S2 Ep1054: Adam Serwer, Lauren Egan, and Justin Jones: The Attack on Knowledge
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What is the main topic of this episode?
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. Just a little note on the scheduling for today. I wanted to do a traditional podcast guest for you all so you didn't have live shows back to back. And so I'm excited to have Adam Serwer coming up here in a second. But last night in Nashville, we were having a blast. And my colleague here at the Bulwark, Lauren Egan...
Who are Justin Jones and Lauren Egan?
who's doing a newsletter on what is happening with the Democrats. Y'all should sign up for it at theblog.com. Interviewed Justin Jones as part of the show. If you don't know Justin Jones, he's in the legislature here in Tennessee. He was one of the Tennessee Three that the Republicans tried to boot out. Man, that guy, if you went down a list of issues, me and him are going to have some disagreements for sure. He is definitely more progressive than I am. But I was just kind of blown away by his authenticity, his passion, his energy, his charisma. Just like I crossed the board. The dude is the real deal. And we're looking for people in this moment who can speak to the challenges that we have with passion. And I thought that he really knocked it out of the park. And so we weren't planning on doing this, but I want to have his segment from the live show last night. We're going to do that as kind of a B block of this show if you guys want to stick around for that.
But like I said, I want to give you a kind of more traditional podcast experience. Just as a pod consumer myself, sometimes the live show isn't as great in audio because, you know, I'm hamming it up for the room. And you got to wait for the applause and all that. And I don't know, some of you guys listen to me while you're going to sleep at night, I've heard. And so that's not great when you have random people shouting and throwing their bras on stage. So it was a great night in Nashville. I was happy to see everybody. For those that want to stick around, I recommend the Justin Jones segment that we're going to have up in segment two here. But first... I want to welcome a writer at The Atlantic, author of the book, The Cruelty is the Point.
His latest piece is on the Trump administration's attack on knowledge called The Dark Age. Pumped to have him on the pod. It's Adam Serwer.
Hey, Adam, what's happening, man? Not much. Just down here in San Antonio, finally getting a little rain. You're a San Antonio man? I am a San Antonio man. I mean, I generally don't talk about this. My wife is in the military. She's a surgeon and she's stationed here. So that's why we live here.
What are Adam Serwer's views on the Trump administration's attack on knowledge?
All right. Well, you get a lot of Wimby next year. That'll be good. Yeah. Well, I'm excited to have you on. As I mentioned, you have this new piece called The New Dark Age, which I want to get into. First, I just have a couple of news items I've got to mention for folks interested to get your take on. There's a big New York Times takeout on Elon, our former shadow president, who's been kicked out. And I just felt like I had to mention that he's doing so much ketamine that he's having bladder control issues. It's not really great when the New York Times has a profile on you and they mention your bladder control issues several times. And so I kind of I felt it was incumbent upon me for the listeners sake in case they missed that to flag that.
But I'm interested in just in your broader take on Elon and his legacy from his four months of, I guess, ending USAID and failing at everything else. I'm wondering what you make of it all.
I mean, I just think you can look at it and see it as extraordinarily destructive, particularly abroad. One of the things I think liberals would probably always concede to the George W. Bush administration is that PEPFAR is one of the best programs that the U.S. has ever done. And you can see now the withdrawal of this kind of international aid is affecting hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. you know, for no good reason, not just no good reason, but in my view, illegally, because Congress appropriated that money and the executive does not have the authority to impound it.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic of this episode?
0:13–0:34
2
Who are Justin Jones and Lauren Egan?
0:34–2:38
3
What are Adam Serwer's views on the Trump administration's attack on knowledge?
2:38–7:40
4
How does the Trump administration manipulate knowledge production?
7:40–9:16
5
What are the implications of defunding research?
9:16–14:58
6
How does social media affect public perception of truth?
14:58–20:07
7
What role does sports play in political identity?
20:07–25:15
8
How can Democrats harness energy in politics?
25:15–1:00:58
Speakers
4 identifiedMore from The Bulwark Daily
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