Show notes :

My colleague Ross Douthat is leaving The Times after 17 years to become a correspondent on “60 Minutes.” Before he goes, I’m asking him a few questions.
Douthat has had a unique vantage point on the news media and politics over the last few decades. He’s typically held the role of explaining the right to more liberal audiences, starting as an undergrad, when he was a conservative columnist for The Harvard Crimson. Douthat has also lived through the seismic changes in the media from the both the inside and the outside: He’s made his career at legacy media institutions, but I first got to know him – and spar with him – as an early-2000s blogger (and I have the 20-year-old Bloggingheads.tv clips to prove it).
So what does Douthat make of the transformations he’s lived through? How did blogging change journalism? How did a Republican Party powered by evangelical Christians become a political party dominated by Catholics and pagans? What has he learned about persuasion from writing for liberal audiences? And with the resources of “60 Minutes” behind him, will he finally crack the U.F.O. story once and for all?
Mentioned:
Magnifica Humanitas by Pope Leo XIV
“Is It Time for a New Sexual Revolution?” with Louise Perry, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
“Christopher Nolan’s Finest Trick” by Ezra Klein
Grand New Party by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam
Book Recommendations:
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
De Gaulle by Julian Jackson
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Woke Two: Cancellation Boogaloo?!

What to make of the progressive rethink of Woke One.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders have conceded to the excesses of what we must all now call Woke One. But the concession, and that characterization of it, raise some obvious questions.

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

What was Woke One;

Which aspects of it do progressive leaders now concede were “crazy”;

Why did it happen in the first place?

Then, how relevant is any of this for near-term politics so long as Donald Trump is in power wrecking the economy? The country keeps losing jobs (or putting up extremely week monthly jobs numbers). Congress is about to give Trump more power to impose tariffs. And there’s no clear offramp to the war in Iran. Are Republicans simply fucked? If so, why hasn’t the war been a bigger political disaster for Trump? Could Democratic leaders forge a factional truce around a midterm-campaign promise to end the war next year? Or is it going to be 2007 all over again?

https://www.politix.fm/p/woke-two-cancellation-boogaloo

Further reading:

Matt on how the high cost of living is tearing Republicans apart.

Brian takes a stab at a Woke One origin story.

Why are Democrats voting to give Trump more tariff power?

The doctor advising Republicans on how to lose weight says his miracle diet gives him orgasmic, wipe-free poops.

A good chunk of the recent "exit interview" of Ross Douthat centered the early blogging experience, and I thought it was worthwhile to go look up what that actually looked like.

This one is a somewhat representative sample of Ross's output from that era, which paints a more stark view or what the "war blogger" era was like.

I don't want to like, jump too hard on something that is now twenty five years old and a position that has been at least in part abandoned by its author, but at the same time, it's also a reminder of what that "golden age" of blogging actually entailed, and the quality of thought that was elevated afterward.

I could not recommend this 36-minute interview any more highly. If you want an explanation for what's going on that transcends right vs. left and Republicans vs. Democrats, here's a highly plausible one:

Fresh Air : NPR

At first he alluded to not pushing back hard enough was due to time constraints and then when claire called out it was over 2 hours he completely pivot to the typical “this isn’t a podcast where I tell ppl how to think”.

Nobody was asking to be told how to think, but a bit of honesty and challenging your guests especially if they have been a massive propagandist that help accelerate this past decade of far right fascist tendencies.

Look, Ezra is super successful and has a massive following and he clearly knows what he is doing to get attention and stay relevant.

Weather he wants to admit it consciously or not, but having guests like Rufo on is a sure fire way to garner attention and make that podcast episode talked about by a large swath of the population, case in point.

To have more episodes like that is to not make the guest super uncomfortable or ppl like rufo to not want to come in the future.

It’s disingenuous to say it was because of some higher, philosophical/academic free speech virtue of why he just let ruffo spread propaganda with very mild push back.

The first year of President Trump’s second term was a whirlwind of action: on immigration, on trade, on political retribution. But things seem to me to be slowing down quite a bit. Trump is incredibly unpopular, and he’s now bogged down in a war with Iran that he doesn’t seem capable of ending. He often appears more concerned with his many White House renovations than with whether the Republican Party can hold the House and the Senate in November. So what’s going on in this administration? Where is this all going?
It’s hard to think of a journalist more qualified to answer those questions than Maggie Haberman. As a White House correspondent for The New York Times, she’s published some of the hardest-hitting reporting about Trump’s second act as president and the group of loyalists that now surrounds him.
Haberman, alongside her New York Times colleague Jonathan Swan, just published an extraordinary chronicle of this extraordinary political moment, “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.” In this conversation, we discuss how decisions get made in this White House, what Trump has achieved so far and what’s really motivating him as we head toward the midterms.
This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:
“Maggie Haberman on What an Unleashed Trump Might Do” by The Ezra Klein Show

“Trump Says He Decides What ‘America First’ Means” by Michael Scherer

Book Recommendations:
Takeover by Charlie Savage

Strangers by Belle Burden

I Regret Almost Everything by Keith McNally

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at
[ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com](mailto:ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com).
You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

Discussion about housing on the argument podcast

Slowboring article about how Republicans are hurting their electoral chances by being so beholden to Trump

What’s big and ugly and has united Republicans and Democrats? A.I. data centers.

An overwhelming majority of Americans say they’d oppose a data center being built near where they live. In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul just imposed a one-year moratorium on data center construction, and there are over 100 other local or statewide moratorium proposals across the country. A.I.’s explosive momentum over the last few years seems to have finally run into a force that could slow it down: the messy politics of getting things done in the real world.
So, is that a good thing, or a bad thing? And how much is the data center backlash about the actual construction of these buildings, and how much is it about A.I. itself?

Jasmine Sun has an excellent newsletter covering both the culture inside the A.I. companies and the anger that’s been building against them. And she just finished a reporting trip in the Midwest, where she interviewed people on all sides of the data center fight. So I wanted to talk to her about what she saw and what she thinks A.I. companies can learn from the growing movement against them.

Mentioned:

@jasmine’s Substack

Silicon Valley Is Bracing for a Permanent Underclass by Jasmine Sun

Sam Bankman-Fried on Arbitrage and Altruism (Ep. 145)

Is Your Social Life Missing Something? This Conversation Is for You. With Priya Parker, The Ezra Klein Show

Book Recommendations:

The Maniac by Benjamin Labatut

The Technology Trap by Carl Benedikt Frey

The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker

Content Relevance Statement: Bouie's video extends the discussion in Klein’s recent episode about Platner’s campaign. The interview stresses the tension between allowing people grace for complicated pasts and recognizing when accumulating red flags reveal fundamental problems with honesty/character. Bouie approaches that same debate through the concept of political character. His argument is that elected officials inevitably exercise enormous discretion in situations their platforms cannot anticipate, making honesty and trustworthiness governing qualifications.

Klein has made the point multiple times that modern liberal politics is largely the domain of people who have successfully navigated institutions, probably to a greater extent than is healthy. If that really is a problem, then it would seem that the obvious solution is some form of decoupling, at least in part, of liberal politics from those institutions. But what would such a decoupling look like? Would it even be possible? Would those institutionalists currently in power ever give up even a portion of it willingly if doing so presented an opportunity for growth? Does Ezra Klein need to retire for Ezra Klein's politics to succeed? Many such questions arise from this sentiment.

President Trump is very unpopular right now. But polls show the Democratic Party is just as unpopular – if not more so. So what can the party do about it? 

But to answer that question, you first have to understand what the Democratic Party is. That is, mechanically, what is it? What powers does it have? When you call the Democratic Party, who picks up the phone? And how can that party, the official party, be reinvented for this era?
Ben Wikler has a unique perspective on this question. He transformed the Democratic Party of Wisconsin into a fund-raising, door-knocking powerhouse when he served as chair from 2019 to 2025. And he’s shared some of his insights from winning elections in a swing state in his new book, “This Is The Plan: How to End America's Meltdown and Save Democracy.”

In this conversation, we discuss Wikler’s vision for a reinvigorated party, as well as the kinds of changes he thinks Democrats need to embrace if they want to build a bigger tent and a national majority. 

Mentioned:
“This Is How Democrats Win in Wisconsin” with Ben Wikler on The Ezra Klein Show

“GOP midterm strategy: Make it a ‘hate election’” by Marc Caputo

Book Recommendations:

Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro

Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott

Sal & Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez

What does a positive vision for the center-left look like? Can moderation still excite the Democratic base?

Matt Yglesias, who writes the Slow Boring newsletter and hosts The Argument podcast, talks to Jon about his vision for the Democratic Party and why he believes more Democrats need to embrace heterodoxy.

The two discuss how the policy debate could play out in the upcoming presidential primary, the role charisma and attention-getting play in politics, and which Democrats are best positioned to win in 2028.

Matt tweets:

I went on Pod Save America to discuss my plan to save America by nominating a presidential candidate who has views on cultural issues that voters agree with.

I think the Abundance proposals were a great blueprint and framework as a jump-off point for a national development strategy. Its main gaps, how it would be financed, what sort of new institutions would be needed, and the timing of various things are things I've tried to answer in my own blog, to implement a sort of Abundance-plus.

Essentially, if Democrats were given the opportunity in 2029 to implement something like the Abundance agenda, what would it look like? How would it develop over the first two, three, four, five years, and thereafter? How do we prevent the CHIPsification of the Dem agenda, where billions of new funding can pass & nothing gets built in time for the next election?

I'm not saying my answers are the only, or the best ones. But I do think it is a conversation worth having, often and concretely, so that if and when Democrats do win power again, we are actually ready to wield it.

My take: https://www.crittingpower.com/p/a-national-development-strategy-for