https://youtube.com/live/6HETwu7Kfu8
\n\n\n\nHousing is the single biggest issue facing California. What will the state’s next governor do about it? On Friday, May 8, Ezra Klein will moderate a forum with top Democratic candidates for governor, giving them a chance to explain how they would actually solve, or at least make progress on, the issue.
\n\nTune into our YouTube livestream on Friday, May 8, at 4:15 p.m. P.T. / 7:15 p.m. E.T.
\n⬆️ 83 points | 💬 18 comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/01/us/politics/liberals-conservatives-data-centers.html
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 32 points | 💬 13 comments
For the record, Ezra Klein is not involved in this. He founded Vox.com in 2014, which is different to the parent company, Vox Media, which existed beforehand. Klein left the company in 2020.
\n\nCertainly seems relevant though, not just for his project ending up part of this but for the broader implications around journalism which Klein covers.
\n⬆️ 16 points | 💬 13 comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/03/opinion/ai-jobs-unemployment-silicon-valley.html
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 23 points | 💬 20 comments
Ezra lamented on the latest Abundance episode that we had all but abandoned climate goals as part of the Democratic platform. Meanwhile, Amsterdam has just passed this fascinating act of public policy: banning ads for fossil fuels and meat.
\n\nGiven Ezra frequently touches on both climate topics and veganism, and given his conversations recently about how liberalism has eschewed attempts to impose any moral authority beyond the logic of the free market, I thought this article was relevant. It's a provocative and bold example of how an active government can advance pro-social policy goals while also taking a clear moral stance that shapes local commerce and consumption.
\n\n\n\n\n\"a Dutch travel trade association and several travel agencies sued, arguing that the ban was an overreach that violated freedom of expression rules and European Union consumer law. But the judge sided with the city, ruling that the health of its citizens and the climate was more important than commercial interests.\"
\n
What would it take to build political momentum for something like this in the US? Can we think about this more broadly, beyond climate, and ban gambling ads I see everywhere?
\n⬆️ 16 points | 💬 13 comments
https://www.richardhanania.com/p/despite-abundance-texas-continues
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 22 points | 💬 35 comments
⬆️ 20 points | 💬 32 comments
Both men will often encourage Democrats to moderate their social views and be open to more conversations and candidates with heterodox beliefs that aren't strictly in line with party orthodoxy. They're not shy about it either, they're willing to stand on these convictions and ruffle some feathers with such controversial pieces as \"Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way\" or \"Bigots in the Tent\". They'll plea with donors to be more sensible about their contributions and prioritize electable pragmatism over special interest maximalism. I'm not here to critique the merit of these ideas. It's sound strategy as far as I'm concerned.
\n\nBut I can't help but notice that neither expresses the same urgency or appetite for drastic measures when it comes to reevaluating the party's media strategy. I won't bury the lede any further; my opinion is that if you bribed key influencers to trash Republicans, exploited far right conspiracies against the party mainstream, and used bot accounts to signal-boost anti-Republican sentiments it would probably work. You could leverage LLMs to rapidly gauge response sentiment and A/B test new messaging. Just totally flood the conservative media ecosystem with bad faith concern trolling about Republicans and Republican policies. It would be ugly and degrade the political discourse even further, but it would work.
\n\nNow if Ezra and Matt tackled this head on by plainly stating \"No, we will not stoop to propaganda and subterfuge. The principle of honest and fair conversation is the cornerstone of our political culture,\" that would be more than suitable, it would be admirable. But instead what they've consistently and explicitly reiterated is that threat posed by Trump and MAGA is so terrible, we cannot allow our principles to hinder our response to this crisis. But then they just never engage with the idea that media manipulation can be a political asset. Even more bizarrely, Ezra will go out of his way to defend the honor of political commentators like Charlie Kirk and Hasan Piker seemingly oblivious to the fact that they engage in these sorts of underhanded tactics all the damn time.
\n\nAnd this is what gives me pause whenever Ezra and Matt urge everyone else to slaughter their sacred cows. I'm not impressed when they advertise their willingness to compromise on their stated policy preferences. I know how professional opinion-havers (especially liberal opinion-havers) think, and there's nothing they love more than to signal how pragmatic and open-minded they are by humoring an opposing viewpoint. That's not a real sacrifice. If they truly think defeating Trump/MAGA is a goal worth sacrificing personal principles, are they willing to compromise on something personally meaningful to them? Would they be willing to trade respectable journalism for crass conspiratorial bullshit if it meant Dems winning 60 Senate seats?
\n⬆️ 10 points | 💬 40 comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/19/us/politics/democrats-tax-cuts-affordability.html
\n\n\n\nThis recent NYT article focuses mainly on Sen. Chris Van Hollen's proposal exempt many working-class folks from income taxes, coupled with a plan to raise taxes on wealthier Americans. This policy appears born of some earnest thought, and I am generally a fan of Van Hollen as a senator.
\n\nOther tax cutting proposals from Democratic senators and members of Congress range from the ill-advised to the downright farcical. They include:
\n\nThis may sound unkind, but proposals like this are what you get when you asked the dumbest guy you know what to do about tax policy. Standing around at a summer barbecue, and these are the sorts of ideas that the dimmest guy in the group thinks are good ideas. And while we're at it, why stop at the working class, teachers, or law enforcement? What about nurses? Government employees? Dog walkers? Podcasters? Substackers? Does every niche employment category or job classification get their own unique tax break? Because that's where this thinking leads us.
\n\nCountering right-wing populism does not require going bar-for-bar with their stupid and nonsensical ideas. I understand the temptation, but Democrats have to resist running on a platform of promising low-hanging treats to people. No, your particular interest group does not get its own special treat because you're a special little star, more worthy than your fellow citizens.
\n\nInstead, any Democratic tax policy proposals should start from perspective of a broad civic renewal in American life. A message that we are all citizens who contribute to their society and have obligations to each other and the most vulnerable among us. You won't get a special treat, but you will live in a society where everyone pays their fair share in accordance with ability and need, and all of us share in the collective belief that the government we are funding will deliver results that will improve society in the long run.
\n\nHighest taxes on the wealthy and the billionaire class - or policy changes that actually ensure that tax liability actually applies to those folks - seem like worthy policy aims. But promising treats to various groups in desperate, flailing attempts to counter right-wing populism? Not serious, dumb policy, and failing to meet the moment.
\n⬆️ 38 points | 💬 12 comments
⬆️ 39 points | 💬 32 comments
In this post, Derek Thompson attempts to answer what is the cause of American misery since 2020. Why are Americans so down in the dumps about the economy, and just society in general?
\n\nHe further argues that we should not dismiss this, despite it not fitting general macro trends, because this is a fact and this has political consequences, namely that anti incumbency has become a big deal now.
\n⬆️ 12 points | 💬 19 comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/22/opinion/graham-platner-forever-war-trump.html
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 33 points | 💬 76 comments
Ezra and Tom Friedman discussing China's approach to dominating the EV industry and EV battery innovation got me thinking about how massively behind we are in industries that we should be succeeding in. Putting all of our resources into a service economy with AI seems like a recipe for disaster, and we can't even do that right (Deepseek sunk our prized Nvidia Stock last year)
\n\nI wonder if we can truly compete without sacrificing aspects of our democratic process to even have a chance against Chinese pragmatism. One of the more unnerving, unspoken aspects of China's success is how it disproves our political narrative that one must be democratic, free, and open to be very successful in the 21st century.
\n⬆️ 7 points | 💬 9 comments
Just listened to this podcast with Monica Hakimi, former State Dept lawyer and Columbia prof, and Janina Dill, Prof at Oxford. They are rock stars in the small world of public international law but not exactly household names, even in media that caters to the highly educated. But this was a riveting discussion.
\n\nI wouldn’t call it a debate exactly, but it’s two extremely intelligent women offering slightly different perspectives on international law and the “rules based” international system.
\n\nIt is very similar, but I think far superior to, the conversations Ezra has tried to have on the role of international law in our discourse and politics.
\n\nI am really encouraged that Ezra has tried to explore the role of international law in the morality of decisions on war and peace, but I have generally been underwhelmed by his interviewees.
\n\nThis discussion skips the “tell our listeners what international law is” bit. But I don’t think it’s hard to get in to. The issues addressed are heady but not overly technical.
\n\nhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jib-jab-podcast/id1523370063?i=1000763276029
\n⬆️ 11 points | 💬 1 comments
Seeing UBI reduced to its one-dimensional rightwing caricature of crumbs thrown to the jobless peasants, as Ezra and Bores basically both describe it, is eye-blinking. And Ezra's wife wrote a book on it FFS.
\n\nFor those who missed the memo, the goal of UBI is all of:
\n\na means to reliably transmit the needs of lower income deciles to the market, i.e., have a market that can continuously hear the signal of people's true bulk physical needs
an automatic, always-on strike fund that enhances the bargaining position of labor
a one-size-fits-all \"universal insurance program\" for that day your car to crap out or etc
a better-than-nothing recognition of the family- or neighbor-based care economy (or non-economy, as it stands now, since no one currently gets payed for that), including the task of raising children
an job mobility measure, encouraging people to experiment with different careers more easily, not just sucks-to-be-you unemployment benefits
an anti-corruption measure that makes it less desirable/necessitous for public officials to scrape that little bit of icing off the top of the cake
an anti-lobbying measure and more generally anti state-sectorial-capture measure, as people in certain \"dead\" or \"zombie\" industries that depend on a parasite/host regulatory- or subsidy-based relationship with the state to keep afloat can now more easily leave these industries instead of lobbying to the death for fear of economic annihilation
a rewriting of the social contract that entrusts each individual with some portion of public resource-allocation unconditionally as opposed to filtering all public resource allocation via the paternalistic opinions of the collective
a means to boost micro-economies and entrepreneurship in rural areas by virtue of creating neighbors that have time to explore where they live as opposed to being so burnt out that they order everything from Amazon and only find time to shop at Walmart (on top of just being stressed for cash)
a means of strengthening and encouraging civic participation, again, mainly, by giving time back to people
OK.
\n\nI have to say I'm particularly dismayed at the reductive framing of UBI given that today's economy is so obviously gunked up by too few people owning too much of the monopoly board.
\n\nLack of UBI has become an efficiency problem for our economy—the missing means to keep the supply of money circulating up and down at a healthy clip—long before automation precipitated this discussion.
\n⬆️ 21 points | 💬 29 comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/23/opinion/bobby-pulido-texas-latinos-democrats.html
\n\n\n\nThis article was an interesting look at a regional election in South Texas. This is one of the latino majority districts that has flipped from blue to red in recent elections.
\n\nThis is a good example where localism is very relevant. In a region where many people work in the oil industry and people have a preference for diesel trucks, conventional democratic climate change policy is unsuitable.
\n⬆️ 4 points | 💬 0 comments
⬆️ 50 points | 💬 88 comments
https://www.slowboring.com/p/dogs-arent-people
\n\n\n\nMattY takes on an issue that I think is gaining ground.
\n\nDogs being everywhere and accommodation. Dogs being granted anti-breed discrimination protections, dogs having specific infrastructure built for them.
\n\nI 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.
\n\nHe also goes on about specific laws being enacted that prevent local municipalities to enact breed specific legislation as well.
\n\nMentioned articles in the article:
\n\nhttps://www.curbed.com/article/dogs-public-places-new-york-city.html
\n⬆️ 77 points | 💬 106 comments
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/hasan-piker-is-bad-for-the-democrats
\n\n\n\n\nAnd yet Democrats and progressives are starting to treat this radio shock jock as an important voice in their party. Here’s what Ezra Klein had to say in his NYT post:
\n\n\n\n\n[P]ick over Piker’s years of streaming, and you can find offensive things he’s said.“…Streamer has said offensive things” isn’t really a news story…The impulse to cut off those with whom we disagree reaches far beyond Piker…It sits at the heart of cancellation as a political tactic. It relies on a belief in the power of gatekeepers that might have been true in an earlier age but no longer reflects the way attention is earned and held. Tucker Carlson was ejected from Fox News and grew stronger on X and YouTube. Nick Fuentes was banned from major social media platforms and gathered strength in the shadows. Trump went from being banned by every major social media platform to retaking the presidency.
\nAccording to Ezra’s line of thought here, the Republican Party and mainstream conservative institutions like Fox News would be smart to embrace Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes — and therefore the Democrats and mainstream liberals would be smart to embrace Hasan Piker.
\n\nLet’s think through the implications of that line of reasoning. If the mainstream should always include extremists in the conversation — if gatekeeping is useless and counterproductive — then all you have to do in order to force extremist ideas into mainstream discourse is to grab some attention. If you get a Twitch stream or a podcast and you start screaming that the Holocaust was fake, or that the USSR was good, etc., and you manage to get a decently big audience by doing this, you should now have a say in how the country is run.
\n
Noah had another article posted here recently. So I think this one responding to Ezra should be relevant enough.
\n\nI disagreed with the other Noah article posted here about how the US was right in it's conflict with Anthropic. But I like this article.
\n⬆️ 56 points | 💬 232 comments
⬆️ 25 points | 💬 45 comments
⬆️ 15 points | 💬 12 comments
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/lies-damned-lies-and-economic-vibes
\n\n\n\nPaul Krugman ponders why consumer sentiment is so low despite the economy being pretty good. For my two cents I think the data hides that for many people the economy genuinely isn't good and CPI with it periodic reweighing hides this. Basically I disagree with Paul that there's a mystery here; people feel bad about the economy because it's bad. As for what *exactly* is bad about it I have ideas.
\n\nThe housing theory of everything. Prices of housing have consistently outstripped inflation and earnings and this single major issue just matters more for how people feel about the overall economy. It doesn't matter how cheap my smartphone and TV is if housing continues to eat up so much of an individuals budget.
\n\nSomewhat related to the housing theory of everything is the geographic concentration of jobs. This is more vibes based but it feels like the job market grows more and more concentrated over time. People have to move to where the jobs are, which can partially explain higher housing prices, and also people become more lonely and isolated from relocating away from from friends and family which drives down sentiment.
\n\nOther important players are childcare, healthcare and education which I don't think CPI appropriately weighs on their index.
\n\nOutside of prices there's also the fact that the economy increasingly caters to the top 10%-20% of the market so it subjectively *feels* like the median income has a lot less purchasing power than it did in the past.
\n\nThis is all sorta off the cuff but I thought the article was interesting. I just fundamentally disagree with Krugman that there's some sort of mystery here; people are dour because the economy isn't working for them.
\n\nI'm interested to hear y'all's thoughts.
\n⬆️ 22 points | 💬 63 comments
Ezra’s most recent article about Hasan Piker has resulted in a large number of responses. In the last few posts people have complained about fatigue from the topic. Going forward all responses (direct and indirect) to the article are only allowed to be posted here.
\n⬆️ 21 points | 💬 47 comments
⬆️ 1 points | 💬 0 comments
Every time there's an show like the Mar 27 \"Will Iran Break Trumpism\" episode with Christopher Caldwell or Ben Shapiro as a guest, a large part of the discussion here revolves around whether or not right-wing intellectuals who appear on the podcast actually provide any insight into MAGA and Trumpism. Most of the criticism seems to take 2 avenues. The first is that the guest is simply lying to provide cover for what the MAGA movement believes (Shapiro). The second is that the guest is an out of touch, ivory tower type running everything through the beltway intellectual filter. They're usually accused of giving Trump and MAGA credit for a much deeper ideological framework than they deserve, or for wildly misunderstanding their appeal to the average American (Caldwell).
\n\nDo you think that more of these types of episodes would be interesting and informative, or have we had enough of them? Additionally, have you ever heard the equivalent of this type of analysis on the right? I listen to a decent amount of conservative media, and I'd be fascinated to hear the right wing equivalent of Ezra Klein interviewing someone from the left and seriously exploring the appeal of Zorhan Mamdami, for example.
\n⬆️ 21 points | 💬 21 comments
Klein wrote a piece last September after Charlie Kirk's death called \"Charlie Kirk was Practicing Politics the Right Way.\" The piece was a bit scandalous since it ignored a lot of Kirk's worst views. Regardless, Klein wrote:
\n\n\n\n\nYou can dislike much of what Kirk believed and the following statement is still true: Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him. He was one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion...A taste for disagreement is a virtue in a democracy. Liberalism could use more of his moxie and fearlessness.
\n
In Klein's recent piece on Hasan Piker, he says:
\n\n\n\n\nBut it’s not just that cancellation has failed to silence those it targeted; it also weakened those who used it. The Democratic Party — and the progressive movement — was ill served by the belief that it could decide the boundaries of acceptable debate. In narrowing who it could talk to, it limited what it could hear and whom it could be heard by....
\n\n...This was not only bad politics but also bad democratic practice. These shows had come from nowhere and had gained millions of loyal listeners. They had earned their viewerships by voicing something that made millions of Americans feel seen, heard or at least interested. In avoiding those spaces, Democrats avoided contact with the kinds of voters they otherwise claimed to represent. This is the mistake Democrats often make when they talk about what they did wrong in 2024. They realize, now, that they should try to talk to the people who listen to these shows; they are less likely to realize that they should listen to the people who talk on these shows.
\n\nBeneath this is an important principle: Conversation is not a reward to be bestowed on those with whom we agree; it’s a necessary habit in a democracy. The point is not to find agreement so much as to deepen understanding. To talk with others is to believe in the possibility of change — theirs and your own. Whether you like everything that someone has said should be severed from the question of whether that person is worth talking to.
\n
Both pieces essentially express the same point: open dialogue is essential in a democracy.
\n\nDemocrats should talk to Hasan Piker (to find common ground) and talk to people like Charlie Kirk (to debate conflicting ideas). Republicans should do the same, too, but Ezra's pieces focus on Democratic strategy, which maybe is a blind spot in his thinking.
\n\nYet, the piece on Kirk drew a lot more criticism than the piece on Piker. Obviously, at the center of that distinction are the ideologies behind each subject. Does the piece on Piker's give a different context to the Kirk one? Or is the former still worthy of criticism?
\n⬆️ 14 points | 💬 27 comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/12/opinion/hasan-piker-democrats.html
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 0 points | 💬 5 comments
In Ezra's latest show, The Moral Cost of Trump's War, Fareed mentioned this. While I know there was a lot of criticism of him, I think this line was really insightful, and put words to a thought that's been circling in my mind for a while. I come from an immigrant family that lived in a rural village, and I've always been fascinated about the intangible things that change from that lifestyle to a modern urban one.
\n\nThere were many old-fashioned scripts that liberal progressives have successfully de-prioritized in the 20th century. About how a man needs to be a provider, physically strong, a churchgoer, married to a woman, compete with the other men. And women need to keep to the home, to bake treats for the upcoming events, raise the children, be easygoing and not confrontational, etc... These scripts led to toxic masculinity, power dynamics, lack of individuality, and everything that liberal progressives identified.
\n\nBut to straw man their existence, those scripts also gave a strong fabric of life. When you're from an old fashioned script-based mindset like that, when the fishery or the meat packing plant goes out of business and you lose your job, there's a lot less shame that is associated with you. You're still a good man, you worked when you were supposed to, you go to church, you helped your neighbor fix something last month. There's no personal identity crisis that comes along with things like that.
\n\nIn a modern day setting with liberal capitalism, the assumption is that we as individuals are in total control over our conditions. We are supposed to do the market research and decide how to spend 4+ years training for a job. We are supposed to develop interviewing skills and marketable job skills and network to find opportunities. We are supposed to assess the risk to decide whether buying a house is the right time now, and can we afford our kids, and which consumer choices we make. And if anything happens like a job loss, there's a crushing blow to your identity. You're not still a strong man, a father, a churchgoer. You're just a guy who was bringing in $7k a month and able to pay their bills, and now you're a guy who's not bringing in $7k a month anymore and cannot pay their bills. It's a much lonelier, psychologically turbulent, and alienating way to live.
\n\nWith those scripts, you know that if you followed it, you'd be safe within the tribe. People that venture out from pre-described lifestyles are not safe within the culture of the tribe. But all day, we are bombarded with images of people who eschew any script. There's the tech bros who spend their 20s working 80 hours a week typing on a computer for that 1% chance of building their startup. And they succeed! Everyone sees the fruits of people like that. There's people who don't think about marriage until way later in life. People who don't sleep at normal hours, people who choose to be digital nomads, people who change their genders or marry people of their same gender, it can be dizzying and disassociating to honestly pose the question to yourself - \"What exactly should I be doing today\", if you don't have a script to fall back on.
\n\nThere are some portion of people, I'll guess maybe 20-30% of people who do quite well in a modern liberal capitalist, transient, individualized, urban lifestyle. I can generalize and say many of the people reading the NYT and listening to EK and are on this subreddit probably fit in that category. We can analyze the market and make informed decisions about what good paying jobs meet in the middle of the Venn diagram of things we feel a natural aptitude for. We can move to a new city without roots and figure out life. We can navigate daily life and find fun things to do without much trouble. In the absence of a \"strong man provider\" or \"submissive caring woman\" script to follow, we can do things that fulfill us - advancing in our career, training for a marathon, going to open mic classes, researching health tips, etc...
\n\nHowever, we have to acknowledge that there's a significant group of people, maybe 20-30%, I don't know, I'm just guessing, who don't thrive without a script to follow. If the steel mill their dad and grandfather worked at is shut down, they're shell shocked. They work at the nearest grocery store near them, watch TV and scroll feeds when they get home, eat the cheapest processed food, get fat, and live marginal lives in society. These people can feel that something is wrong, that the basic deal from society that their parents and grandparents got is not still active. But for whatever reason, they don't have whatever it is that allows others to adapt to this freedom, with no script. I think this undirected resentment is a part of the MAGA mindset that can't be ignored.
\n\nI also think it's worth mentioning that this frustration can metastasize in some pretty ugly ways. I have a lot of conservative family and friends, and I often try to talk to them and get to the core of why they feel a certain way. There's a noticeable chunk of them who I think are uncomfortable with the lack of scripts in society. They're not content with \"Ok, everyone can do what they want in this world, and I just choose to live like my grandfather, marrying a woman, having a nuclear family in a suburban house with a white picket fence\". They want people who do not fit into the script they imagine to suffer. They like seeing examples of people who didn't follow the script getting into trouble. It's a constant affirmation that they made the right choice. These are the people who like Trump's cruelty. Renee Good died, but she was a married to a woman, so we can immediately dismiss her for not following the script, etc...
\n\nI think these dark and ugly spasms are a reaction to liberalism pretty successfully eliminating the scripts that most of the world used to abide by. And I think the way that the JD Vance New Right, incels, and all their associated podcasts, talk is indicative of that. They're all circling this idea, this fundamental frustration of having a script-less world. I think liberals need to directly confront it, to have a meaning in life, to espouse a purpose, rather than \"Oh, I don't know, we got rid of all the historical obstacles in your way, now you can make whatever money you want and do whatever you want with it, just don't bother anyone else\". This is the level that I think a lot of our future politics will be fought at.
\n⬆️ 47 points | 💬 49 comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/14/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-lynch-telhami.html
\n\n\n\nFor decades, most discussions of Israel and Palestine were framed around the eventual creation of a two-state solution. That effort has been dead for years. What has emerged in its place is what the political scientists Marc Lynch and Shibley Telhami call the “one-state reality.” Their book on this — edited with Michael Barnett and Nathan Brown — came out before Oct. 7, 2023.
\n\nSince Oct. 7, that reality has become further entrenched: There’s been a record pace of settlement construction in the West Bank. Israel now occupies more than half the territory of Gaza. And Israel’s push into Lebanon has displaced more than a million people.
\n\nSo what does it mean to reckon with Israel’s one-state reality — to see the facts on the ground rather than the frames of the past?
\n\nShibley Telhami is the Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland, College Park. Marc Lynch is the director of the Project on Middle East Political Science at George Washington University. Lynch is the author, most recently, of “America’s Middle East: The Ruination of a Region.”
\n\nMentioned:
\n\n“Israel’s One-State Reality” by Michael Barnett, Nathan Brown, Marc Lynch, and Shibley Telhami
\n\nThe One State Reality by Michael Barnett, Nathan J. Brown, Marc Lynch and Shibley Telhami
\n\nIsrael’s Religiously Divided Society, Pew Research Center
\n\nSummary of a Year of Terror, Expulsion, and Annexation — 2025 in the Settlements, Peace Now
\n\nBook Recommendations:
\n\nJustice for Some by Noura Erakat
\n\nWars of Ambition by Afshon Ostovar
\n\nThe Second Emancipation by Howard W. French
\n\nMayors in the Middle by Diana B. Greenwald
\n\nIsrael by Omer Bartov
\n\nTomorrow Is Yesterday by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley
\n⬆️ 21 points | 💬 112 comments
⬆️ 36 points | 💬 72 comments
⬆️ 22 points | 💬 1 comments
The trailer for this podcast was posted here a week ago. Now it is out.
\n⬆️ 11 points | 💬 14 comments
⬆️ 46 points | 💬 95 comments
https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/matthew-yglesias-vs-jerusalem-demsas
\n\n\n\nMatty has a new recurring gig at The Argument. Hopefully the show channels some old Weeds synergy.
\n\nI’m surprised Matt is doing this in addition to his other commitments. I was a fan of his short-lived Bad Takes podcast a few years ago, but I do not like Politix very much.
\n⬆️ 34 points | 💬 17 comments
⬆️ 11 points | 💬 0 comments
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/plain-english-with-derek-thompson/id1594471023?i=1000759025366
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 10 points | 💬 6 comments
⬆️ 9 points | 💬 6 comments
https://www.politix.fm/p/the-hasan-of-all-fears
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 4 points | 💬 10 comments
Relevancy: Ezra has done multiple podcasts on Trump’s reasoning and goals for the war in Iran. This article discusses the motivations and background in detail
\n⬆️ 4 points | 💬 1 comments
https://www.politix.fm/p/sui-generic
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 4 points | 💬 2 comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/26/opinion/trump-america-iran-war.html
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 64 points | 💬 47 comments
In this post, Derek Thompson takes aim at the gambling problem in America, and the kind of moral degeneration it has created. Sports betting and bankruptcy are on the rise, the worship of money, and the fact that people are betting on families. And how is this fitting for our low trust world.
\n⬆️ 17 points | 💬 4 comments
We all know Ezra is a wonk. The way he thinks, on any topic he covers, he helplessly intellectualizes it to a point of making philosophical arguments around it. He tries to bring guests who he thinks have thought \"deeply\" about things they write about. Add to that the layer of the guest coming to the NYT studio, feeling all serious and hoity-toity. The guests also \"suggest\" three books in the end - well, because they are all \"serious readers\". The result is us expecting a very serious, deep, thoughtful, almost philosophical conversation around every topic... including a few episodes on this era of Trump.
\n\nThere have been a number of occasions where I have felt that a much \"simpler\" explanation was staring us in the face and why are we not talking about it? Guests who I wouldn't spend two minutes giving any respect to. Arguments that nicely wrapped in vocabulary but just pure amorphous feelings at the core. The reality is often way simpler and dirtier than what our stretched brains often hope to find in a seemingly serious intellectual conversation.
\n\nWe often mean the term \"grifter\" to be associated with an internet/YouTube personality captured by an audience and cynically riding them for $ and fame. But in the traditional media, commentary and journalism space as well - there are enough people who have found a lucrative lane. They have an audience and opportunity to grow financially and attend \"intellectual\" conferences and sound all serious. We don't have to search a lot to find so called respectable contrarian takes that could potentially be guests on Ezra's show, and many have already been guests.
\n\nI think Ezra's show is unique in that way - the seriousness is never let go off. His tone, demeanour, patient way of talking, introducing the guest, all of that has already done half the work of bringing some credibility to the guest in a favourable way. And during the discussion, even in moments of incredulity when guests are basically saying indefensible things - I so wish Ezra would literally say \"Are you serious?\" or \"Come ON!, you know that isn't the case\". Maybe the fact that the guest is in the same studio space does not allow for that level of candor, while Jon Stewart can laugh out loud from his home.
\n\nSigh. Ezra - sometimes nice vocabulary is quite successful in hiding bad faith arguments.
\n⬆️ 40 points | 💬 69 comments
⬆️ 21 points | 💬 39 comments
⬆️ 27 points | 💬 22 comments
https://brookline.news/town-pumps-the-brakes-on-chestnut-hill-ave-redesign/
\n\n\n\nIf stories like this don't at least make you sympathetic to the ideas of Abundance, I don't know what will. If we can't put in bike lanes on a half-mile long road in deep blue Brookline, Massachusetts, something is seriously wrong with American municipal planning.
\n\nAnother all-time quote:
\n\n“Folks in the bike and pedestrian community were very excited about the proposed changes out there, because Chestnut Hill Avenue is a pretty important link between South Brookline, Beacon Street and the heart of Brookline,” said Transportation Board Chair Brian Kane said in an interview. “But there wasn’t really consensus from the neighborhood. We need to do our homework a little more.”
\n\nDebate around the project last year was heated.
\n\nOpposition to bicycle lanes on Chestnut Hill Avenue revolved around removing curbside parking. Other opponents complained about the safety implications of adding bikes to a busy road and worried that bike lanes would reduce their property values.\"
\n⬆️ 36 points | 💬 5 comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/29/opinion/ai-claude-chatgpt-gemini-mcluhan.html
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 4 points | 💬 1 comments
⬆️ 16 points | 💬 7 comments
(For the mods—this is relevant to EK because Ross and Ezra often collaborate)
\n\nDid anyone watch this Jeremy Carl interview on Ross’s podcast? I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Dude is nuts.
\n⬆️ 61 points | 💬 115 comments
Naomi Klein on the Ezra Klein Show talking about her book Doppelganger and related topics.
\n⬆️ 25 points | 💬 70 comments
Relevance: David French has been a multiple time guest and fill-in cohost for the Ezra Klein Show. I think this wide ranging interview of General McChrystal is an interesting compliment to Ezra's coverage of the Iran War.
\n\nMcChrystal talks about how the relative success of the special operation raid in Venezuela may have given the Trump administration a false confidence in their capability and fall into buying into the \"myth of surgical warfare\" by special operations raids and air superiority. He talks about differences in the motivation of potential combatants in Iran from Venezuela, and the challenges of actually holding territory and effecting lasting change rather than bombing things and even overthrowing capitols.
\n\nMost interesting and potentially concerning is their description of the warrior class/caste that has crystalized as military service has become most strongly predicted by other family members serving. They talk about potential implications of that including the valorization and desire for combat and violence, as well as the possibility of the political polarization of our armed forces. These do seem like reasonably possible and alarming outcomes, and I've talked elsewhere here about the concerning consolidation on the capacity for violence by the right (and the abdication of the responsibility of violence and effecting physical change in the world by the left) happening concurrently with a growing glamorization and valorization of violence by the right.
\n\nMcChrystal's proposed solution in mandatory national service to depoliticize service and create a universal buy in and prevent the development of a warrior mindset and warrior caste. His conception of this seemed to also include public works projects. As someone that has not served, I do think there is a part this idea is compelling.
\n⬆️ 6 points | 💬 2 comments
⬆️ 37 points | 💬 65 comments
Description:
\n\nIf you’re a typical worker with a salary, you have almost no control over how much tax you owe. But if you own a company worth billions of dollars, the income tax is, in the words of my guest today, “largely optional.” Countries around the world struggle to get billionaires to pay a higher tax rate than middle-income families.
\n\nGabriel Zucman is one of the world’s leading experts on tax inequality, the economist who first rigorously measured what U.S. billionaires actually pay—and he found that it’s less, as a share of income, than what a middle-class American pays. He’s advised Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders on wealth tax proposals and recently published sweeping new research showing that the problem is global. Today, we get into the mechanics of billionaire tax avoidance, the history of failed wealth taxes, and whether the AI era is about to make all of this dramatically worse.
\n⬆️ 19 points | 💬 17 comments
⬆️ 12 points | 💬 2 comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/20/health/obamacare-new-mexico-subsidies-states.html
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 18 points | 💬 15 comments
https://thesecondbestworld.substack.com/p/zoning-much-more-than-you-wanted
\n\n\n\nNice article on Zoning in American and how it destroys so much value.
\n\nEK has some nice episodes on this too, like: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/06/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-brian-schatz.html
\n⬆️ 12 points | 💬 0 comments
⬆️ 77 points | 💬 23 comments
After rejecting the ROAD to housing act, the 21st century housing act has been passed instead. It mostly arrives at the same ideas, but took away some of the democrats subsidies and government direct actions while keeping most of the deregulation principles. It appears that in exchange for the loss of some direct subsidy programs, they got a restriction limiting how many homes an investment firm can buy (If you are over 350, you can't buy more). Theoretically, there's nothing stopping one person from owning more than one company and through that owning 350 homes in each. But the deregulation on housing in itself has some popularity on the left now due to Abundance, and the limiting of private investment in single family homes got a verbal endorsement from Trump. So overall, its a centrist compromise bill of the parts that everyone had some agreement on.
\n⬆️ 33 points | 💬 34 comments
https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/95trz_v1
\n\n\nNew pre-print article from UC Berkeley, UToronto, Georgia Tech, and UCLA attempts to take down the abundance agenda with respect to housing.
\n\nThe paper specifically calls out Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson as being \"among the most influential shapers of public opinion and policy\" on this topic, and then says they're wrong.
\n\nAbstract:
\n\n\n\n\nA popular view holds that declining housing affordability stems from regulations that restrict new supply, and that deregulation will spur sufficient market-rate construction to meaningfully improve affordability. We argue that this ‘deregulationist’ view rests upon flawed assumptions. Through empirical simulation, we show that even a dramatic, deregulation-driven supply expansion would take decades to generate widespread affordability in high-cost U.S. markets. We advance an alternative explanation of declining affordability grounded in demand structure and geography: uneven demand growth – driven by rising interpersonal and interregional inequality – is the primary driver of declining affordability in recent decades. For cost-burdened households, trickle-down benefits from deregulation will be insufficient and too slow.
\n
Sharing to discuss, not because I agree with the study (obviously)
\n⬆️ 25 points | 💬 50 comments
⬆️ 14 points | 💬 8 comments
https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/command-shift-war
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 21 points | 💬 4 comments
https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/2026/03/california-housing-yimby-reforms/686334/
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 12 points | 💬 15 comments
https://www.politix.fm/p/mr-hollens-opus
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 7 points | 💬 9 comments
⬆️ 2 points | 💬 1 comments
No posts in this digest period.
\n"},{"id":"digest:digest-ezraklein:76","title":"Digest: r/ezraklein: Mar 05 - Mar 12, 2026","link":"https://rssglue.subdavis.com/feed/digest-ezraklein/rss","author":"System","published_at":"2026-03-12T09:15:00+00:00","content":"\n\n\nhttps://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-nadia-schadlow.html
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 2 points | 💬 9 comments
AI discourse has become polarized between two extreme views. On one side, you have AI boosters who confidently proclaim that AI will automate most cognitive work by 2030, and mock anyone who dares to point out the flaws or limitations of current AI tools. On the other side, you have skeptics who insist that AI all hype and snake oil, that it's merely a glorified autocomplete generating endless slop, and that anyone who insists otherwise is either scamming you or being scammed themselves.
\n\nIt seems like Ezra has looked at these two views and decided he agrees with the boosters. He has only had AI boosters* on his show in recent years.
\n\nOf course, there is a wide range of other possible views between these two extremes that haven't been getting a lot of airtime in the media or on The Ezra Klein Show specifically. The tech entrepreneur Anil Dash has pointed out that the silent majority view in tech is a middle ground view that sees AI as useful and important but also rejects the messianic narratives.
\n\nThe best and most rigorous advocates for this kind of middle view are Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor, the authors of AI as Normal Technology. I encourage folks to read the whole thing, as I can't boil it all down into a short Reddit post. But at a high level, their thesis is that AI's impacts will be more like previous technologies than not. Diffusion into the economy will be gradual (on the order of decades), the nature of jobs will evolve but there will still be plenty of jobs, and that while there are real risks and issues introduced by the tech, the kinds of apocalyptic risks many boosters talk about are not the ones we need to focus on.
\n\nIn their view, AI progress is real and AI will be a big deal for both good and ill. But the changes AI will introduce will be more gradual and manageable (if we play our cards right) than AI executives or Bay Area rationalists claim.
\n\nI hope Ezra has them on at some point in the near future. It's a perspective he hasn't even acknowledged but it seems very plausibly true.
\n\n*AI doomers like Eliezer Yudkowksy are also \"boosters\" in this sense, because they think AI will replace all human labor in the near future, they just also think it will likely/certainly kill us all.
\n⬆️ 28 points | 💬 26 comments
⬆️ 21 points | 💬 46 comments
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/07/mamdani-nithya-raman-housing-socialism-abundance-00817314
\n\n\nPretty interesting article on how the progressive left is coalescing around a 50/50 attitude towards tenant protections and abundance as the key to better housing. I suppose that’s better than the 80/20 message they would have probably messaged 5 years ago.
\n\nRelevance: Abundance
\n⬆️ 32 points | 💬 20 comments
I still have my criticisms but they are in another thread.
\n\nThere is an interim commuter rail station in Lynn Massachusetts. It will take 8 years to build the new one. RIP
\n⬆️ 5 points | 💬 3 comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/08/opinion/ai-anthropic-claude-pentagon-hegseth-amodei.html
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 3 points | 💬 0 comments
https://open.spotify.com/episode/41Vyq7sv4pujs9PPyfs2MW?si=_5MSqn_YRFW4xj8PjGxHJA
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 15 points | 💬 1 comments
Sam Sedar and Emma Vineland criticize Ezra on what he said in the episode \"The Great Lie of War\".
\n\nI'm just sharing it for discussion purposes I don't agree overall with the callousness, dismissiveness and flippant attitudes expressed on The Majority Report.
\n\nI do wish Ezra Klein had spoken more clearly on what the facts of the reporting are in regards to Israel's role in getting Trump to join the war versus what the conspiracies on the right are.
\n\nRegardless that seems secondary to the point Ezra makes about the possibility of rising anti-Semitism. Which itself is secondary to the actual war and people suffering in Iran and the Middle East.
\n\nI do take issue with their assertion that Ezra Klein should have done more to separate the State of Israel from Jewishness, as Ezra Klein has been evolving his mindset and view on Israel since Oct 7th. But I can imagine it's not easy for someone who holds a lot of complicated feelings for many different things and tries to balance many different principes and values.
\n⬆️ 8 points | 💬 139 comments
https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/new-poll-democrats-real-problem-isnt
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 99 points | 💬 134 comments
https://www.businessinsider.com/mamdani-new-york-city-public-toilets-costs-delays-2026-2
\n\n\n\nThis is a great example of how an abundance framework could help progressives accomplish progressive goals. NYC (and basically everywhere in America) has a drastic lack of public toilets, which reduces quality of life for everyone. The obvious solution is building more toilets, and the city has passed a law requiring itself to double the number of public toilets.
\n\nAnd yet, the city has not passed laws reducing the permitting and review process, or procurement and labor restrictions that prevent itself for accomplishing the goal that the city has mandated for itself. Therefore, it will be hugely expensive and difficult for Mamdani to accomplish his campaign promises to increase public bathrooms.
\n\nThe city has the power to make it easy (or at least much easier) for itself to meet the goals of its new progressive champion mayor. But doing so may require sacrificing process restrictions (i.e. permitting, environmental review, community input, procurement restrictions) that progressives have previously fought for. The solutions of the past leading to the problems of the present. This is one of the main points discussed in Abundance. Hopefully Mamdani read it.
\n⬆️ 28 points | 💬 70 comments
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2hFeNnCOJGhopsMYFJcZB3?si=VR6kEnCDS_21Vf0E0gCvcQ
\n\n\n\nTwo sitting heads of state, eight weeks apart.
\n\nOn Saturday, February 28, the United States and Israel launched a massive military assault on Iran that resulted in the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with much of his senior command. This came less than two months after the United States military captured Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela, in an overnight raid.
\n\nThe president seems to believe that he can decapitate these regimes and control their successors without events spinning out of his control. Is he right?
\n\nBen Rhodes is a New York Times Opinion contributing writer and a co-host of “Pod Save the World.” He served as a senior adviser to President Barack Obama and worked on the Iran nuclear deal.
\n\nIn this conversation, we discuss the ongoing conflict in Iran, how Democrats should respond, and whether Trump’s “head on a pike” approach to foreign policy underestimates the chaos of war.
\n\nMentioned:
\n\n“Push from Saudis, Israel helped move Trump to attack Iran” by Michael Birnbaum, John Hudson, Karen DeYoung, Natalie Allison and Souad
\n\n“Trump’s Best Foreign Policy? Not Starting
\n\nAny Wars” by J.D. Vance
\n\nBook Recommendations:
\n\nFrom the Ruins of Empire by Pankaj Mishra
\n\nThe World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig
\n\nTravelers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd
\n⬆️ 17 points | 💬 45 comments
Relevance to Ezra Klein: This is the simplest example I've seen yet of a basic idea getting held up in local government red-tape and layer upon layer of requirements, which ends up reducing the state's ability to build anything in reasonable time or budget. Aligns strongly with Klein's abundance agenda and would easily fit in his book.
\n⬆️ 8 points | 💬 0 comments
Relevance- this was inspired by the overall discussion of the different perceptions of reality in yesterday’s episode, and specifically the segment where the subject of crime came up. One thing that was mentioned is that Americans consistently believe that crime is on the rise even when it isn’t. It seems to me that in our relentlessly negative media environment (both institutional media and especially social media) it’s incredibly hard for the public to believe that any kind of positive change is occurring in almost any area.
\n\nTo be clear, I’m not claiming that things have gotten better over the last few years. But let’s imagine that it’s 2030- a new, effective Democratic administration is in office. Wage gains have outpaced inflation for 2 years, YIMBY polices have begun to increase the housing supply, some version of universal healthcare has been passed, a gang of 8 style immigration compromise has kept the border secure and created a pathway to citizenship. Things are getting better. Is there any chance that the voting public would acknowledge these positive changes, or will we remain mired in the era of national bad vibes no matter the reality or the communication strategy?
\n⬆️ 22 points | 💬 35 comments
I think she has such a depth of knowledge and is a really good guest on the podcasts I've seen her on
\n⬆️ 16 points | 💬 4 comments
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2nJV1OIIjT8uGeGP637uXu
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 17 points | 💬 17 comments
I have never liked personal injury attorneys but I had no idea how badly they were hurting construction costs.
\n⬆️ 10 points | 💬 6 comments
A.I. agents are here. Have they changed your life yet? The release of agents like Claude Code marked a new pivot point in the history of A.I. We are leaving the chatbot era and entering the agentic era — where A.I. is capable of completing all kinds of tasks on its own, and even collaborating and communicating with other A.I.
\n\nIt isn’t clear yet whether these models actually make their users meaningfully more productive. But the technology is continuing to improve; there are few signs that it is close to plateauing. So what might this new era mean for our economy, our labor market and our kids?
\n\nClark is a co-founder of Anthropic, the company behind Claude and Claude Code. His newsletter, Import AI, has been one of my go-to reads to track the capabilities of different models over the years. In this conversation, I ask him to share how he sees this moment — how the technology is changing, whether it is leading to meaningful changes in how we work and think, and how policy needs to or can change in response to any job displacement on the horizon.
\n⬆️ 45 points | 💬 217 comments
⬆️ 43 points | 💬 40 comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/20/opinion/2028-democrats-presidential-primary.html
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 3 points | 💬 15 comments
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/02/housing-crisis-rich-poor-building/686086/
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 7 points | 💬 1 comments
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id1548604447?i=1000750639856
\n\n\n\nIt has been harder to get insight into the dynamics of President Trump’s White House this term compared with the first one, partly because there have been fewer leaks. But after the attack on Venezuela and the administration’s actions in Minneapolis, I’ve found myself wondering: How exactly is Trump making decisions? Who is he listening to? How does this White House work?
\n\nAshley Parker and Michael Scherer cover the Trump administration for The Atlantic and have written a series of big profiles on key figures in this administration. Parker previously won three Pulitzer Prizes for her reporting at The Washington Post.
\n\nMentioned:
\n\n“The Wrath of Stephen Miller” by Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer
\n\n“‘I Run the Country and the World’” by Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer
\n\n“This Is the Real Reason Susie Wiles Talked to Me 11 Times” by Chris Whipple
\n\n“Susie Wiles, JD Vance, and the “Junkyard Dogs”: The White House Chief of Staff on Trump’s Second Term (Part 1 of 2)” by Chris Whipple
\n\nBook Recommendations:
\n\nThe Secret History by Donna Tartt
\n\nBel Canto by Ann Patchett
\n\nFrankly, We Did Win This Election by Michael C. Bender
\n\nAn Image of My Name Enters America by Lucy Ives
\n\nPalimpsest by Gore Vidal
\n\nBlood by Douglas Starr
\n\nThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.
\n⬆️ 16 points | 💬 14 comments
Such dissonance. What’s next? Cargill? Koch industries?
\n⬆️ 23 points | 💬 17 comments
The GLP-1 drug revolution has taken the medicine world by storm. I’ve done several episodes on the science of GLP-1s. But we’ve never done an episode like this before, where we talk to one of the most important people in charge of guiding the GLP-1 drug revolution.
\n\nOur guest is Dave Ricks, the CEO of Eli Lilly, the largest pharmaceutical company in the world. First we talk about what makes the GLP-1 drug category special and the science that Lilly is doing to improve these drugs. Then, we talk about the pharmaceutical industry more broadly. How it works. How it could work better. And I don’t shy away from the question that I think Pharma CEOs need to take much more seriously: If the pharmaceutical industry is theoretically more devoted than any other economic category to saving people’s lives, why do Americans distrust it more than any other industry in the entire economy?
\n\nSubscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://
\n\nwww.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson
\n\nIf you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.
\n\nHost: Derek Thompson
\n\nGuest: David Ricks
\n\nProducer: Devon Baroldi
\n⬆️ 8 points | 💬 4 comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-sotu-2026.html
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 7 points | 💬 6 comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-anand-giridharadas.html
\n\n\n\nAt the end of January, Trump’s Justice Department released what it said was the last tranche of the Epstein files: millions of pages of emails and texts, F.B.I. documents and court records. Much was redacted and millions more pages have been withheld. There is a lot we want to know that remains unclear.
\n\nBut what has come into clear view is the role Epstein played as a broker of information, connections, wealth and women and girls for a slice of the global elite. This was the infrastructure of Epstein’s power — and it reveals much about the infrastructure of elite networks more generally.
\n\nAnand Giridharadas is something of a sociologist of American elites. He’s the author of, among other books, “” and the forthcoming “.” He also publishes the great newsletter .
\n\nBack in November, after the release of an earlier batch of Epstein files, Giridharadas wrote a great , taking a sociologist’s lens to the messages Epstein exchanged with his elite friends. So after the government released this latest, enormous tranche of materials, I wanted to talk to Giridharadas to help make sense of it. What do they reveal — about how Epstein operated in the world, the vulnerabilities he exploited and what that says about how power works in America today?
\n\nNote: This conversation was recorded on Tuesday, Feb. 10. On Thursday, Feb. 12, Kathryn Ruemmler announced she would be resigning from her role as chief legal officer and general counsel at Goldman Sachs.
\n\nThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.
\n⬆️ 27 points | 💬 25 comments
In the most recent EK episode, Anand recommended as one of his 3 books the unpublished expose by human rights journalist Conchita Sarnoff.
\n\nThe Daily Beast just posted an article featuring comments by Sarnoff and the increased threats she’s been facing since the files have been released.
\n⬆️ 27 points | 💬 0 comments
Submission statement: Obama addresses conflicts around the commentary of progressives and liberals arguing about the abundance agenda and concerns about who benefits about how reform and language is addressed to achieve significant outcomes. Listen around 18 minutes.
\n⬆️ 53 points | 💬 46 comments
https://www.slowboring.com/p/americans-think-everyone-is-corrupt
\n\n\n\n\nI think it’s hard to make political hay out of Trump’s corruption because, while it looks extraordinary to me (and probably to you if you’re reading this), many voters see it as pretty normal.
\n
...
\n\n\n\n\nIf there’s one thing I learned in college philosophy classes all those years ago, it’s that words are somewhat arbitrary and people can use language however they want as long as we understand each other. And what I love about this series of questions is that it indicates that most people are not using the word “corruption” in the way that I or most political practitioners or most investigative reporters would use it.
\n\nAfter all, the basic shape of this is that just holding an unpopular view is corrupt. I suppose you could try to plead to the voters that your support of Policy X has nothing to do with donor influence or social elites. But if you support Policy X, then of course economic and social elites who agree with you about X will contribute money to your campaign and say nice things about you. There’s no way that you’re ever going to be able to prove that your support for a ban on single-use plastic straws reflects a sincere assessment of the public interest rather than the influence of climate donors and green-minded cultural elites.
\n\nWhen you put it that way, it all sounds a bit insane. Do voters really believe that the mere fact that a politician disagrees with them about something is evidence of corruption? It seems that maybe they do!
\n
This is the free slow boring article. I wanted to post it because I think it is an interesting argument, and I'm also interested in the footnote at the bottom and the discussion about it.
\n\n\n\n\nCarbonWaster: 'Polymarket is sponsoring this post'
\n\nWhy? In particular, is that not rather in conflict with this site's long-standing concern about the harmful effects of sports betting, given that, per Gambling Insider, a plurality (39%) of Polymarket's revenue comes from gambling - sorry, 'predicting' - on sports. (This is even more obvious at other prediction markets, where 85% of Kalshi's revenue comes from sports).
\n\nI'd add that it is epistemically bad to use prediction market odds as an indicator of the likelihood of a particular thing happening, and is in particular obviously inferior to the disciplined approach to making predictions that this site has previously advocated.
\n\nMatthew Yglesias: To offer a little more information about this, Polymarket & Substack created some kind of tool where people can embed Polymarket odds in a post rather than screenshotting or whatever. In order to promote this new functionality, they offered some Substack writers money to try using the embed.
\n\nThere's no editorial strings attached or anything, and making reference to midterm odds seems like a very normal thing for me to do so I sad yes.
\n\nAs I think people know, advertising has been a traditional part of the media revenue model for a very long time and to the extent that publications are able to attract advertising support it is possible to do more editorial work at a lower price for readers. I don't want to do anything intrusive or that would change the basic nature of our articles but this seemed like a very light lift that would have gone totally unnoticed if not disclosed (but of course I wouldn't do it without disclosure) and that is part of a strategy to help us delivering value to our members.
\n
Now people on twitter can write tweets like this:
\n\n\n\n\nUnbelievable. Matt Yglesias wrote a condescending article calling the masses too \"unsophisticated\" to understand elites, so they unfairly accuse them of \"corruption.\" After insulting people for thinking politicians are motivated by greed, he announces a gambling sponsorship.
\n
What do people here think about this? Is this article good or bad? Is the Polymarket sponsorship ethical, or unethical? Are attacks like that tweet fair or unfair?
\n\nIf Ezra started taking sponsorships to mention specific things in the middle of the podcast or article in a natural way, and then disclose it was paid for at the end, would that be fine or bad? Would that just be traditional advertising as a traditional part of the media revenue model? Does it matter at all if the sponsors are paying the New York Times for ads, or Ezra directly?
\n⬆️ 24 points | 💬 12 comments
⬆️ 22 points | 💬 28 comments
A few years ago I decided to look into applying for a job with New York State. At the time, the state was facing a significant workforce shortage. When I looked into the hiring process, I was flabbergasted. Here's what the process was at the time in brief (recycled from an earlier comment of mine):
\n\nThe State's Civil Service Department announces examinations for different positions every few years. There is generally no set schedule for when exams are released, so you don't know if an exam for a job you're interested in will open up tomorrow or in 3 years.
An exam is announced. To register, you have to apply and demonstrate that you meet the minimum qualifications. This basically means setting up a profile on a crappy website and converting your resume to discrete work and education items - not dissimilar to some private sector processes, except you're not applying for the job yet, just the exam.
If you're approved for the exam, you can pay the exam fee and register. The exam is typically held ~3 months or so after the exam is announced. If you don't apply for the exam within the ~2 month period in which exam registration is open, you're pretty much out of luck - keep an eye out for the exam to reopen at some unknown point in the next few years.
By this point, you've waited months or years for an examination to be announced, applied for the examination, paid to register for the examination, and waited another 3 months or so for the exam to take place. You now drive to a testing center on the weekend. Allot 6 hours for the examination (you can certainly finish more quickly, but this is the exam length). The exam is multiple choice and probably won't do a good job assessing whether or not you'd succeed in the role.
For the state, it takes 90-120 days for the examination to be graded and for an \"eligible list\" to be published. You are placed on the list in the order of your score rounded to the nearest 5. If you are beneath a 70, you don't make the list. In New York City, it takes 9-12 months to grade the examination and publish an eligible list.
Let's assume you're at the top of the list. After months or years of work and annoyance, you've made it! You can finally interview for the job! Oh wait, maybe not. There's not actually a guarantee that there's a vacant position for which you've taken the exam. All of this has just been so that your name goes on a list of candidates who can be contacted for an interview, should an opening exist or arise down the road...
Ezra touched on the the absurdity of this \"Kafka-esque\" system last year. Jennifer Pahlka, who has been on the show several times, writes about similar absurdities at the federal level.
\n\nObviously this is no way to run a railroad. It drives away candidates who can't afford to pay a fee to take a test, or can't spend 6 hours on a weekend doing so, or can't wait an indeterminate amount of time for a test to be published, or who simply have other opportunities. It enfeebles government and leads to more outsourcing and contracting.
\n\nFortunately the outrageousness of this process and the workforce crisis it contributed to prompted Governor Hochul to undertake reforms. Here's the new process as applies to many State jobs: submit a resume and cover letter, get called in for an interview. Who'd have thunk it.
\n\nThe new program launched in 2023. Since then, the State has hired some 38,000 employees under the program. From January 2024 to January 2025, the State saw a net gain of about 5,000 employees.
\n\nLocal jurisdictions can also participate in the program to expedite their own civil service hiring processes, and many have, hiring an addition 14,300 or so employees at the county and local government level.
\n\nOne jurisdiction in particular need of civil servants is New York City. The vacancy level at city agencies is about twice what it was pre-COVID, and some housing and social agencies are seeing vacancy rates as high as 15-20%. In light of this, New York City sought to participate in the streamlined hiring program. They were promptly sued by labor unions dishonestly arguing that a non-convoluted hiring process would result in patronage. The City backed down and continues on with its testing process where the median time to grade a written test is 290 days. Ironically, the unions' wielding their political influence to thwart the implementation of faster, more sensible hiring is itself a sort of corrupt patronage.
\n\nMany of the facts and figures are from this article published this week by NY Focus.
\n\nI just think this is an interesting Abundance-related case study because it shows just how insanely inefficient bureaucracy can be, how sometimes reform can be done with relative ease once willpower to address it exists, and how groups within the liberal coalition can themselves be the primary barriers to progress.
\n⬆️ 23 points | 💬 7 comments
\n\n\"In his epic cover story for The Atlantic this month, staff writer Josh Tyrangiel spoke to dozens of economists, workers, tech CEOs, and AI experts about the danger that artificial intelligence might pose to the labor force. Is AI developing the capacity to automate and even replace millions of white-collar jobs, as many technologists and some economists predict? Or is this a normal technology that, like previous generations of technology, will have a much slower effect on the workforce? We cover several scenarios before asking: Why does it seem like nobody in politics is paying close enough attention to this story?\"
\n
⬆️ 10 points | 💬 12 comments
Relevance: NYT Opinion on a moderate/left debate in Democratic politics. This both within the rules and on a common topic.
\n⬆️ 15 points | 💬 14 comments
https://www.bart.gov/about/projects/fare-gate
\n\n\nEzra has spoken a lot about building and improving public transit. I think one of the obstacles to public transit usage growth in America is the frankly disgusting state of stations and trains in many major systems, as well as the presence of a range of people from annoying impolite people to dangerously mentally ill homeless people accosting others.
\n\nI ride public transit every day. It is plainly obvious to anyone who is on transit regularly that 1 percent (or less) of users cause 99 percent of problems. And this 1 percent almost never pays the fare. When it is incredibly easy to steal fare, someone who is willing to smoke crack on a train or who is willing to assault another person won’t think twice about it.
\n\nSo much of discourse involves trying to solve for the underlying problems that impact those who have, sadly, been left to rot by society and use transit as a rolling homeless shelter or safe injection site. That is all well and good and I support doing that. But in the medium term, we cannot wait for poverty to be solved before we protect law abiding public transit users.
\n\nThe goal of public transit is to provide safe, reliable, fast, and efficient transportation at a reasonably pleasant level of comfort. I am more and more convinced that hardened fare gates are a non negotiable to achieve this.
\n⬆️ 37 points | 💬 24 comments
I just came across this guest opinion essay in the New York Times by Oren Cass. He’s a former guest on the show and a leading conservative/populist/some mix of both thinker through American Compass. I haven’t seen this posted yet. Thoughts on this critique of financialization? Coming from the left, a lot resonated with me, though I admittedly do not know enough to know the intricacies.
\n⬆️ 72 points | 💬 121 comments
It doesnt seem like there is anything like that on the left. Its all short term, kick Trump out of office and we will figure everything out later. Thats not something that was worked out for democrats the past 10 years.
\n\nI may be ignorant, but is there anyone, group, or politician on the left that is not just talking about getting past the Trump era, but looking at the next decade and thinking how we can shift the Supreme Court to the left, reform campaign finance laws, codify minimum wage, overturn Roe v. Wade, completely reform healthcare.
\n\nThe right has been building for project 2025 for decades, I would love to seem the democrats have that same focus and persistence because that is truly where the real change will come from and not the day to day grid lock of small media wins or compromises across the aisle.
\n⬆️ 61 points | 💬 63 comments
When I heard Cory Doctorow describe nursing scheduling/contracting apps as paying nurses less based on how much personal debt they carry, I found the claim alarming and went looking for substantiation. What I’ve been able to find so far, however, is limited. Doctorow himself has written about this, but does not cite concrete evidence (e.g., documentation, whistleblower testimony, or regulatory findings) showing that ShiftKey or similar platforms actually incorporate individual nurses’ debt or credit histories into wage calculations. The Roosevelt Institute report often cited in this context discusses algorithmic wage discrimination and notes that financial or credit information could, in theory, be used by such platforms, but it does not demonstrate that this data is in fact being used in the specific manner Doctorow describes.
\n\nI will say that it's pretty annoying that the algorithm is opaque enough that it's theoretically possible that it might be being used as described.
\n\nIf anyone has any sources with more specific facts to support the claims Doctorow makes about Shiftkey, I'd be really interested to see them.
\n\nedit: here's the link to the Roosevelt Institute study, and here's Doctorow's article with more detail of his allegations.
\n⬆️ 47 points | 💬 10 comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-doctorow-wu.html
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 59 points | 💬 160 comments
Hochul and Mamdani had an event today to promote amendments to SEQRA (NY's version of NEPA) that Hochul has made a priority in this year's state budget. Here's a good clip of Mamdani talking about how permitting delays stifle construction of housing and harm affordability.
\n\nI think there are some interesting lessons to be gleaned from what's going on in New York right now, many of which relate to themes discussed on the Ezra Klein Show and in this community, including but not limited to Abundance. Here are a few of my takeaways:
\n\nMany of the most common criticisms of Abundance were just wrong. Allegations that it was too vague, Reaganism in disguise, couldn't function politically, etc., reflected misunderstandings about policy making and agenda setting, and/or were ideologically driven superficial knee jerk reactions. What Mamdani and Hochul show is that (i) policymakers didn't need a list of regulatory reforms in order to pick up the ball and run with it, (ii) Abundance is, in fact, about serving liberal and progressive goals, and (iii) it can easily be integrated into progressive or moderate platforms.
There's ample common ground between progressive and moderate Democrats. A common argument made in response to Ezra's argument about the need to run more moderate Democrats in areas where those politics function better is that we'd end up with a coalition with no meaningful agenda or objectives and so maybe a moderate Democrat actually doesn't offer much benefit over a Republican. I think this was always a terrible argument but I think Hochul and Mamdani help illustrate its hollowness with clear areas of strong overlap: affordability, pro-housing policy, investment in infrastructure and transit, access to childcare, resisting encroachments from Trump, and so on.
A big tent means acceptance in both directions. Hochul endorsed Mamdani before the general election. Last week, both Mamdani and AOC endorsed Hochul.
These endorsements get to a broader theme about pragmatic politics vs. purity politics. I think the best progressive politicians (Sanders, Mamdani, AOC) are pragmatic and coalitional. They don't treat non-progressive politicians as cowards or moral monsters, a framing that's all too common from some unfortunately loud and online progressives. Likewise, Mamdani, AOC (as well as many mainstream and moderate Dems) treat conservative voters as prospective supporters rather than \"irredeemable deplorables.\" Voters feel alienated from candidates and from the party when they think candidates and the party do not like them. Democrats have exuded this vibe for a long time in different capacities and it's been disastrous.
Progressive politics can succeed but the claim that voters are just waiting for progressive candidates is vastly overstated. Mamdani, AOC, and Sanders all demonstrate the energy and clarity that progressive politics can bring. But there's a reason we keep talking about these three individuals and it's because they're the exceptions rather than the rule. Today, Hochul's Democratic primary challenger from the left, former congressman and current lieutenant governor, dropped out of the race after a complete failure of the campaign. He tried to flank Hochul to the left on just about every issue and...didn't catch fire at all because, as it turns out, voters aren't actually all secret progressives chomping at the bit for someone further to the left. Candidate quality matters a ton.
⬆️ 19 points | 💬 5 comments
⬆️ 35 points | 💬 30 comments
\n\nInteresting analysis from the San Fran Fed. Perhaps there is some weight to the argument \"it's the billionaire's (and millionaire's) fault. Curious what people's thoughts are here! A few excerpts.
\n\nFrom the conclusion.
\n\n\"Much of the intense interest in addressing the housing affordability crisis has focused on limitations to the housing supply. In this Letter, we argue that differences in the type of underlying labor market growth and subsequent implications for housing demand may offer a better explanation for important housing market dynamics. This suggests that the housing affordability crisis may be best addressed by understanding changes to the labor market, especially the relative distribution of economic growth across income levels and jobs in different areas.\"
\n\nAnother Excerpt.
\n\n\"House prices and income, 1975 to 2024
\n\nA large body of research has argued that housing supply constraints can explain this divergence (see Glaeser and Gyourko 2025)—particularly that policies on residential zoning and density have reduced construction and driven up prices. However, recent research has shown that supply constraints cannot account for differences in house price or supply growth across U.S. cities (Louie et al. 2025a, b).
\n\nThis research indicates that regulatory reforms may have limited impact on housing affordability and that differences in housing supply constraints are not the fundamental drivers of differences in housing dynamics across metro areas. Figure 1 suggests an alternative explanation: Average income, an indicator of housing demand (green dashed line), grew essentially one-for-one with house prices from 1975 to 2024, even though median income failed to keep up. In other words, house price growth may simply reflect growth in housing demand, driven in part by growth in average income, such that questions of housing affordability may primarily be about differences in income growth at the top of the distribution relative to the middle.\"
\n\nOne More
\n\n\"Figure 3 depicts this relationship between population and housing supply growth. The data show that housing supply growth is strongly related to population growth across essentially all metro areas. Moreover, about 85% of metro areas had more growth in housing quantities than in population; this is shown by most of the data lying above the dashed red “balanced growth” line, which indicates the housing growth rate that would match population growth with no change in average household size. Moreover, Louie et al. (2025b) show that the rate at which population growth translates into house price growth is independent of measured supply constraints, all of which points to supply constraints not explaining differences in housing affordability.\"
\n⬆️ 21 points | 💬 36 comments
No posts in this digest period.
\n"},{"id":"digest:digest-ezraklein:8","title":"Digest: r/ezraklein: Jan 29 - Feb 05, 2026","link":"https://rssglue.subdavis.com/feed/digest-ezraklein/rss","author":"System","published_at":"2026-02-05T06:15:00+00:00","content":"\n\n\nhttps://x.com/luketress/status/2017240608864190664?s=46
\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 252 points | 💬 690 comments
So as well all now know the facts would bear out that, in reality, these two parts of his life were deeply intertwined and essentially everyone in his orbit affirmatively knew he was a pedophile and often asked him to get them sexual favors. If the birthday card shit wasn’t enough, now we have the trove of emails from Elon and others.
\n\nSo with that my question is:
\n\nWhy hasn’t Ezra addressed this?
Why haven’t we asked ourselves the implications of this? What did our security services know and when did they know it? Why did they allow this to go on, including with 2 presidents? What other intelligence services knew about this and used this and/or are using this against our elite political actors?
Given trump is probably the single most guilty party in the whole affair besides Epstein himself, why did the democratic party run 3 back to back presidential elections against him without raising this as an issue? Why was this issue not investigated or highlighted? I remember at the time wondering why Kamala didn’t explore this or exploit it given how OBVIOUS this was at the time. Why is that? Why not any of the congressional leadership? Why did they drop the ball on us? Why did they CHOOSE not to exploit the ultimate political scandal - that their opponent was a pedophile?
Why is not a plank of the democratic party platform to truly investigate, release, imprison, and exile those involved? Including firings from our intelligence services, barring implicated democratic politicians from the party?
⬆️ 146 points | 💬 223 comments
https://www.alexnowrasteh.com/p/cato-study-immigrants-reduced-deficits
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 119 points | 💬 86 comments
https://www.slowboring.com/p/gavin-newsom-is-very-similar-to-kamala
\n\n\n\nThis article is related to Ezra's interview with Gavin Newsom and the 2028 presidential election. Newsom will probably be one of the major primary candidates.
\n⬆️ 115 points | 💬 384 comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/01/opinion/trump-minneapolis-power-muzzle-velocity.html
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 106 points | 💬 176 comments
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1GZYeYMv7ulVKvwWafX0rc?si=Fhj6f2HOSfq11zczYSK7lQ
\n\n\n\nThoughts on Ezra's renowned colleague raising a five-alarm fire for conservatives? I mean, I certainly think Trump is becoming more unpopular, but I can probably think of 15 different times I would have guessed that Trump would have lost the country. He didn't.
\n\nIs it really different this time?
\n⬆️ 90 points | 💬 98 comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-adam-tooze.html
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 66 points | 💬 116 comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-priya-parker.html
\n\n\n\n\n\n⬆️ 39 points | 💬 137 comments
https://www.readtpa.com/p/this-is-literally-the-job?post_id=185980222&r=bzxnl
\n\n\n\nI’m posting this here because in episodes of the Ezra Klein Show that I’ve listened to within the past year, Ezra has contended that, in his view, the press has done an adequate job in covering the 2024 election and the second Trump administration. This piece challenges that assertion.
\n⬆️ 49 points | 💬 157 comments