Author: Slate Podcasts

Why the Democrats’ electoral strategy of “hire consultants to tell you which positions poll well enough to take” has run its course—and where they should look to start rebuilding.

Guest: Ben Mathis-Lilley, Slate senior writer and author of “How Strategist Brain Took Over the Democratic Party”.

Cited in this episode: 

The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics (Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld)

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (Robert D. Putnam)

The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions—And How the World Lost Its Mind (Dan Davies)

Cited in this episode: 

The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics (Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld)

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (Robert D. Putnam)

The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions—And How the World Lost Its Mind (Dan Davies)

Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.

Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

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This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to vote on Emil Bove, who has been promoted from Trump’s personal lawyer to his current nominee for a lifelong appointment to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. In any other administration, Bove would be a real outlier. But here? He’s par for a very strange course. 

Guest: Jay Willis, editor-in-chief of Balls and Strikes.

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Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

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He started using ChatGPT to help with spreadsheets. But their relationship took a turn, and before long it was telling him he could leap off a 19-story building and fly.

Guest: Kashmir Hill, features writer at the New York Times.

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It’s a record-breaking year for America: we’ve now had the most reported cases of measles since the disease was declared “eradicated” in 2000. 

How did public health backslide so hard that it undid decades of progress—and is there any hope we can get back on track? 

Guest: Dylan Scott, senior health correspondent at Vox.

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In the wake of #MeToo, Hollywood productions began hiring “intimacy coordinators,” people who work to ensure sex scenes are safe and comfortable for performers. How are they working out so far? 

Guest: Jennifer Wilson, staff writer at the New Yorker.

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Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

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After one of the deadliest floods in American history in central Texas, people are looking at cuts to the National Weather Service and FEMA’s absence contributing to the devastation. But one looming problem is much, much bigger.

Guest:  Jeff Goodell, writer covering climate change, author of The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet and The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World.

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Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

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A federal force—often defying local governance—coming to take people away without due process has happened before. What lessons can be drawn from parallels between a law that led to the Civil War and what’s happening today with Trump’s hardline immigration enforcement?

Guest: Jamelle Bouie, columnist at the New York Times

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Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

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Built in just eight days, Donald Trump and Kristi Noem toured “Alligator Alcatraz,” a migrant detention facility built on a disused airstrip in the Florida Everglades. Even before Trump touched down in South Florida, branded merchandise was being sold. Soon after he headed back to Washington, the first detainees were brought in.

Guest:  Sommer Brugal, Miami reporter for Axios.

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Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices