What does it look like to grow up in a city running power cords between neighbors' houses just to stay warm — and then spend your career trying to rebuild that ethic everywhere else?

Fred Riley is the Executive Director of Weave: The Social Fabric Project at the Aspen Institute, where he leads a national effort to fund, highlight, and connect the grassroots leaders who are stitching communities back together. Fred grew up in Saginaw, Michigan, shaped by a mother who "kneaded the dough" of her kids like bread — and by teachers, pastors, and neighbors who saw something worth nurturing. That formation is the whole story of why Weave exists, and why Fred is the right person running it.

This conversation goes deep: from the Baltimore neighborhood that got a symphony performance because one woman cleaned out a vacant lot, to the moment Fred lived for months with his boxes packed — because he wasn't planning to stay. And somehow it circles back to why, at the end of the day, the most radical thing any of us can do is knock on a neighbor's door.

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Key Takeaways

About Our Guest

Fred Riley is the Executive Director of Weave: The Social Fabric Project at the Aspen Institute. He previously served as Chief Advancement Officer for the YMCA of Greater Cincinnati and built his career in youth development and community organizing. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Links and Resources

Fred Riley / Weave

Corey is @coreysnathan on all the socials…

Thanks to Pew Research Center for making today’s conversation possible.

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Proud members of The Democracy Group

Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room.

What do you actually mean when you say the Pledge of Allegiance? And are you still willing to mean it?

For years, Corey stood in silence during the Pledge of Allegiance, troubled by what looked too much like idol worship. Then something shifted. Reading the words instead of performing them, he realized the pledge was never about the flag or the man holding the office. It was about the republic for which it stands. In a moment when that republic is under genuine pressure, this episode is about the difference between supporting a policy and cheering the dismantling of the constitutional constraints that govern how it gets carried out. Those are not the same thing, and the confusion between them is where democracies go wrong.

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Key Takeaways

Republic, Not Ruler: The Pledge of Allegiance is a pledge to a constitutional order, not to a flag, a party, or a person. Reading those words carefully changes everything about what it means to say them.

Policy vs. Method: You can support stronger border enforcement and still insist on due process. You can back economic protectionism and still insist Congress holds the commerce power. Supporting a goal is not a blank check for any method of achieving it.

Article I Is Not Ambiguous: The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to declare war and regulate commerce with foreign nations. This isn't interpretation. It's the plain text, and conservative and liberal scholars alike have been raising the alarm for years.

The Gap Is Real: Trump won with just under 51% of the vote. His approval is now below 40%. That gap consists of real people who voted for a sane border policy and lower grocery prices, and are now watching something different. They are not the same people as those applauding masked agents conducting raids with minimal judicial oversight.

Authoritarianism Begins with Exceptions: It doesn't begin with troops in the streets. It begins when citizens decide constitutional limits are optional when the right person is in charge. That logic, extended to the next administration, is what's actually on the table.

Jonathan Rauch Said the Word: One of the most careful, fair-minded political thinkers in America, someone who literally wrote the book defending free inquiry from both the left and the right, used the word "fascism" for the first time after concluding the resemblances had become too many and too strong to deny. The question isn't whether he went too far. The question is why so many others are still hesitating.

A Declaration, Not a Reflex: What was once a civic ritual has become something else. Saying those words in a moment when the republic is under pressure is not nationalism. It's resistance.

Links and Resources

David French (referenced)

Jonathan Rauch (referenced)

Justice Neil Gorsuch (referenced)

Connect with Us

Corey is @coreysnathan on all the socials…

Thanks to Pew Research Center for making today’s conversation possible.

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Proud members of The Democracy Group

Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room.

What does it look like to spend 25 years covering a story you wish you could stop covering — and still refuse to despair?

Gustavo Arellano is an LA Times columnist, Pulitzer Prize finalist, and the son of two Mexican immigrants. In this conversation he covers the Trump deportation machine, Rancho Libertarianism, why Americans hate Mexicans but love Mexican food, and what it actually looks like to stay in relationship across political difference.

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Gustavo Arellano is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and the author of Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. He was a finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in commentary and part of the team that won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in breaking news. The son of two Mexican immigrants, he has covered immigration, Latino politics, and the American Southwest for 25 years.

Gustavo Arellano

“Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)” (referenced at 00:26:00)

Woody Guthrie’s song about the 1948 crash that killed 28 Mexican farmworkers. ICE’s January 2025 post calling the victims “illegal Mexican aliens” is what sent Gustavo to write about it.

Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam (referenced at 00:57:00)

On declining social capital. Gustavo’s prescription: join things, meet people, touch grass.

Born in East LA (1987, referenced at 00:15:00)

Cheech Marin’s satirical classic. Gustavo’s conversation about it with David Chang is what put it on Corey’s radar.

Corey is @coreysnathan on all the socials…

Thanks to Pew Research Center for making today’s conversation possible.

Links and additional resources:

Proud members of The Democracy Group

Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room.

What does it cost a person to go unseen? And what does it ask of us to truly see one another?

In this solo reflection, Corey Nathan explores the moral weight of being seen and the deliberate cruelty of being made invisible. From Marilynne Robinson's Lila to Muhammad Ali's thundering "What's my name?" to Mother Teresa's gaze upon the discarded, this episode traces a thread that runs through literature, history, jazz, and the headlines of this particular moment.

When Attorney General Pam Bondi turned her back on Jeffrey Epstein's survivors, when federal agents hide behind masks while the faces of those they detain are photographed and published, when a president plasters his name above John F. Kennedy's, these are not isolated incidents. They are a pattern. And naming that pattern is where the work begins.

What would it mean to choose differently? To look at one another the way John Ames looked at Lila? To call each other by our own names?

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What This Episode Explores

The Need to Be Seen

To be seen — truly seen, not used or categorized or erased — is both what we most need and what can make us most exposed. Marilynne Robinson's Lila captures this with devastating precision: the way genuine recognition can feel terrifying to someone who has only ever been seen as a body to be used.

When Power Weaponizes Invisibility

Pam Bondi sat before Congress with her back to Jeffrey Epstein's survivors. Federal agents conceal their identities behind masks while those they detain are pictured and named. Those killed in lethal operations are reduced to labels. The pattern Colonel David Lapan identified is not accidental: those with power choose who remains invisible and who is exposed.

What's My Name

Muhammad Ali didn't just fight Ernie Terrell in 1967. He demanded to be known on his own terms, not by a name others had assigned him. The jazz musicians of the 1940s did the same thing, quietly and subversively, by calling each other "man" in a culture that called Black men "boy." To name someone is to acknowledge their humanity.

The Counterexamples

From Mother Teresa to David Brooks to Vaclav Havel, this episode draws on voices who understood what it means to see and be seen, as well as why that capacity is never merely symbolic. It is the foundation of moral culture.

The Challenge to the Church

As a Christian, Corey wrestles honestly with a hard number: more than two-thirds of white evangelicals continue to support an administration whose record on human dignity, as described in this episode, is difficult to square with the gospel.

What We Can Choose

None of us can single-handedly reshape national politics. But we can choose how we see each other. We can turn around and see those this administration will not.

Why This Matters Now

The daily acts of seeing, naming, and beholding are not symbolic gestures. They are the building blocks of moral culture. And when those in authority systematically exploit the need to be seen or weaponize anonymity to strip others of their humanity, the response can't only be political. It has to be personal.

As Jesse Jackson shared with a group of children on Sesame Street: I am... somebody.

Corey is @coreysnathan on all the socials...

Thanks to Pew Research Center for making today’s conversation possible.

Links and additional resources:

Pew Research Center: pewresearch.org

Meza Wealth Management: mezawealth.com

Proud members of The Democracy Group

Final Thought

The world will not always look at you the way you deserve to be seen.

But you can choose to look that way at others.

Now go talk some politics and religion. And step forward. With gentleness and respect.

How do we rebuild the social fabric of our neighborhoods and congregations in an age of disconnection and division?

In this episode, Pastor Amy Schenkel joins Corey to talk about what it means to be a "weaver" in your own community. From a front-yard picnic table that became a neighborhood gathering place to decades of church planting in downtown Grand Rapids, Amy brings a grounded, practical theology of neighboring that cuts across political and religious lines. Along the way, she and Corey explore the difference between curiosity and contentiousness, how congregations survive painful splits, and why "mission" might be the one thing that unites people who agree on very little else.

Amy is a pastor and ministries coordinator at Neland Avenue Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and a regional mission leader who has also served as North American and U.S. Director of Resonate Global Mission. She's a trained missiologist, a church planting veteran, and a certified speaker with the Weave Speakers Bureau.

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Key Takeaways

About Our Guest

Pastor Amy Schenkel is a pastor and ministries coordinator at Neland Avenue Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she works to help one congregation connect more deeply with its neighborhood. A graduate of Calvin University and Calvin Theological Seminary, Amy was among the first women ordained in her classis within her denomination.

Amy served for years with Resonate Global Mission, including as U.S. and North American Director, overseeing church planting and local mission engagement across the continent. Her work has always centered on a question at the heart of reformed missiology: how do ordinary people, in ordinary vocations, become agents of renewal in their communities?

She and her husband Henry church-planted together in downtown Grand Rapids starting around 2000, learning early that a faith community rooted in a neighborhood has to think beyond Sunday mornings. Today she brings that same missional imagination to her work with individual congregations and with Weave: The Social Fabric Project, where she is a certified speaker available to address both secular and faith-based audiences.

Links and Resources

Weave: The Social Fabric Project

The Colossian Forum (recommended by Amy for congregations navigating conflict)

Lisa Sharon Harper (referenced in conversation)

Amy Schenkel

Corey is @coreysnathan on all the socials...

Thanks to Pew Research Center for making today’s conversation possible.

Links and additional resources:

Pew Research Center: pewresearch.org

The Village Square: villagesquare.us

Meza Wealth Management: mezawealth.com

Proud members of The Democracy Group

Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room.

From time to time, it helps to talk about something other than politics in order to understand politics.

Sports is one of the last shared civic spaces where identity, loyalty, disagreement, trash talk, and even tribalism can play out without destroying relationships. In other words, many of the same human instincts we explore on Talkin’ Politics & Religion Without Killin’ Each Other show up in a baseball season just as clearly as they do in an election season.

So today’s episode comes from another show in the SCAN Media family, East Meets West Sports, co-hosted with veteran broadcaster Rick Garcia. Same curiosity about why people care so deeply about what they care about. Just with box scores instead of polling numbers.

If it’s your thing, great. If not, regular TP&R programming resumes next episode.

Talkin’ Politics & Religion Without Killin’ Each Other is proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what is broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

And thank you to Pew Research Center (pewresearch.org) for helping make conversations like this possible.

Rick Garcia and Corey Nathan kick off baseball season with a deep dive into the offseason moves that have everyone talking and at least one list that has Corey fuming about West Coast bias.

They break down the Dodgers' superteam additions of Edwin Diaz and Kyle Tucker, the Mets' stacked roster and farm system, and why teams like Pittsburgh can scout great talent but can't hold onto it. They also get into the salary cap debate, Steve Cohen's "no captain" declaration, and whether meddling owners ever really help their teams.

And in Pop That Culture, they tackle the biggest controversy heading into the Winter Olympics: Norway's ski jumping suits, a crotch-area aerodynamics scandal that has to be heard to be believed.

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube

Follow Rick Garcia: @RickGarciaNews on X (Twitter)

Follow Corey Nathan: @coreysnathan on Substack, Threads, Instagram, X & more

Yahoo Sports graded the Dodgers' offseason an A+, and it's hard to argue. Adding Edwin Diaz from the Mets and Kyle Tucker as a free agent gives them arguably the deepest roster in the game (even if Tucker now ranks as maybe the seventh-best player on his own team).

Two surefire Hall of Famers in Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto, a legit ace in Freddie Peralta, a deep rotation, improved defense up the middle, and a top-five farm system, even after trading prospects. Rookie of the Year candidate Nolan McLean headlines a wave of young talent coming up. Corey believes. Rick is... skeptical.

A MLB.com ranking of teams that improved most this offseason had the Giants and Rockies ahead of the Mets. The Rockies! Corey had thoughts. Many thoughts. The list is based on "projected WAR," which only raises more questions.

Pittsburgh has one of the best farm systems in baseball, including the top overall prospect, but keeps developing players for wealthier teams to sign away. Rick and Corey agree the game needs a salary floor, not just a luxury tax, to force lower-payroll owners to actually invest in their teams.

The Mets owner drew headlines by declaring there will never be a team captain while he owns the club. Rick's take: that's exactly the kind of call owners shouldn't be making. Corey's take: Cohen is actually a good owner who trusts his front office. And Lindor leads whether he has a C on his jersey or not.

Norway's ski jumping team has been caught altering the crotch area of its suits to gain an aerodynamic edge. The physics actually make sense. A roomier suit creates lift during the V-position jump. Some athletes allegedly went further than just tailoring. Rick and Corey debate whether this is innovative gamesmanship or just cheating. There is only one correct answer. Or maybe two.

The season starts. The arguments never do.

How do we balance free speech, platform accountability, and democratic integrity when technology moves faster than policy?

In this episode, Katie Harbath, the "election whisperer to the tech industry," joins Corey Nathan to discuss the impossible trade-offs facing social media platforms, the evolving landscape of AI and misinformation, and what it means to "panic responsibly" in an era of rapid technological change.

Katie spent a decade at Facebook as a policy director managing elections globally, navigating crises from Cambridge Analytica to the 2020 election. Now as CEO of Anchor Change and Chief Global Affairs Officer at Duco, she helps organizations understand how the internet shapes democracy.

The conversation explores how to use AI ethically in creative work, the challenges of content moderation at scale, why community notes might be better than fact-checking, and how individuals can reclaim agency over their information diets. Katie also shares her personal evolution on free speech, the difference between distribution and moderation, and why the next four years will require all of us to find new ways to ground ourselves.

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Katie Harbath is an award-winning global leader at the intersection of technology, policy, and elections. She spent a decade at Facebook as a Public Policy Director, where she built and led the teams that managed elections globally, navigating some of the platform's most challenging moments.

Today, Katie is the CEO of Anchor Change, a technology consulting firm, and Chief Global Affairs Officer at Duco. Described as the "election whisperer to the tech industry," she helps organizations navigate the complex intersections of technology, democracy, and policy.

Katie is writing a book about her experiences in tech policy and is a sought-after voice on issues of platform governance, content moderation, AI ethics, and the future of democracy in the digital age. She is known for her pragmatic approach to impossible trade-offs and her catchphrase "panic responsibly" when it comes to emerging technologies.

Corey is @coreysnathan on all the socials...

Thanks to Pew Research Center for making today’s conversation possible.

Links and additional resources:

Pew Research Center: pewresearch.org

The Village Square: villagesquare.us

Meza Wealth Management: mezawealth.com

Proud members of The Democracy Group

Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room.

In Davos last month, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney lamented what he called “the end of a pleasant fiction.” That notion has is hard to fathom yet impossible to ignore.

For decades, the United States did not merely wield power. It framed power in moral terms. Legitimacy. Integrity. Rules. Whether we always lived up to those words is one question. Whether we still speak them with credibility is another.

In this solo reflection, Corey Nathan explores what it means when America is no longer the country that lends moral language to the world order, but the country other nations feel compelled to hedge against. From Tocqueville’s warning about democratic withdrawal to Jonathan Rauch’s analysis of patrimonialism, from Lincoln’s humility to the theological posture of the National Prayer Breakfast, this episode wrestles with a turning point.

If the pleasant fiction is over, what replaces it?

✅ If this conversation resonates, consider sharing it with someone who believes connection across difference still matters.

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For generations, American power was framed in moral language. Integrity and legitimacy were not just strategic tools but aspirations. Today, that language lands differently, not as calling card but as indictment.

Drawing on the work of Jonathan Rauch, this episode examines what happens when public power begins to resemble personal property. Loyalty replaces rules. Access depends on fealty. Markets and institutions begin to read the room rather than uphold neutral principles.

A prayer breakfast is meant to orient upward in humility. When reverence bends inward, the shift is not merely stylistic. It is theological.

Democracy’s danger may not arrive as sudden tyranny but as gradual withdrawal. Citizens retreat into private grievance. Moral discipline erodes. Individualism curdles into narcissism.

Nearly every white pastor today believes they would have stood with Martin Luther King Jr. The question is not whether that belief is sincere. The question is whether it would have been true.

The world is already adjusting. Allies hedge. Middle powers collaborate. The question now belongs to citizens, not prime ministers. Withdrawal is understandable. It is not inevitable.

The loss at stake is not only status but trust.

If the pleasant fiction required tending, then its collapse requires responsibility. Renewal, if it comes, will not arrive through taunts or spectacle. It will be decided by habits, by courage, by whether citizens retreat or step forward.

Corey is @coreysnathan on all the socials...

Thanks to Pew Research Center for making today’s conversation possible.

Links and additional resources:

Pew Research Center: pewresearch.org

The Village Square: villagesquare.us

Meza Wealth Management: mezawealth.com

Proud members of The Democracy Group

The question is not who we would like to identify with in the story.

The question is where our words, positions, and actions actually place us.

Go talk some politics and religion.

How do we learn to see one another as human again in a moment shaped by fear, fragmentation, and outrage?

In this episode, photographer, author, and storyteller John Noltner joins Corey Nathan as part of TP&R’s ongoing Weavers series in partnership with Weave: The Social Fabric Project. John’s work spans five continents and centers on a simple but demanding conviction: storytelling and art can help restore trust, dignity, and connection in a divided world.

From Minneapolis in the midst of national attention to the U.S. southern border, Northern Ireland, and beyond, John reflects on what it means to bear witness without exploiting pain, to listen without trying to win, and to practice proximity rather than abstraction. The conversation explores how curiosity can disarm contempt, why relationship must precede disagreement, and what it takes to stay open to human connection without becoming numb to suffering.

✅ If this conversation resonates, consider sharing it with someone who believes connection across difference still matters.

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• Storytelling and art can open space for understanding when facts and arguments fail

John Noltner is an award winning author, photographer, and founder of A Peace of My Mind. His work focuses on peacebuilding, conflict transformation, and human dignity through storytelling. John has produced projects for national publications, Fortune 500 companies, and nonprofit organizations, and his books and exhibitions have been used by communities across the world to foster dialogue and civic trust.

Corey is @coreysnathan on all the socials...

Thanks to Pew Research Center for making today’s conversation possible.

Links and additional resources:

Pew Research Center: pewresearch.org

The Village Square: villagesquare.us

Meza Wealth Management: mezawealth.com

Proud members of The Democracy Group

Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room.

Most people imagine themselves as the ones who would have resisted. The ones who would have spoken up. The ones who would have refused to go along. History tends to tell a different story.

In this episode, Corey Nathan explores how anonymity subtly yet significantly reshapes moral responsibility. Not all at once, and not dramatically, but steadily. What begins as distance or abstraction often ends as permission. Permission to flatten, dismiss, or dehumanize without fully reckoning with the human cost.

This episode serves as a spoken companion to the essay Anonymity and the Collapse of the Thou, tracing how moral imagination thins when people stop encountering one another as full human beings.

✅ If this episode resonates, consider sharing it with someone who might need a reminder that disagreement doesn’t have to mean dehumanization.

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Anonymity as a continuum

From I-Thou to I-It

How dehumanization actually happens

The story we tell ourselves about history

Moral distance and accountability

Why this matters now

Thanks to Pew Research Center for making today’s conversation possible.

Links and additional resources:

Pew Research Center: pewresearch.org

The Village Square: villagesquare.us

Meza Wealth Management: mezawealth.com

Proud members of The Democracy Group

Corey is @coreysnathan on all the socials...

The question is not who we would like to identify with in the story.

Go talk some politics and religion with gentleness and respect.