On our third episode, Elizabeth Weil joins Virginia and Stephen to discuss forms of radicalism as we head into an American regime that might call for it. In her New York Magazine piece, the climate activists Liz profiles capsize our assumptions about protest, democracy, and the speed of social change.

Weil profiles provocateur and depressive Donald Zepeda, one of several radical activists who disrupt decorum by throwing paint on the Constitution’s protective glass—not to destroy these cultural objects, obviously, but to force us to confront how complacent are. Asheville is laid to waste and we can’t tolerate spill at an art museum? Weil shows how provocateurs like Donald Zepeda are consciously choosing to be annoying and disliked in service of the climate catastrophe, following in the tradition of ACT UP.

But who in the coming regime is really going to risk stepping out of line and being disliked? It’s harder than it sounds.

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In the second episode of What Rough Beast, we speak with Patrick Radden Keefe, whose nonfiction account of the Irish Republican Army, Say Nothing, was adapted last year into a Hulu series. Virginia Heffernan speaks with the acclaimed author of Empire of Pain about the parallels between those Irish radicals and Luigi Mangione.

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In our inaugural episode of WHAT ROUGH BEAST, Stephen Metcalf and I discuss the election, with a refresher on who won and who lost. We take an inventory of our despair and gallows humor and blind hope. Richard Rorty comes up. And stuff that happened to us in high school. In short: What’s to become of America?

In this preview of our podcast “What Rough Beast,” Stephen Metcalf and I discuss what this podcast is, why it matters now, and what the deal is with our NAME.

Let us know what you think, and stay tuned for episode 1.