u/Dreadedvegas

For nearly a decade, critics have predicted that this would be the moment Trumpism finally fractures - January 6, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, endless internal feuds, even Trump’s online beef with Pope Leo. And yet the movement endures.

Derek is joined by Ross Douthat to unpack the contradictory coalition Trump has built: Christian conservatives who overlook increasingly pagan behavior, anti-establishment populists who embrace strongman bullying, MAHA health obsessives that ignore their leader's diet of exclusively processed food …

What holds this movement together and could the Iran War finally tear it apart?

Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Ross Douthat

For the past century, America's foreign interventions often carried the pretense of liberal idealism – to help bring peace and prosperity to people around the world. 

But it doesn't take a history scholar to know that positive outcomes weren't always the result. 

In the latest episode of the Argument, Jerusalem Demsas and Matthew Yglesias debate the merits of liberal hypocrisy, its benefits and drawbacks, and whether it's worth bringing it back. 

New episodes post every Thursday.

For an ad-free version and full transcript, subscribe at TheArgumentMag.com

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm

Donald Trump has, in fact, damaged the economy. He’s juiced inflation and weakened the labor market and created deep uncertainty. But the public seems to think things are worse now than at any time since the Great Depression. And that is empirically not true.

So in this episode, Matt and Brian try to unravel the mystery of why perception and reality have departed from one another so dramatically.

* Does Trump in some sense deserve this economic discontent, for fanning it on the campaign trail and selling lies about lower prices, only to govern corruptly and incompetently?

* Is Trump just as much a victim as Democrats of a new media era in which negativity drives attention?

* And if smartphones and social media really are the main drivers of discontent, how much is due to viral misinformation, and how much is due to a more generalized malaise that arises from hours wasted scrolling?

Then, if weak economic sentiment is only loosely tied to real economic conditions, what can Democrats do about it? This episode contains real, actionable ideas: how to message through economic challenges; how to instill confidence in voters across lengthy campaigns, without overpromising; how to exploit right-wing governing failures for maximum partisan benefit.

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Matt on the Tyranny of Democratic Plansmaxxing.

* Brian on how MAGA is devouring itself before our eyes.

* Arin Dube’s new book on persistent labor market weakness and how to fix it.

MattY takes on an issue that I think is gaining ground.

Dogs being everywhere and accommodation. Dogs being granted anti-breed discrimination protections, dogs having specific infrastructure built for them.

I think this is interesting because personally. Where I live I have seen my parks district spend a lot of money on dog parks and increasing the physical footprint of them while other public facilities like community centers, bathrooms, sports fields, etc languish.

He also goes on about specific laws being enacted that prevent local municipalities to enact breed specific legislation as well.

Mentioned articles in the article:

https://www.curbed.com/article/dogs-public-places-new-york-city.html

Back in 2015, before President Donald Trump, before January 6, before all the craziness of the last decade, Matt Yglesias made a blunt prediction: American democracy is doomed.

Guest host Zack Beauchamp talks with Matt about what that argument got right, what it missed, and why the real problem might not be any one politician but the structure of the system itself. They get into presidential power, partisan loyalty, why Congress keeps folding, and how the two-party system might be quietly making everything worse. They also discuss what it would actually take to fix it — or whether things have to completely break first.

Host: Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp)

Guest: Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias)

Relevancy: The Gray Area is the original EKS show when it was still on vox. Guest is MattY. Guest Host is Zack Beauchamp who has been on EKS a couple of times. Beauchamp guest episodes are titled “Is Trump Losing? A Debate” in 2025 & “If Not This, Then What Should Israel Do?” In 2023.