Sam and Emma host author Clint Smith, staff writer at the Atlantic, to discuss his new book, How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America on how the legacy of slavery has been passed down and obscured through generations of storytelling, and the manner in which this manifests in modern […]

June 14, 2021

Sam and Emma host David Sirota, founder of and editor at The Daily Poster, to discuss the tough developments around progressive hopes for the Biden Administration, including bipartisan dead-ends, bad-faith attacks on Ilhan Omar, and the possibilities of filibuster reform in the Senate. Sam, Emma, and David touch on the power of narcissistic spotlight syndrome, and how […]

June 11, 2021

Emma hosts Astra Taylor, activist, and member of the Debt Collective, to discuss her new book Remake the World: Essays, Reflections, Rebellions on how we can and must organize around each other to help lift ourselves out of the confining and isolating world that has only been exacerbated by the brutality of 2020. They look […]

June 10, 2021

Sam and Emma host John B. Judis, Editor-at-Large at Talking Points Memo, to discuss his new book ‘The Politics of Our Time: Populism, Nationalism, Socialism,’ on the political movements in America so far in the 21st century and what conflicts and influences they might have on one another in the coming decades. They walk through […]

June 9, 2021

Sam and Emma host Henry Farrell, SNF Agora Professor of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins, to discuss his new paper “Rechanneling Beliefs: How Information Flows Hinder or Help American Democracy,” taking on the state of American democracy in historical context, and looking into how our current crisis has developed and what we can do to […]

June 8, 2021

Sam and Emma host Adam Weinstein, Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute, to explore the status of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and what the region might look like moving forwards. They look into why the Pentagon might want a quick withdrawal now that they are committed to withdrawing at all, and whether or not […]

June 7, 2021

Sam and Emma host Heather “Digby” Parton, proprietor of the wönderblog Hullabaloo and Salon.com contributor, to discuss the week’s top stories, including Biden’s bipartisan fetish President Manchin and the filibuster, and more. They explore the Democrats’ plan to make June the month of failure, using the filibuster as part of their ass-covering project, and Biden’s […]

June 4, 2021

Sam hosts Emory Professor of Law Dorothy A. Brown to discuss her new book, The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans – and How We Can Fix It, on the myriad ways in which race is coded into our tax systems, reserving benefits and breaks for white families across the board. […]

June 3, 2021

Sam and Emma host professor of African American studies Carol Anderson to discuss her latest book The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America on how the right to bear arms has been a means to suppress black Americans. Anderson details how black Americans throughout history have organized to defend themselves against state violence and […]

June 2, 2021

Sam and Emma are back from their Memorial Day break to discuss the top stories kicking off this week, from the anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre to the Texas Democrats’ exit, and what we hope Democrats have learned from the failures of the January 6th commission. They begin by exploring the rising tensions, bolstered by […]

June 1, 2021