Slow Boring

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I respect the power of a good slogan as much as the next guy. And clearly the “Fighting Oligarchy” tour that Bernie Sanders headlined last year resonated with lots of people. Even outside the Sanders factions, we’ve seen Amy Klobuchar warn of a MAGA “broligarchy” that threatens America.

What’s more, oligarchy discourse has been a live topic for a long time. I remember that back in 2014 write-ups of a political science study by Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page repeatedly went viral. Their paper purports to show that only the preferences of rich people matter for predicting policy outcomes. My then-colleagues at Vox even made a hit video out of it, with virtually every successful write-up using some version of the “oligarchy” framing.

I have a lot of doubts about this on the merits.

My Co-Host Jerusalem stands up for the point that it’s clearly true that the partially overlapping circles of large campaign donors and very wealthy people enjoy a kind of access to policymakers that is far beyond what an average individual enjoys. She argues that this is contrary to the spirit of democracy and basic political equality and poses a real problem to confront even if it is somewhat overstated by the “oligarchy” frame.

I want to insist on a few distinctions. For starters, Page and Gilens use a fairly broad definition of the wealthy — the top 10 percent of households — to generate their finding that the rich almost always get their way in politics. That’s an interesting fact about inequality, but it’s not the same as an oligarchy. Subsequent critics have also found that one major reason that rich people’s preferences tend to prevail is that in the vast majority of cases, rich people and the middle class have the same preferences. In cases where they differ, the rich win about 53 percent of the time. This, again, looks more like a modest skew than an oligarchy.

The left, I think, also significantly misstates the basic dynamics. The executives of big businesses get privileged access to policymakers not just because of campaign cash but because they are objectively very important. If there’s an automobile factory in your district, it matters a lot to you whether that factory expands or closes or stays the same, and of course you’re going to take a call from the person making that decision. Big business carries political weight even in countries with radically different political systems. And lots of donor influence operates by pulling Democrats to the left. It’s donors, much more than rank-and-file voters, who demand aggressive climate policies and cultural liberalism that alienate rank-and-file voters. In Obama’s second term and Trump’s first term, Mark Zuckerberg was a major donor to criminal justice and immigration reform causes. Self-financing politicians who spend a lot of money — whether moderates like Mike Bloomberg in the 2020 presidential race or leftists like Tom Steyer — lose all the time. Money matters, but not in the way critics of oligarchy think.

Jerusalem and I get into all of it on this week’s episode. Watch or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

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I grew up in New York City in the 1980s and 1990s. Specifically, I grew up in Greenwich Village. My dad was a novelist, and my mom was a graphic designer and an artist. Lots of their friends were eccentric Village artists and intellectuals.

In that milieu, Jane Jacobs was an icon. She saved the Village from Robert Moses and also explained what made dense urban neighborhoods great. So I knew all about her and her work, but I never actually read any of it. After all, I knew what it said and I knew why she was amazing and I also knew why, from a modern YIMBY perspective, one would criticize her for being too enthusiastic about localism and historic preservation.

And then for the podcast I actually read her magnum opus, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” and was surprised by how much I hated it.

Large swaths of the book are casual sociology of Greenwich Village that strike me as borderline fraudulent — she doesn’t so much as mention that it’s a center of gay life, which it very much was even back in the period she’s discussing. The bohemian character of the neighborhood isn’t even alluded to. When she mentions the low levels of street crime in Boston’s North End she doesn’t mention the mafia influence in midcentury Italian ethnic enclaves. The other two neighborhoods she discusses at length, Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia and Back of the Yards in Chicago, I am much less familiar with. But the presence of these glaring errors really makes me wonder.

She also seems to have no idea how to distinguish cause from effect. She names some neighborhoods she likes and then attributes their good qualities to seemingly arbitrary aspects of the built environment. It’s true that the Village has very short blocks, for example. But is that really why it’s great? What about Eixample in Barcelona? She expresses a lot of confidence that Chelsea will never gentrify due to long blocks, but — oops!

Jerusalem, who like most Americans grew up in the suburbs, has a kinder estimate. To her, it matters that Jacobs unlocks urbanism and explains why even in the automobile age cities and great urban neighborhoods matter. And I have to admit that my take in “Against Urban Planning” aligns with a lot of Jacobs’s points. Jerusalem and I both enjoyed Jacobs’s skepticism about parks and her appreciation of a certain amount of urban crowding and happenstance. We also both agree that Jacobs’s grasp of economics is weak. She’s very down on boring office-cluster districts, which is fair on one level, but seems to yadda yadda past the reality that these are core pillars of the urban economy. The idea of agglomeration doesn’t appear in the book.

I’m ultimately a harsher critic. I think that in this urbanism without economics, Jacobs ends up repeating the exact hubris that she rightly pins on the Garden City, Radiant City, and City Beautiful movements. She appreciates the qualities of certain classic urban neighborhoods but has no real idea how you build more of them or what kinds of neighborhoods could be built under modern conditions. You can’t understand from this book how a contemporary city such as Austin or Singapore might happen or why Philadelphia continues to decline even though everyone who visits thinks it’s great.

Jerusalem and I get into all of it on this week’s episode. Watch or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Paid subscribers can watch the ad-free embedded video at the top of this post and read the full transcript below.

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New episodes post every Thursday.

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In this week’s episode of The Argument, Jerusalem Demsas just wants to buy a car and is mad as hell that the American government has de facto banned imports of the Chinese electric vehicles that are setting world markets on fire.

I am annoyed that the climate movement, which is constantly imposing politically and economically destructive ideas on the Democratic Party, is not instead focused on this pro-growth means of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. But beyond my petty personal resentments and feuds, I don’t actually think that emissions reductions are important enough to supersede the genuine national-security concerns about completely gutting America’s manufacturing capacity and generating an overwhelming dependence on Chinese supply chains.

Jerusalem counters that a serious policy of strategic competition with China would be one thing, but the actual policy of the United States looks a lot more like rank protectionism than a smart approach to global trade featuring openness with allies and neutral countries.

But if our politicians were actually serious about countering China rather than placating special interests, they would be more open to policies like friendshoring — a trade strategy where we import from countries with a friendlier disposition toward the U.S. That never seems to be a serious part of the conversation, however. Especially under Trump, our most hawkish president on China.

On some level, maybe Jerusalem and I are not disagreeing so much. At least I think we are close to a consensus on what we would do if we got to jointly run the country. But in a world of complicated coalitions, political tradeoffs, and second-best alternatives to ideal policy, she’s inclined to open the floodgates and I’m happier holding off. I also drive a Volvo plug-in hybrid, which, though manufactured in Sweden, in fact comes from a company owned by China’s Geely Group and is thus the closest thing one can actually purchase to a Chinese EV, so perhaps I am a huge hypocrite. But I would argue that the existence of Volvo manufacturing facilities in Europe and the American South underscores that trade barriers plus openness to investment can help diffuse Chinese technology while preserving Western manufacturing capacity.

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Spirit Airlines is dead, and the right, true to form, is blaming Joe Biden.

But the proximate cause is very clear: The war with Iran spiked jet fuel costs, and the already-battered airline couldn’t absorb the hit to its bottom line. Spirit also had fundamental problems — a Pratt & Whitney engine recall that grounded a huge share of its fleet, legacy carriers copying its unbundled-fare model and capturing some of its customer base. The odds are good, in fact, that if JetBlue had purchased Spirit the combined airline would be bankrupt today. In a pure business sense, Biden probably did the industry a favor.

As an antitrust analysis, though, the fact that Spirit went bust calls into question the idea that the airline industry is uncompetitive and full of monopolies that need busting.

Members of the neo-Brandeisian movement, however, are undeterred. Which is what I think makes this episode such a useful skeleton key for understanding what this movement is really about — not fighting monopolies or promoting competition, but promoting a return to an economy with a much higher level of central planning and state control. In the latest episode, Jerusalem and I talk through the specific circumstances of Spirit’s failure and the debates around the JetBlue merger. But I also don a literal tinfoil hat to discuss the real history of the “anti-monopoly” movement and its goals.

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Time stamps:

0:00-Spirit Airlines is dead

7:07-The blocked JetBlue merger

14:54-1960s airline nostalgia

21:12-Matt’s tinfoil hat theory

26:29-Pre-Carter airline monopolies

35:26-The dawn of deregulation

47:17-Anti-monopolists want less competition

54:19-America’s protectionist policies

58:22-Peer review: Marriage and gender-coded purchases

Corrections:

* At 0:55:00, Jerusalem says the EU began creating its single aviation market starting in 1992 and going through 1997. While the full package of legislation did take effect in 1997, the first legislative package was passed in 1987.

* At 0:55:24, Jerusalem says that the five largest European aircraft control 45% of the European market while the four largest U.S. aircraft control 80% of the U.S. market. Those figures were accurate, but slightly more recent analysis shows the markets have shifted somewhat. A 2018 analysis showed the four largest European airlines controlled 40% of the EU market, while a 2025 analysis showed the four largest U.S. airlines controlled 74% of the U.S. market.

Show Notes:

* Coverage of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil and natural gas travel, being closed since Feb. 28: Brookings article, CBS News article

* Coverage of jet fuel composing 20% to 30% of airlines’ costs: OpenAirlines article, Seeking Alpha article, IATA article

* Coverage of Spirit attempting Chapter 11 bankruptcies to save itself before shutting down under Chapter seven: Law.com article, OAG article, Las Vegas Sun article

* Coverage of Spirit blaming rising fuel costs in bankruptcy filing: AirlineGeeks article, Time article

* Podcast hosted by conservative comedians Stu Burguiere and Dave Landau that blamed Spirit’s failure on the Biden administration’s decision to block Spirit and JetBlue’s merger: BlazeTV podcast episode

* Coverage of Transportation Sec. Sean Duffy blaming Spirit’s failure on the Biden administration’s decision to block Spirit and JetBlue’s merger: Fox News article, ABC7 article

* Coverage of JetBlue losing money: Reuters article, Quartz article, The New York Times article

* Coverage of Pratt & Whitney’s recall of its geared turbofan engine, which impacted more Spirit aircraft than all other airlines combined: Simple Flying article, FlightGlobal article

* Coverage of Spirit receiving over $150 million in compensation from Pratt & Whitney due to recall: Aerospace Global News article

* Coverage of a Reagan-era judge blocking JetBlue’s merger with Spirit Airlines after President Biden’s DOJ sued to stop it: AP article, CNBC article

* Coverage of Spirit boosting premium offerings after its merger was blocked: Reuters article, Upgraded Points article, Spirit Airlines release

* Coverage of Delta president grudgingly introducing Basic Economy fares to compete with Spirit, even though “People don’t really want the product when they see exactly what it is.”: Conde Nast Traveler article, CNBC article, AJC article

* Photos shown depicting 1960s and 1970s air travel: Getty image, Getty image

* Coverage of plans at low-cost European airlines, including Ryanair, to offer short flights with small, vertical, stool-like seats that resemble leaning more than sitting. Prices for these flights could be as low as five Euros: EuroWeekly News article, Thrillist article

* Coverage of 1978 airline deregulation changes, initially under Jimmy Carter: Journal of Transport Geography article, Air and Space Museum article, EBSCO article

* Coverage of Trump Shuttle’s operations and failure: The Washington Post article, AeroTime article

* “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox,” article by Lina Khan on Amazon’s e-commerce domination: The Yale Law Journal article

* “Terminal Sickness,” article by Phillip Longman and Lina Khan attacking airline deregulation: Washington Monthly article

* “Why Flying Is Miserable: And How to Fix It,” book by Ganesh Sitaraman arguing that airline deregulation was a mistake: Goodreads page, Amazon page

* “The Anti-Bigness Ideology,” article by Matt Bruenig about why bigness isn’t a huge concern for his socialist ideology: Mattbruenig.com article

* Federal Aviation Report of 1935, which defended the lack of competition created by strict airline regulations, saying “To allow half a dozen air lines to eke out a hand-to-mouth existence where there is enough traffic to support one really first-class service and one alone would be a piece of folly.”: Govinfo page

* Article profiling former Sec. Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s conversion to the anti-monopoly cause: Politico article

* “How Airline Markets Work… or Do They? Regulatory Reform in the Airline Industry,” paper by Severin Borenstein and Nancy L. Rose arguing that the price volatility in airlines can be explained by normal macroeconomic conditions: NBER chapter

* Abundance, book by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson: Goodreads page, Amazon page

* “Airline Deregulation, Revisited,” essay by former Justice Stephen Breyer expressing regret about the effect airline deregulation had on workers: Bloomberg Businessweek article

* History of the United Fruit Company’s actions in Latin America: Harvard Review of Latin America article, Retrospect Journal article, The World article

* “Why airlines are always going bankrupt,” article by David Oks about competition in the airline industry: David Oks article

* “We Fly Congress: Market Actions as Corporate Political Activity in the U.S. Airline Industry,” Temple University study showing airlines increase flights to districts where members of Congressional transportation committees live: Organization Science article

* “The Secret to Reindustrializing America Is Not Tax Cuts and Tariffs. It’s Regulated Competition,” 2025 article by Phillip Longman, cited by Matt: Washington Monthly article

* Red Plenty, book by Francis Spufford about communist abundance: Goodreads page, Amazon page

* 49 USC § 40102(a)(15), U.S. law that states domestic airlines must have 75% of voting stock and a majority of equity owned by U.S. citizens: GovInfo U.S. code

* Fact sheet on EU air transport rules to form a single aviation market, which began in 1987 and were implemented through 1997: EU fact sheet

* 2015 analysis showing the five largest European airlines (Ryanaid, EasyJet, Lufthansa, Air France-KLM, and IAG) control 45% of the European market: European Commission page

* Slightly more recent analysis (2018) showing that the four largest European airlines (Ryanair, Lufthansa, Air France-KLM, and IAG) control 40% of the European market: Global Finance article

* 2025 analysis showing the four largest U.S. airlines (United, American, Delta, and Southwest) control about 74% of the U.S. market: Spherical Insights analysis

* “Do Airlines in Chapter 11 harm their rivals?: Bankruptcy and pricing behavior in U.S. airline markets,” paper by Severin Borenstein and Nancy Rose showing that bankruptcies can cause prices to dip briefly: NBER working paper

* Peer review: “Gender-Specific Economic Shocks and Household Bargaining Power,” paper by Rania Gihleb, Osea Giuntella, and Dor Morag: NBER working paper

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Jerusalem and I had an idea. What if we went back and read a classic, massively influential, widely discussed political book that neither of us had actually read? The kind of book that we suspect lots of people mention frequently without having actually read.

Our first choice was Betty Friedan’s 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, the work that more than any other defines second-wave feminism.

When we actually cracked it open, we found that the broad outlines track with the popular understanding. Friedan argues that the American postwar housewife is bored and miserable, afflicted with “the problem that has no name,” and that the solution is for women to put down their mops and embrace professional ambition. She blames women’s magazines, college presidents, and pop culture for cultivating a “mystique” that encourages women to seek fulfillment solely as mothers and homemakers.

But the book is also in critical respects stranger than I was anticipating. Friedan goes on at enormous length about Freudian psychoanalysis, which she sees as exerting a massive negative influence over postwar American society. She compares suburban housewives to concentration camp victims. She blames the feminine mystique for creating a plague of what would today be called “helicopter parenting” and says that overbearing mothers are turning their sons gay. She claims that American prisoners of war in Korea died at higher rates than their World War II-era predecessors because they were coddled by 1950s housewives.

And yet, for all that some of the later chapters seem deranged, this is a book that on another level very clearly achieved the bulk of what its author wanted: Today’s college-educated women have professional careers, and even the cranks who think that’s bad shy away from calling for the re-imposition of the regressive norms and structures that Friedan fought against.

One thing Jerusalem and I debate is Friedan’s fairly anti-materialist take on these social trends. She argues that cultural tastemakers are the creators of the mystique and that it will be dismantled by changing the content of cultural products. I’m a little skeptical, offering a more Marx-inflected view that puts material and technological changes in the driver’s seat, while Jerusalem is more Hegelian. We also chew over the book’s frank and overt non-intersectionality. Friedan is interested in a relatively affluent minority of women who have elite educational credentials and makes no apology for it.

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Transcript:

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Donald Trump practices a form of foreign policy without much in the way of high ideals. He’s nakedly transactional, speaks openly of stealing other countries’ oil, and has no time for the promotion of democracy or human rights around the world.

He’s a terrible president, but I kind of appreciate his frank casting of world affairs in national interest terms. It makes it straightforward to evaluate a question like: is the ongoing war with Iran serving the interests of the American people, or is it not?

My cohost Jerusalem Demsas says she misses liberal hypocrisy in world affairs. Her argument is that the upside of high standards, even if you don’t meet them, is that hopefully you try to hold yourself to them sometimes.

Soviet propaganda during the Cold War highlighted the contradiction between America’s stated liberal ideals of freedom and equality on the international stage and the reality of Jim Crow at home. This in turn helped set the stage for the Civil Rights Movement. She argues that even though American intervention abroad has been a mixed bag, it would be a mistake to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and the Trumpian turn has only exacerbated the worst aspects of American foreign policy.

I counter that it let’s us think more clearly about the real stakes of American military force and be realistic with ourselves about Americans’ very limited willingness to be genuinely motivated by concern for foreigners.

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Show notes:

* “Missing liberal hypocrisy,” Jerusalem’s article on foreign policy ideals that Matt reacted to: The Argument article

* Coverage of the United Arab Emirates funding militia groups in Sudan: The Guardian article, Council on Foreign Relations post

* Coverage of U.S. supporting Ethiopia as a Cold War ally instead of supporting Eritreans’ right of self-determination: Britannica page, UCLA article

* Coverage of British intervention of Sierra Leone: The Guardian article, DTIC case study

* Coverage of Kenya training Haitian police officers: NPR report, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime analysis

* Coverage of Brazilian efforts to train Haitian police officers: The Rio Times article

* Oregon bill preempting Portland and other municipalities from enforcing affordable housing requirements on developers in many cases: Oregon State Legislature overview

* Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy, book by Mary Dudziak about how U.S. self-interest aligned with its ideals during the Civil Rights Movement: Goodreads page

* Coverage of money being spent on global public health programs after USAID was shuttered: The New York Times article

* Coverage of Libyan intervention costing over $1 billion: Council on Foreign Relations article, CNN article

* Why Nations Fail, book by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson arguing that there are critical junctures in time where a country develops extractive or inclusive institutions: Goodreads page

* Peer review: “Easy A’s, Less Pay: The Long-Term Effects of Grade Inflation,” study by Jeffrey T. Denning, Rachel L. Nesbit, Nolan G. Pope, and Merrill Warnick: NBER working paper

* Coverage of Harvard limiting the number of A grades teachers can distribute: The Harvard Gazette article, Harvard Magazine article, Inside Higher Ed article

(Illustration by The Argument, image by XNY/Star Max via Getty)

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One nice thing about podcasting is that you can talk through ideas that seem important but where your own thoughts are a bit unsettled.

Jerusalem thinks the internet would probably be better if everyone had to use their real names. I don’t want to engage in apologetics for the actually existing internet or for the average quality of the anonymous poste…

The Supreme Court formally rejected affirmative action in college admissions in the 2023 case of Students for Fair Admissions vs Harvard, but the legal case did not resolve the larger dispute in American society or necessarily end schools’ efforts to manipulate the ethnic composition of their classes.

New research from David Broockman and Josh Kalla indicates that moving to the center on this topic is the single most potent thing that Democrats can do to improve their electoral standing, and the second-best issue they found was on the closely related topic of racial targeting of small business assistance. I covered the research in a recent New York Times op-ed and, of course, have many times made the case for a pragmatic move to the center.

But people also care about the substance and the merits of the issue, not just the politics, so Jerusalem Demsas and I debated it for the debut episode of our new Podcast.

“In a basic way,” I argue in the episode, “it is not a good idea to be slotting people into racial and ethnic categories and judging them on that basis. It’s not fair to people, and it’s not healthy for society.”

Jerusalem takes the other side, making the case that nobody has a moral right to slots at specific colleges and that representation at elite school has important downstream consequences for society at large.

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Further reading:

“Diversifying Society’s Leaders? The Determinants and Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges” by Raj Chetty, David J. Deming, and John N. Friedman

“Breaking Systemic Barriers: Being Black in the Aquatic Sciences and Related Fields” by Lauren Pharr

“Smartphones, Online Music Streaming, and Traffic Fatalities” by Vishal R. Patel, Christopher M. Worsham, Michael Liu, and Anupam B. Jena

Corrections:

* At 0:05:36, Matt says “LSAT flunk rates” when he means “bar exam flunk rates.”

* At 0:07:06, Jerusalem says “data from Sander’s” when she means “data from Sander’s critics.”

* At 0:18:46, Jerusalem says Raj Chetty’s data shows that attending an elite school “doubles” the likelihood of reaching the top income quintile when she means “increases by 50%.”

Show notes:

* Research showing Black patients have better health outcomes in areas with more Black doctors: JAMA Network Open study, JAMA Network Open study

* Research showing Black doctors are more likely to choose primary care specialties than their white counterparts: Journal of the National Medical Association study, Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) study

* Coverage of U.S. shortage of primary care doctors: Harvard Health Publishing article, AAMC study

* Research showing the presence of Black judges on a federal appellate panel changes behavior of their non-Black colleagues: Princeton study, Crime & Delinquency study

* Research on India’s caste-based reservation system: International Journal of Law study

* Research showing presence of female legislators in India makes female constituents’ concerns more likely to be heard: Cambridge University Press study

* Research showing this increases water and road infrastructure: Econometrica study

* Research on mismatch effect in law schools: Journal of College and University Law article, ABA Journal article, Journal of Legal Education article

* Research on selective school enrollment only having a significant effect on lifetime earnings if the student comes from a disadvantaged background: National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, National Bureau of Economic Research working paper

* Coverage of decrease in professional diversity after California’s affirmative action law was struck down: NPR article, Berkeley Law study, Industrial and Labor Relations Review study

* Coverage of Elizabeth Warren taking a DNA test to demonstrate Native American ancestry and subsequently apologizing The New York Times article, The Washington Post article, NPR article

* Raj Chetty, David Deming, and John Friedman research showing large effects of attending elite schools: NBER working paper

* Coverage of future-President Obama saying his daughters didn’t need affirmative action assistance: Politico article, The Seattle Times opinion article, The New York Times article

* Coverage of President Clinton campaigning on a promise to “mend not end” affirmative action: The New York Times article, The Baltimore Sun article

* Coverage of Harvard admissions discriminating against Asian Americans: European Economic Review article, Harvard Law Review article

* Article by Judge Glock describing how firms promote minority leaders in order to obtain contracts set aside for “disadvantaged” companies: City Journal article

* Coverage of men getting an advantage in college admissions because of gender imbalances: The New York Times Magazine article, New York Post article

* 2021 argument that marine biology needed more diversity: Coastwatch magazine article

* Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? by Martin Luther King, Jr.

* Coverage of affirmative action gaining momentum during Kennedy and LBJ administrations: UCI Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity brief

* Books by Richard Kahlenberg on affirmative action:

* The Remedy: Class, Race, And Affirmative Action, 1996: Goodreads page

* Class Matters: The Fight to Get Beyond Race Preferences, Reduce Inequality, and Build Real Diversity at America’s Colleges, 2025: Goodreads page

* Coverage of Texas’ “Top 10% Rule,” which initially stated that anyone in the top 10% of their high school class was automatically admitted to UT Austin. The rule has since been amended to the top 6% being admitted to UT Austin: UT News article, Texas Comptroller program page

* Peer ReviewTM study: “Smartphones, Online Music Streaming, and Traffic Fatalities,” by Vishal R. Patel, Christopher M. Worsham, Michael Liu & Anupam B. Jena: NBER working paper

* Public opinion data on self-driving cars: The Argument polling, Pew Research Center polling, Brookings article

* Coverage of voice-activated devices proving distracting for drivers: AAA study, ABC News article

(Illustration by The Argument, image by Harvard University)

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Starting next Thursday, April 9, I’m going to be doing a brand new podcast with my friend Jerusalem Demsas.

It’s called The Argument — like the magazine, The Argument — and we’re going to argue about some stuff. Is affirmative action a good idea? Should we miss the hypocrisy of liberal idealism in foreign policy? Should we get rid of anonymity on the internet? And much more.

Jerusalem and I overlapped on The Weeds together all-too-briefly, and we wanted to launch a show somewhat in that spirit. It will be a place for people who are interested in the nitty-gritty without the typical screaming matches or softball interviews. Each week, one host argues a distinctive point of view — armed with facts and research, not just pundit bluster — and then we hash it out.

Watch the trailer and get excited for new episodes starting April 9. You can find us on Substack, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts.

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I was still semi-addled with an MLK Weekend case of the flu this afternoon when I recorded with Nate Silver about what has and hasn’t surprised us so far in the Trump administration. So it’s possible that my points do not make any sense.

But I think I was reasonably cogent, and I definitely agree with where Nate left us at the end which is that Trump seems to be doing more potentially irreparable harm than I’d have felt comfortable predicting. The resistance libs definitely have not been “right about everything” but they’ve been right about that and that’s important.

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