Emily Bazelon

There always are some harms that you're causing or failing to mitigate by going in one direction rather than the other.

You know, legalization was really important for reducing arrests and jails.

And yet it also seems like it had this somewhat unexpected effect of greater use and more health problems.

How should we be thinking about that going forward applied to this problem, but then also to other kinds of social ills or vices that we want to try to find this middle ground for?

I always like to think of myself as a narc.

I don't know.

Are you, though?

Anyway, keep going.

Thank you guys.

Thank you both for helping me think about this and talking this through.

Hey.

So if they don't plow the streets, how does your four-wheel drive help you?

I don't, like, do they have snow plows in Nashville?

Oh, I mean, I see much more crushing than caressing or much more creating fear than building trust.

I think if you were going to put the actual most powerful people in the Trump administration on that dais or whatever it was, it would be obviously Stephen Miller.

And then Russell Vogt, who is a real architect of policy.

And then I think also Susie Wiles, who was playing more behind the scenes until her Vanity Fair breakout article.

But those are like the three obvious officials, I think.

And then what's equally interesting to me is to think about who is not exerting power and the effect that absence is having.

And I'm thinking especially of Congress.