The Gray Area with Sean Illing
Episodes
Neoliberalism and its discontents
24 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“Neoliberalism” is one of the most confusing phrases in political discourse today. The term is often used to describe the market fundamentalism of...
The four words that will decide impeachment
21 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Hey EK Show listeners! Something different today. The first episode of my new podcast: Impeachment, Explained. This was the week of confessions. Actin...
We don’t just feel emotions. We make them.
17 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How do you feel right now? Excited to listen to your favorite podcast? Anxious about the state of American politics? Annoyed by my use of rhetorical q...
How politics became a war against reality
14 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In his brilliant 2014 book Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, Soviet-born TV producer turned journalist Peter Pomerantsev described 21st-cent...
The loneliness epidemic
10 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
As US surgeon general from 2014 to 2017, Vivek Murthy visited communities across the United States to talk about issues like addiction, obesity, and m...
Ibram X. Kendi wants to redefine racism
07 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Racism is one of the most morally charged words in the English language. It is typically understood as a form of deep inner prejudice — something th...
Malcolm Gladwell’s Stranger Things
03 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Malcolm Gladwell’s work is nothing short of an intellectual adventure. Sometimes, as in his podcast Revisionist History, he takes something small a...
An inspiring conversation about democracy
30 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Danielle Allen directs Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. She’s a political theorist, and a philosopher, and the principal investigator ...
Samantha Power’s journey from foreign policy critic to UN ambassador
26 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Samantha Power reported from the killing fields of Bosnia. She watched a genocide that could’ve been stopped years earlier grind on amidst internati...
When meritocracy wins, everybody loses
23 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In The Meritocracy Trap, Daniel Markovits argues that meritocracy — a system set-up to expand opportunity, reduce inequality and end aristocracy —...
Nikole Hannah-Jones on the 1619 project, choosing schools, and Cuba
19 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“The truth is that as much democracy as this nation has today” writes Nikole Hannah-Jones “it has been borne on the backs of black resistance.”...
Randall Munroe, the genius behind XKCD
16 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
I’m not usually a fanboy on this podcast, but this episode is the exception. I love the web-comic XKCD. I’ve had prints of it hanging in my house ...
Julián Castro's quiet moral radicalism
12 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
I’m careful about inviting politicians onto this podcast. Too often, questions go unanswered, and frustrated emails flood my inbox. So I only bring ...
Political animals (with Leah Garcés)
09 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine, for a moment, what it’s like to be an animal rights activist. Tens of billions of animals are being tortured and slaughtered every year. It...
John McWhorter thinks we're getting racism wrong
05 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Hello everyone. I'm Jane Coaston, senior politics reporter at Vox with a focus on conservatism (Ezra will be back from vacation next week). "Antiraci...
The rocky marriage between libertarians and conservatives
02 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Hello, everybody! I'm Jane Coaston, senior politics reporter at Vox with a focus on conservatism. Today, I'm speaking with Conor Friedersdorf, a staff...
A mind-bending, reality-warping conversation with John Higgs
29 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
I don’t usually begin interviews with the question “who the hell are you?” But, then again, not every guest is John Higgs. I fell into Higgs’s...
Jia Tolentino on what happens when life is an endless performance
26 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The introduction to Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, hit me hard. In her investigation of how American politics and cultu...
The original meaning of “identity politics” (with Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor)
22 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is an associate professor of African-American Studies at Princeton University and the author of multiple books, including most...
Are bosses dictators? (with Elizabeth Anderson)
19 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine a society whose rulers suppress free speech, free association, even bathroom breaks. Where the government owns the means of production. Where ...
The Constitution is a progressive document
15 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“The Constitution must be adapted to the problems of each generation,” writes Erwin Chemerisnky, “we are not living in the world of 1787 and sho...
Matt Bruenig’s case for single-payer health care
12 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Democratic primary has been unexpectedly dominated by a single question: Will you abolish private health insurance? Wrapped in that question are d...
Can Raj Chetty save the American dream?
08 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
I don’t ordinarily find myself scrambling to write down article ideas during these conversations, but almost everything Raj Chetty says is worth a f...
Astra Taylor will change how you think about democracy
05 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Astra Taylor’s new book has the best title I’ve seen in a long time: Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone. I talk a lot a...
Is big tech addictive? Nir Eyal and I debate.
01 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“How do successful companies create products people can’t put down?” That’s the opening line of the description for Nir Eyal’s bestselling 2...
Generation Climate Change
29 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This is one of those episodes I want to put the hard sell on. It’s one of the most important conversations I’ve had on the show. The fact that it ...
Is the media amplifying Trump’s racism? (with Whitney Phillips)
25 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Some podcasts I do are easy. There’s a problem and, hey look, here’s a great answer! Some are hard. There’s a problem and, well, there may not b...
Rutger Bregman’s utopias, and mine
22 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Universal basic income. A 15-hour work week. Open borders. These ideas may strike you as crazy, fantastical, maybe even utopian... but that’s exactl...
How white identity politics won the Republican civil war
18 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Alberta’s new book American Carnage documents “the Republican Civil War”: a decade-plus struggle over whether the Republican Party would bui...
George Will makes the conservative case against democracy
15 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It’s a good time to be a Republican. But it’s a bad time, George Will argues, to be a conservative. Hence his new, 700-page manifesto, The Conserv...
What deliberative democracy can, and can’t, do (with Jane Mansbridge)
11 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Every time I do an episode on polarization, I get a few emails asking: What about deliberative democracy? Couldn’t that be an answer? Deliberative d...
Rod Dreher on America’s post-Christian culture war [CORRECTED]
08 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
[A quick note about this episode - we have fixed an error that caused some listeners to hear overlapping audio in the first portion of the show. Thank...
White threat in a browning America (Jennifer Richeson re-air)
04 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This conversation with Yale psychologist and MacArthur genius Jennifer Richeson first appeared a year ago, and it’s one of my favorites. But I wante...
Behind the panic in white, Christian America
01 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
About seven in 10 American seniors are white Christians. Among young adults, fewer than three in 10 are. During the span of the Obama administration, ...
An enlightening, frustrating conversation on liberalism (with Adam Gopnik)
27 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“Liberalism is as distinct a tradition as exists in political history, but it suffers from being a practice before it is an ideology, a temperament ...
The cognitive cost of poverty (with Sendhil Mullainathan)
24 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
If you’re a Parks and Rec fan, you’ll remember Ron Swanson’s Pyramid of Greatness. Right there at the base sits “Capitalism: God’s way of de...
Failing towards Utopia
21 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Nice Try! is a new podcast from Curbed and the Vox Media Podcast Network that explores stories of people who have tried to design a better world, and ...
Why liberals and conservatives create such different media (with Danna Young)
20 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The debate over polarized media can make the two ecosystems sound equivalent. One is left, the other right, but otherwise they’re the same. That cou...
Stacey Abrams and Lauren Groh-Wargo (Live!)
17 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“The phrase ‘identity politics’ is a weaponization of the Democrats’ structural advantage in elections from now until eternity,” says Stacey...
This changed how I think about love (with Alison Gopnik)
13 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Alison Gopnik is a professor of psychology and philosophy at the University of California Berkeley. She’s published more than 100 journal articles a...
The plan behind Elizabeth Warren’s plans
10 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Oligarchic capitalism? Elizabeth Warren has a plan for that. Opioid deaths? She’s got a plan for that too. Same is true for high housing costs, offs...
Michael Lewis reads my mind
06 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Lewis needs little introduction. He’s the author of Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Big Short, The Blind Side, The Fifth Risk. He’s the hos...
How Mitch McConnell convinced Michael Bennet to run for president
03 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
I’m not sure what I expected Sen. Michael Bennet’s answer to be when I asked him why he was running for president. I didn’t expect it to be “M...
How the brains of master meditators change
30 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Richie Davidson has spent a lifetime studying meditation. He’s studied it as a practitioner, sitting daily, going on retreats, and learning under ma...
Why good people are easily corrupted (with Lawrence Lessig)
27 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
I’ve been learning from, and arguing with, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig for a decade now. We have a long-running debate over whether money ...
The art of attention (with Jenny Odell)
23 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“For some, there may be a kind of engineer’s satisfaction in the streamlining and networking of our entire lived experience,” writes Jenny Odell...
Matt Yglesias and Jenny Schuetz solve the housing crisis
20 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In this special crossover episode, Brookings Institution’s Jenny Schuetz joins The Weeds’ Matt Yglesias to discuss subsidies, zoning reform, and m...
What kind of news is cable news? (With Brian Stelter)
16 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Brian Stelter is the host of CNN’s Reliable Sources, as well as the network’s chief media correspondent. But before he was the host of Reliable So...
Contrapoints on taking the trolls seriously
13 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
YouTube is where tomorrow’s politics are happening today. If you’re over 30, and you don’t spend much time on the platform, it’s almost imposs...
The purpose of political violence
09 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“Between 1830 and 1860, there were more than seventy violent incidents between congressmen in the House and Senate chambers or on nearby streets and...
Ask Ezra Anything 3: Endgame
06 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Time for another AMA! You all hit the big stuff in this one. What’s the purpose of this show? How do I prep for it? What did I think of the Whiteshi...
The disillusionment of David Brooks
02 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
2013 was David Brooks’s worst year. “The realities that used to define my life fell away,” he says. His marriage ended. His children moved out. ...
Emily Oster schools me on parenthood
29 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
I’ve read a lot of Emily Oster over the past year. Her first book, Expecting Better, has become the data-minded parent’s bible on pregnancy. Her n...
Lessons from Vox’s first 5 years
25 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This is a special episode for me. Vox turns 5 this week! So I sat down with my co-founders, Melissa Bell and Matt Yglesias, to discuss what went right...
Work as identity, burnout as lifestyle
22 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the past few months, two essays on America’s changing relationship to work caught my eye. The first was Anne Helen Petersen’s viral BuzzFeed pi...
How social democrats won Europe — then lost it
18 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Democratic socialism is on the rise in the United States, but it’s been a dominant force for far longer in Europe. Ask Bernie Sanders to define his ...
In defense of white-backlash politics
15 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“The big question of our time is less, ‘What does it mean to be American?’ than, ‘What does it mean to be white American in an age of ethnic c...
Identity, nationalism, and fatherhood
11 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review and the author of My Father Left Me Ireland, a moving, lyrical memoir about fatherhood...
An ex-libertarian’s quest to rebuild the center right
08 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Nothing would do more to repair American politics than for the center right to regain power in the Republican coalition. But before that can happen, t...
How whiteness distorts our democracy, with Eddie Glaude Jr.
04 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“Race isn’t about black people, necessarily,” says Eddie Glaude Jr. “It’s about the way whiteness works to disfigure and distort our democra...
Pete Buttigieg’s theory of political change
01 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
First off. Hello! I’m back from paternity leave. And this is a helluva podcast to restart with. Pete Buttigieg is a Rhodes scholar, a Navy veteran, ...
Meet the policy architect behind the Green New Deal
28 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Last month, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey introduced a Green New Deal resolution, outlining a bold effort to decarbonize the US eco...
The somewhat fractured state of American conservatism
25 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Matthew Continetti, editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon, sits down with Vox senior politics reporter Jane Coaston to discuss intellectual co...
American politics after Christianity, with Ross Douthat
21 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
I’m Vox’s interviews writer, Sean Illing. Lately, I’ve been interested in the following question: Is the decline of institutionalized Christiani...
Why Gov. Jay Inslee is running for president on climate change
18 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Vox senior politics reporter, Jane Coaston speaks to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee at South by Southwest about climate change, his 2020 candidacy, why it...
ICYMI: Julia Galef
14 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For this episode of The Ezra Klein Show, we're digging into the archives to share another of our favorites with you! * At least in politics, this is a...
The roots of extremism, with Deeyah Khan
11 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What draws someone into an extremist movement? Is it about ideology? Race? Politics? So many of our discussions about extremism try to explain away th...
ICYMI: Paul Krugman
07 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For this episode of the Ezra Klein show we're digging back into the archives to share another of our favorite episodes with you! *** On October 24, 20...
Pop music can make you smarter
06 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Vox takes culture seriously. Our coverage of movies, TV, books, and music delves deep into what our cultural touchstones reveal about who we are and w...
Life after climate change, with David Wallace-Wells
04 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
After years of hovering on the periphery of American politics, never quite the star of the show, it seems that climate change is having a moment. An a...
Pramila Jayapal thinks we can get to Medicare-for-All fast
28 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Democratic Party is quickly coalescing around an ambitious Medicare-for-All platform — and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) is shaping up to be a maj...
Noah Rothman on the "unjustice" of social justice politics
25 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
I'm Jane Coaston, senior politics reporter at Vox with a focus on conservatism and the GOP. For the last three years or so, there has been an ongoing ...
Why should we care about deficits?
21 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Stony Brook University’s Stephanie Kelton is the most influential proponent of Modern Monetary Theory, a heterodox take on government budgets that u...
Anniversary special: Rachel Maddow
18 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
To celebrate The Ezra Klein Show's third anniversary, I’m listening back to the very first episode: a conversation with Rachel Maddow. Rachel is, ...
Andrew Sullivan and I work out our differences
14 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
I’ve been arguing with Andrew Sullivan online for almost 15 years now. It’s one of my oldest and most rewarding hobbies. In the past, I’ve alway...
The core contradiction of American politics
11 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Republican and Democratic parties are not the same. I’ll say it again: The Republican and Democratic parties are not the same. I don’t just me...
Leftists vs. liberals, with Elizabeth Bruenig
07 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What separates Obama-era liberalism from Sanders-style democratic socialism? What are the fights splitting and transforming the Democratic Party actua...
The world according to Ralph Nader
04 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Ralph Nader needs no introduction. But if your knowledge of Nader mostly consists of his 2000 campaign for the presidency, his career does demand some...
This conversation will change how you understand misogyny
31 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Misogyny has long been understood as something men feel, not something women experience. That, says philosopher Kate Manne, is a mistake. In her book ...
Ending the age of animal cruelty, with Bruce Friedrich
28 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
You often hear that eating animals is natural. And it is. But not the way we do it. The industrial animal agriculture system is a technological marvel...
Robert Sapolsky on the toxic intersection of poverty and stress
24 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Robert Sapolsky is a Stanford neuroscientist and primatologist. He’s the author of a slew of important books on human biology and behavior. But it’...
Frances Lee on why bipartisanship is irrational
21 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There aren’t too many people with an idea that will actually change how you think about American politics. But Frances Lee is one of them. In her ne...
Sean Decatur doesn’t see a free speech crisis on campus
17 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sean Decatur is the president of Kenyon College and the first African-American to hold that job. He’s also one of the most thoughtful voices in the ...
Cal Newport has an answer for digital burnout
14 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Cal Newport suspects you’re a digital maximalist — someone who believes that any potential for benefit is reason enough to start using a new techn...
Eric Holder’s plan to save democracy
10 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Eric Holder was attorney general during the first six years of Barack Obama’s presidency, and there are days when it feels like he’s the attorney ...
Anil Dash on the biases of tech
07 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“Marc Andreessen famously said that ‘software is eating the world,’ but it’s far more accurate to say that the neoliberal values of software t...
Jill Lepore on America’s two revolutions
03 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Jill Lepore is a Harvard historian, a New Yorker contributor, and the author of These Truths, a dazzling one-volume synthesis of American history. She...
Best of: N.K. Jemisin
31 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This is the most fun I’ve ever had on a podcast. Nora Jemisin — better known by her pen name, N.K. Jemisin — won the Hugo Award for best novel t...
Best-of: Bryan Stevenson
27 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Here, at the holidays, I wanted to share some of my favorite episodes of the show with you. Bryan Stevenson tops the list. He’s the founder of the E...
Kara Swisher interviews me on the Future of Journalism (Live!)
24 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
When I decided to start an interview podcast, the first person I went to for advice was Kara Swisher — founder of Recode, host of the Code Conferenc...
TED’s Chris Anderson on the lessons of listening
20 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
You know TED. Black stage, red accents, wireless mic, one speaker. Billions of views each year. TED is more than a conference now; it’s a meme: “T...
Rep. Katie Porter on how capitalism is failing
17 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Katie Porter is the Rep.-elect from California’s 45th District, which happens to be the district I grew up in. She’s part of the brigade of Democr...
How Hasan Minhaj is reinventing political comedy
13 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Patriot Act, Hasan Minhaj’s new Netflix show, he does three things political comedians often don’t do. First, he makes political comedy persona...
Adam Serwer on white political correctness
10 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
“What a society finds offensive is not a function of fact or truth,” writes Adam Serwer, “but of power.” Serwer is a writer at the Atlantic, a...
Will Storr on why you are not yourself
06 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
“To have a self is to feel as if we are, in the words of neuroscientist Professor Chris Frith, the ‘invisible actor at the centre of the world’....
How to be a better carnivore
03 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Here are two things I believe. First, the way we treat the animals we kill for food is shameful. Second, only a tiny percentage of the population will...
Peter Beinart on anti-Semitism in America and illiberalism in Israel
29 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This is a conversation I’ve been putting off, if I’m being honest. I can’t hold it from the safe space of journalistic distance. It’s about th...
Where Jonathan Haidt thinks the American mind went wrong
26 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Haidt is a psychologist at New York University and the co-founder of Heterodox University. His book The Righteous Mind, which describes the d...
The Impact: Deportation without representation
22 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
For Thanksgiving listening, I have an episode of The Impact, from my Weeds co-host Sarah Kliff. The Impact is a show about how policy shapes our lives...
Molly Ball on Nancy Pelosi’s future and Paul Ryan’s failure
19 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The midterm elections are being interpreted almost entirely as a referendum on President Donald Trump. But it was also a referendum on Paul Ryan’s s...