race" is often held up as a virtue. However, this notion of colorblindness is actually making it harder to solve some of the most pressing challenges the nation faces which were born out of historical and maintained by contemporary racism and discrimination. Listen along as Megan and Clayton take you through why this is a problem, and what we can do about it.

In an episode that really gets at the ongoing themes of this show, Megan and Clayton talk about how echo chambers, conspiratorial thinking, and shibboleths that require being wrong about things are harming our national discourse, and what we can do to help us get back to some semblance of evidence based public conversations.

With the World Cup only days away, and with our last couple of episodes being, well, heavy as hell, we thought we would take the opportunity to inject a little levity into the show once again and talk about the biggest things that the US gets wrong when it comes to soccer, football, calcio, the beautiful game. Things could be so much better for American Soccer, and we can make them that way.

The Trump Administration has been maddeningly, insanely inconsistent on the causes, justification, purpose, just about everything to do with their war in Iran. Megan and Clayton take you through why this is so strange, why Congress needs to step in, and how we need to orient ourselves differently towards foreign policy going forward.

The Supreme Court's decision in the Callais case is, to put it mildly, a bunch of hot garbage. Megan and Clayton struggle to stay calm as they take you through the history of the VRA up to this point, as well as what this decision means going forward.

There is a rising tide of misinformation specifically related to women's health that parallels the anti-vaccine movement with startling fidelity. Megan and Clayton talk about some of the tactics of these groups, and what we might be able to do to head them off at the pass.

Pam Bondi is turning the Department of Justice into an instrument of Trump's will rather than a legitimate law enforcement organization. Her actions are doing long term damage to our institutions and wreaking havoc on our judicial processes. Megan and Clayton take you through what is happening, and discuss long term prospects for repairing the damage.

Elon has ruined Twitter. Just about every element of the user experience has gotten worse since he took over, and he fundamentally seems to misunderstand the platform. We talked to Jake Christie, the curator of the Museum of Twitter, to understand a bit more about the Twitter of Yore, and what we might've lost now that it's gone.

Over the past year of the Trump administration, ICE agents have been running around the country acting with utter impunity. Without the threat of being help accountable for their actions, they have been running roughshod over anyone who they perceive as getting in their way. The only way to fix this situation, and to restore some measure of public trust in the justice system, is to make sure that those responsible are held accountable in the future.