President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard from red states into blue cities isn’t just a partisan attack; it’s also a geographic one. In the 2024 election, Donald Trump won rural areas by 40 percentage points. And you could see what’s been happening in Washington, D.C., and Chicago as a rural political coalition militarily occupying urban centers. The rural-urban divide in America has become so big it’s dangerous — for our politics, and for democracy. And yet, just a few decades ago, this divide didn’t exist. Urban and rural areas voted pretty much in lockstep. And for Democrats to gain power again, they’ll need to figure out how to win some of those voters back.
So how did the Democratic Party lose rural voters? And what could they do to win their votes back?
Suzanne Mettler is a political scientist at Cornell University and the co-author with Trevor E. Brown of the new book “Rural Versus Urban: The Growing Divide That Threatens Democracy.”
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Will Peischel. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Michelle Harris, Marina King, Emma Kehlbeck and Jan Kobal. Original music by Isaac Jones, Carole Sabouraud, and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.
If you’re listening to this, you probably know someone who has struggled with alcohol addiction, or maybe you’re an alcoholic yourself. It’s one of the most universal human experiences. In 2023, 10 percent of the U.S. population met the criteria for alcoholism. That’s 30 million people.
And throughout the past hundred or so years, there’s basically been one solution: total sobriety, talk therapy, and Alcoholics Anonymous. And yes, there are countless people ready and eager to say, “AA saved my life.” We know and love many of those people.
But as Katie Herzog writes: “The dominance of AA obscures the fact that other options exist too.” Okay, so what are these other options? One of them is a drug called naltrexone that can let alcoholics keep drinking—yes, you heard me right. Katie describes it as a chemical safety net that makes you want to drink less.
And in order for the drug to work, you actually have to drink—at least at the beginning. The goal with this method is not necessarily abstinence. It’s reformed, moderate, responsible drinking.
Is this all starting to sound like snake oil—or worse, even dangerous? We understand. Over 175,000 Americans die each year from excessive drinking. It causes heart disease, cancer, domestic violence, and suicide. It costs the U.S. economy nearly $250 billion in healthcare expenses. There’s loss of productivity, criminal justice fees, vehicle wrecks—I could go on. And living with alcoholism, or being close to someone who struggles with addiction, can be devastating.
So when someone comes along and says, “Your alcoholic loved one can actually drink with naltrexone,” the knee-jerk reaction is to say: “Hell no.”
But Katie Herzog, in her new book Drink Your Way Sober, argues that AA—and our traditional thinking—has not worked, and will not work, for everyone. And she makes the case that we should be more open to alternative forms of treatment like naltrexone.
You’ll know Katie from her hit podcast Blocked and Reported, which she co-hosts with Free Press contributor Jesse Singal—though she likes to say she is “the only host of the only podcast.”
And today, Bari asks her how she got sober using naltrexone—and a program called the Sinclair Method—how the drug actually works, why it’s been shunned by the medical community, and whether she thinks society will buy into it.
If you recently lost your job—or think you might lose it soon—Laura Brown and Kristina O'Neill are here to help! On this episode of How To!, Carvell Wallace talks to the authors of All the Cool Girls Get Fired about what to do when you get the ax—and how to turn termination into a real opportunity.
If you liked this conversation, check out the Slate podcast Death, Sex & Money’s recent episode on “Why Job Hunting Feels So Grim Lately, Especially for Gen Z.”
Looking for a different kind of career advice? Send us a note at howto@slate.com or leave us a voicemail at 646-495-4001 and we might have you on the show. Subscribe for free on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen.
The show is produced by Rosemary Belson and Sophie Summergrad. Our technical director is Merritt Jacob and our supervising producer is Joel Meyer.
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A man seen breaking into cars near the crime scene is arrested, and he lies to police about what he’s been up to. But does that make him a killer? As the case builds against him, his defense team uncovers a piece of evidence that could change everything.
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Samantha Woll, 40, was a beloved Detroit Jewish community leader with her life ahead of her. Tragically, she is found stabbed to death outside her home exactly two weeks after the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel. Investigators follow a mysterious figure caught on camera: Is this truly a hate crime, or something else?
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Animals speak. Plants do too. Seas and mountains are not a mute background to human actions, but have interests and agency. Many more-than-human beings are political actors. All of us are part of a web of relations in which we affect others and are affected by them. To counter the current ecological destruction and find more just ways to co-exist, humans need new ways of doing politics with other earth beings. In Multispecies Assemblies (Vine Press, 2025), Dutch philosopher Eva Meijer develops such a new political model: the multispecies assembly. Multispecies assemblies are a form of direct democracy in which some beings speak for themselves and others are represented. Living differently as humans is possible, but we must begin to listen to others, and learn from them.
Eva Meijer is a philosopher, visual artist, writer and singer-songwriter. They write novels, philosophical essays, academic texts, poems and columns, and their work has been translated into over twenty languages. Recurring themes are language including silence, madness, nonhuman animals, and politics. Meijer also works as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam, writes essays and columns for Dutch newspapers, and is a member of the Multispecies Collective.
Kyle Johannsen is Sessional Faculty Member in the Department of Philosophy at Trent University. His most recent authored book is Wild Animal Ethics: The Moral and Political Problem of Wild Animal Suffering (Routledge, 2021).
Christine Brown Woolley grew up in Utah with a dad and two moms, in a polygamist community called the Apostolic United Brethren. When she became an adult, she joined a polygamist marriage as a third wife, helped raise more than a dozen kids, and became co-star of the TLC reality show Sister Wives.
Fast forward to 2025, and she has left her marriage and her polygamist faith. This week, she talks to Anna about the pros and cons of her former lifestyle, how being on a reality show helped her family to confront and process conflicts, and why she’s so happy being re-married and monogamous. Her new memoir is Sister Wife: A Memoir of Faith, Family, and Finding Freedom.
This episode was produced by Cameron Drews.
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If you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is deathsexmoney@slate.com.
In two weeks, millions of Americans will be voting — but a Supreme Court case could change elections as we know them. Last week, the court heard arguments in Louisiana vs. Callais, a case that centers on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Basically, the court is deciding whether or not states can use race to draw voting maps — and depending on what it decides, it could give Republicans the ability to eliminate at least six majority-minority districts and land about a dozen more seats in the House of Representatives. So we spoke to Stacey Abrams about the court’s deliberations. She’s the Host of Crooked Media’s Assembly Required and a New York Times Bestselling Author.
