What does it mean to celebrate America on its 250th anniversary?

The Trump administration’s festivities — from the U.F.C. fight on the White House lawn to the Great American State Fair — have centered American glory and greatness. What has been missing are the Americans who fought to move America closer to its promises. They had to love a country — or at least believe in a country — that often failed them. How did they do it?

Beneath that is a deep question for anyone who loves a country, or even loves another person: How do you love something in its wholeness, amid its imperfections and failures?

One person who is thinking deeply about how to do this is Bryan Stevenson. He’s a civil rights lawyer and the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, which is based in Montgomery, Ala. E.J.I. has created a series of museums and sites in Montgomery that aim to examine America’s history of enslavement, racial violence and segregation, while also uplifting and honoring the people who endured these systems and fought to upend them.

The sites are remarkable to witness, as I found out when I visited Montgomery, and they hold America’s manifold truths in tension with one another — all its horror and beauty, tragedy and triumph, inhumanity and humanity.

I asked Stevenson how he’s thinking about America’s 250th birthday — and what work the country has left to fulfill its vision of liberty and equality for all.

Mentioned:

The Legacy Sites, Equal Justice Initiative

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

The 1619 Project

The 1776 Report

The Apartheid Museum

Book Recommendations:

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Kelsey Lannin. Audio by Jeff Geld and Johnny Simon Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Michelle Harris, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Marion Lozano and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special Thanks to Sonia Kapadia, Tania Cordes, Danielle Carrasquero and the Equal Justice Initiative.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Christopher Rufo is arguably the most successful activist of the MAGA era. He rose to prominence fighting D.E.I. initiatives and critical race theory. In President Trump’s second term, he’s had a huge influence on policy, from Trump’s executive orders against D.E.I. and the attacks on the Department of Education to the ICE and C.B.P. deployments to Minneapolis.

Rufo, helpfully, calls his shots. He has published a guide, “The New Right Activism: A Manifesto for the Counterrevolution,” in which he argued for the value of “agitprop” and counseled that “political life moves on narrative, emotion, scandal, anger, hope, and faith — on irrational, or at least subrational, feelings.” But more recently, in his writing and on the podcast he co-hosts, “Rufo & Lomez,” he seems worried about the new right he has helped build: its attraction to conspiracy theories, its racialist thinking, its internal fissures.

So I wanted to have him on the show to talk about the problems he sees on his side, but also to interrogate whether he may have scored short-term victories while seeding profound long-term problems.

Rufo is a senior fellow and director of the initiative on critical race theory at the Manhattan Institute. He’s a contributing editor of City Journal and the author of “America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything.”

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

“The New Right Activism” by Christopher Rufo

“The Number” by David D. Kirkpatrick

“The unraveling of a cat tale” by Jacqueline Sweet

Book recommendations

Unmasking the Administrative State by John Marini

The Revolutionary by Stacy Schiff

The Managerial Revolution by James Burnham

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Mixing by Pat McCusker, Efim Shapiro, and Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Transcript editing by Kate Wilkinson and Marlaine Glicksman.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A hypervisual, looks-obsessed, wellness-crazed, postliterate society where we’re constantly staring at screens and evaluating one another based on metrics, as the country around us feels like it’s falling apart: That sounds like the world we live in. It’s also the world Gary Shteyngart created in his 2010 novel, “Super Sad True Love Story.”

I’ve been thinking about the book a lot recently, especially with the rise of the “looksmaxxing” influencer Clavicular and the longevity guru Bryan Johnson, and this feeling that people are upset and agitated but grabbing at the wrong things to fix it. It feels uncannily like the experience of living inside Shteyngart’s novel.

But Shteyngart isn’t just a dystopian prophet, he’s also an expert at living well amid the world’s darkness. His forthcoming book, “The Sensualist: Adventures in Pure Pleasure,” is an essay collection about his efforts to do exactly that. So I wanted to have Shteyngart on the show to understand how he predicted so many of the grimmer aspects of our present, but also how we might delight in the world’s “endless buffet of pleasure” in spite of them.

This episode contains strong language.

Note: We’re recording an "Ask Me Anything" episode soon. If you have a question, please email [email protected] using the subject like "AMA." We'd love to hear from you.

Mentioned:

“The End Point Of Viral Content” by Ryan Broderick

“How Jokes Won the Election” by Emily Nussbaum

“A Visit to Seoul Brings Our Writer Face-to-Face With the Future of Robots” by Gary Shteyngart

The Intimate City by Michael Kimmelman

“Don’t Just Take the Slow Road; Design It,” Commencement address at Wesleyan’s 194th Commencement Ceremony, Chris Murphy

Book Recommendations:

Men Like Ours by Bindu Bansinath

A Tender Age by Chang-rae Lee

Motherland by Julia Ioffe

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Mary-Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Attention is working in really unusual ways this election cycle.

Graham Platner, a political unknown a year ago, ended up dominating his Senate primary against Maine’s sitting governor – even as his campaign was rocked by a series of scandals. James Talarico also seemed to come out of nowhere to become the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas. Jon Ossoff has ginned up a ton of excitement as a potential 2028 presidential contender, in part because of his viral videos. Meanwhile, the former reality TV personality Spencer Pratt became a political star on X during his bid to become mayor of Los Angeles and yet failed to make the runoff.

All of this has a lot of lessons for how attention is working right now in American politics. So I wanted to have on my favorite person to talk to on this topic. Chris Hayes is the host of “All In With Chris Hayes” on MS NOW and the author of “The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource.”

Mentioned:

“Donald Trump is going to win the election and democracy will be just fine” by Jared Golden

“We Took AOC to a Deep Red Data Center Town” by More Perfect Union

“America Dissected” by Dr. Abdul El-Sayed

“Can James Talarico Reclaim Christianity for the Left?” with James Talarico, The Ezra Klein Show

“Joe Rogan Experience #2352 - James Talarico” with James Talarico, The Joe Rogan Experience

“Why Everyone Wants Jon Ossoff to Run for President” by Michelle Goldberg

“Obama Suddenly Panicked After Gazing Too Far Into Future” by The Onion

Book Recommendations:

Transcription by Ben Lerner

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

Alan Opts Out by Courtney Maum

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Julie Beer and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker and Aman Sahota. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Democratic Party is in the middle of a rupture over foreign policy – with Israel and Palestine at the center.

In recent weeks, the Democratic senators Brian Schatz and Chris Van Hollen both called for a break with the Biden administration’s policies toward Israel. Schatz said the next administration needs “a whole new crop of foreign policy staffers,” while Van Hollen went further, accusing Biden’s senior decision makers of “complicity.” And Gaza has become a central issue splitting Democrats in primaries around the country. It’s become such a profound fault line, it reminds me of how the Iraq war remade the Democratic Party years ago.

And Democrats face huge foreign policy questions beyond Gaza, too. Trump has taken a wrecking ball to the rules-based order, and the American public has become increasingly cynical about U.S. interventions abroad. Do Democrats want to try to restore what came before Trump? Is that even possible? Or is there a vision for something new?

Matt Duss is at the center of foreign policy thinking on the left. He’s the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, previously served as Senator Bernie Sanders’s foreign policy adviser and is currently advising Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. So I thought he’d be the perfect person to ask: What would a left foreign policy actually look like? What would it try to do in the world?Mentioned:

“The Hard Truth My Party Needs to Face” by Chris Van Hollen

“Democrats Can’t Avoid a Reckoning With Gaza” by Matthew Duss

“Why We Need a Progressive Foreign Policy” by Chris Murphy

“Congressman Jason Crow’s New Vision for American Foreign Policy” by Jason Crow

Book Recommendations:

Crisis of the Common Good by Chris Murphy

From Life Itself by Suzy Hansen

Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Julie Beer and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A new masculinist movement has gone mainstream on the right.

The prominent voices in this movement yearn for an earlier time, when men were men and women were women. Sometimes that time seems to be the 1950s, like when Tucker Carlson extols a world where men go to work and women stay at home. But sometimes it goes way farther back. The pastor Doug Wilson advocates household voting, in which men vote for their wives. And Costin Vlad Alamariu, better known as Bronze Age Pervert, harks back to the Bronze Age — specifically the ancient Hittite and Mitanni Empires.

Helen Lewis wrote a recent cover story for The Atlantic about this new antifeminist backlash, which she calls “the single most important force holding together the American right.” So I wanted to have her on the show to talk about these ideas, the political program of this movement and how seriously we should take it.

Lewis is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of “Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights” and “The Genius Myth.”

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

Difficult Women by Helen Lewis

“What Is the Longhouse?” by L0m3z

The Last Men by Charles Cornish-Dale

Bronze Age Mindset by Bronze Age Pervert

The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama

“The Men — and Boys — Are Not Alright” with Richard Reeves, The Ezra Klein Show

“Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace?” with Helen Andrews and Leah Libresco Sargeant, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

“The Great Feminization” by Helen Andrews

“The Women Leaving the New Right” by Sam Adler-Bell

Book Recommendations:

Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry by B.S. Johnson

Madame de Pompadour by Nancy Mitford

The Genius Factory by David Plotz

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Kyle Grandillo. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Over the past month, there have been two dominant stories in American foreign policy. One, of course, is the war with Iran. The other is the much-anticipated summit between President Trump and Xi Jinping of China. And I think if you look closely at both of these stories, you see that our foreign policy has entered into a period of absolute incoherence.

I’m not even sure what the status of the Iran war is at this point. What is Trump trying to achieve? What is he willing to accept?

Taking a more hawkish approach to China has been a core and consistent principle of Trump’s since his first term. He’s been insistent that China has taken advantage of the United States and that America needed to change that dynamic and flex more power. But is that happening? Is that even Trump’s position anymore?

So I wanted to do an episode looking at China and Iran and trying to assess Trump’s foreign policy in general and the ways he’s remaking what America means on the world stage.

Ian Bremmer is the president and founder of Eurasia Group, a political risk research and consultancy firm, and the global affairs publication GZero. He’s also the author of, among other books, “Every Nation for Itself: What Happens When No One Leads the World.”

Mentioned:

Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam

The J Curve by Ian Bremmer

“The ‘Vibecession’ Is Over. The ‘Permacession’ Is Here.” by Annie Lowrey

“Disney and the Decline of America’s Middle Class” by Daniel Currell

Eurasia Group’s Top Risks for 2026

Book Recommendations:

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

A World Appears by Michael Pollan

The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu and Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon and Isaac Jones. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker and Carole Sabouraud. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

President Trump doesn’t seem to care that much about winning the midterms. He’s more unpopular at this point in his second term than basically any of his modern predecessors. Democrats seem poised to retake the House and have a real chance of retaking the Senate. You might expect a president in that position to pivot to the center, to focus on voters’ top concerns and try to boost the strongest Republicans in key races.

Trump isn’t doing any of that. Instead, he announced a $1.8 billion slush fund to pay out “victims of lawfare,” he threatened to re-escalate the Iran war, and he intervened in Republican primaries in ways that are gifts to Democrats, like endorsing the scandal-plagued Ken Paxton over the incumbent, John Cornyn, in Texas’ Senate race.

Why doesn’t Trump seem to care more about winning?

Liam Donovan is a Republican strategist and a president at Targeted Victory, a Washington public affairs and digital marketing firm. He has worked on the National Republican Senatorial Committee and for Cornyn. In this conversation, we discuss the moves Trump is making, the rough political environment for Republicans and what the paths to Democratic victories look like.

Mentioned:

“Graham Platner Thinks a Political Revolution Is Coming” by The Interview

Thomas Massie interview in The Washington Examiner

Book Recommendations:

The Right by Matthew Continetti

Apple in China by Patrick McGee

The Frackers by Gregory Zuckerman

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Julie Beer and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What are the conditions that enable a country to become great — or great again? The Trump administration — and other right-wing movements in other countries — offers a vision of greatness based on power and domination abroad, and a mix of shared national and religious stories at home. And that vision is clearly appealing to a lot of people. Liberals in the U.S. and elsewhere have been struggling to tell a story that can compete.

What story would Yuval Noah Harari tell? One of the through lines of Harari’s best-selling books — “Sapiens,” “Homo Deus,” “Nexus” — is the huge role that stories play in shaping the arc of history, driving humans to cooperate on a grand scale to achieve great things, or divide violently against one another.

So I wanted to ask him about the stories that the U.S. and Israel, in particular, seem to have embraced right now. What does history tell us about the power of this story? And why does the liberal story seem so weak right now?

Mentioned:

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

Unstoppable Us, Volume 3 by Yuval Noah Harari

“Understanding AI” by Timothy B. Lee

Book Recommendations:

The MANIAC by Benjamin Labatut

Chimpanzee Politics by Frans de Waal

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker and Aman Sahota. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We have entered a world of maximum gerrymandering warfare. Any guardrails that once existed, from the Constitution or the courts, have been bulldozed over the last decade – most recently in the Supreme Court decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act and made it harder for minorities to challenge racially discriminatory voting maps.

Red and blue states alike have been aggressively trying to redraw their congressional maps in response to all these developments. And there is no sign that will end in 2028; legislatures will just continue trying to tweak their lines to squeeze out advantage for whatever party is in power. And competitive districts in this country – already an endangered species – now teeter on extinction.

That is, unless something dramatic changes.

Lee Drutman is a senior fellow in the political reform program at New America. He’s one of the most persistent and thoughtful advocates of selecting House members through proportional representation – a system used in many other countries that would make gerrymandering much more difficult. He’s the author of the 2020 book “Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America” and writes the newsletter Undercurrent Events.

Mentioned:

Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop by Lee Drutman

“Undercurrent Events” by Lee Drutman

Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein

“How one country stopped a Trump-style authoritarian in his tracks” by Zack Beauchamp

Book Recommendations:

Tyranny of the Majority by Lani Guinier

American Politics by Samuel P. Huntington

The Recognitions by William Gaddis

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Claire Gordon. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair, Julie Beer and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Aman Sahota and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.