Ezra Klein invites you into a conversation on something that matters. How do we address climate change if the political system fails to act? Has the logic of markets infiltrated too many aspects of our lives? What is the future of the Republican Party? What do psychedelics teach us about consciousness? What does sci-fi understand about our present that we miss? Can our food system be just to humans and animals alike?
About 2 episodes a week.
Recently covered: Hyperpolitics describes an era of high political activity and volatility without corresponding institutional strength, leading to short-termism and difficulty achieving lasting policy change despite increased political engagement, Rick Rubin repeatedly asserts that creativity stems from a way of being characterized by deep awareness, openness to external signals, and a disciplined yet harmonious relationship with time. He emphasizes that artists must cultivate sensitivity through practices like meditation and slow living, allowing them to translate ideas and beauty from the world rather than forcing creation from within, Annie Lowrey argues that administrative burdens in U.S. government programs function as a regressive filter and tool of social control that disproportionately harms low-income individuals, and that simplifying and federalizing these programs would improve efficiency, reduce fraud, and restore public trust.
Hyperpolitics describes an era of high political activity and volatility without corresponding institutional strength, leading to short-termism and difficulty achieving lasting policy change despite increased political engagement.
Rick Rubin repeatedly asserts that creativity stems from a way of being characterized by deep awareness, openness to external signals, and a disciplined yet harmonious relationship with time. He emphasizes that artists must cultivate sensitivity through practices like meditation and slow living, allowing them to translate ideas and beauty from the world rather than forcing creation from within.
Annie Lowrey argues that administrative burdens in U.S. government programs function as a regressive filter and tool of social control that disproportionately harms low-income individuals, and that simplifying and federalizing these programs would improve efficiency, reduce fraud, and restore public trust.
International law requires American participation and support to function effectively, yet U.S. adherence to it is often selective, leading to a crisis where the field must be regenerated through reparative politics rather than a simple return to past liberal orders.
Across the conversation Douthat repeatedly frames his career as being 'fulfilled' by historical developments he didn't cause or fully predict — his and Reihan Salam's populist prescriptions were realized by Trump but in a different, less sustainable form, and the religious right he chronicled gave way to a post-religious right nobody quite designed. This leads him to argue that as reality has grown harder to parse through Trump, COVID, and AI, journalism's task should shift from confident persuasion toward humbler, open-ended description — the same impulse he says is drawing him from column-writing toward interview-driven formats at 60 Minutes.
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