A chat with some Brits for your next commute
My appearance on the UK's American Friction podcast
A few weeks ago, I was invited to be a guest on the American Friction podcast, a British show covering the flaming garbage pile that is American politics. (Listen, I’m glad someone is capitalizing on our long national nightmare.) The conversation was a delightful experience – the most fun I’ve had in an interview setting. The podcast’s hosts, Jacob Jarvis and and Chris Jones, initially reached out to talk about the recent essay Julia Angwin and I wrote on courage and dissidence in The New Yorker, but the discussion ended up being quite a bit broader in scope.
We chatted, among other things, about:
Whether Democrats should stop talking about human rights and democracy and focus their energy exclusively on economic messaging (they should not)
How there are actually a lot more protests going on in the United States than we’re seeing in the media
How democracy can be hollowed out even as we still vote in elections
The weird heaviness of working inside the White House
Joe Rogan’s recent “oh shit” moment about Trump’s illegal deportations
One of the most interesting parts of the conversation for me was their line of questions on whether Americans are now feeling buyer’s remorse about their recent electoral decision. In particular, they wondered whether the libertarian wing of the MAGA coalition believe the Administration has gone too far on free speech. We discussed all this and more. I hope you enjoy the conversation.
You can listen to the podcast episode on Spotify or Apple Music or watch it above.
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