Talkin‘ Politics & Religion Without Killin‘ Each Other

Latest Episodes:

Joan Blades and Jacob Hess || MoveOn's Co-Founder and a Utah Conservative Walk Into a Living Room Sep 29, 2026

Show notes

Joan Blades helped launch MoveOn. Jacob Hess grew up a conservative kid in Utah. Their friendship is the argument.

Joan Blades, co-founder of MoveOn and Living Room Conversations, and Jacob Hess of the Deseret News join Corey to talk about what happens when political opposites actually sit down together. They cover MoveOn's 1998 start as a one-sentence petition, why these conversations feel scary before they feel fun, and how local pride could rebuild trust in our elections.

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✅ Invite one friend who votes differently to a Living Room Conversation: livingroomconversations.org

Key takeaways

Hess traces his turn to a graduate school computer lab, where a classmate held him after he learned his brother was being sent home to die. After that, the culture war rhetoric about "dangerous" people stopped making sense.
Hess argues dialogue shouldn't ban persuasion, because people with conviction end up feeling they must leave it at the door. Blades says curiosity and listening build the relationship that makes honest grappling possible.
Hess frames this work as public health, since chronic anger is chronic stress. Blades adds that if we're in a loneliness epidemic, human relationships are the obvious remedy.
Blades is organizing locally around a principle from Braver Angels' cross-partisan work: voting should be easy, cheating should be hard. Local pride in how elections work, she says, is the path to national trust.

About Joan Blades

Joan Blades is a co-founder of Living Room Conversations, MoveOn, and MomsRising. A mediator and attorney by training, she co-authored The Custom-Fit Workplace and The Motherhood Manifesto.

About Jacob Hess

Jacob Hess writes for the Deseret News and co-authored You're Not as Crazy as I Thought (But You're Still Wrong) with Phil Neisser. A former board member of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation, he teaches mindfulness and researches long-term healing from depression. His upcoming book is Recovering Hope.

Links

Living Room Conversations: livingroomconversations.org
Trustworthy Elections Initiative: ncdd.org/trustworthy-elections.html
Braver Angels Trustworthy Elections report: braverangels.org/trustworthy-elections
Jacob Hess on Substack: publishpeace.net

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Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Scary in line. Worth the ride.

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Yeah, Woke 1 Was Crazy || But That Laugh Will Not Do Sep 25, 2026

Show notes

"Woke 1 was crazy," AOC said on national TV, and then she laughed. Corey wants to know what that laugh leaves out.

This morning, Corey published a new essay on Substack about what the woke era actually cost: friendships, careers, invitations that stopped coming. It's also about the friends who stayed close anyway, across real disagreement. This episode, Corey reads it to you himself.

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Links and Resources

Read the original essay on Substack: Yeah, Woke 1 Was Crazy

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Our Partners

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Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room. Yes, really.

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Rachel Kleinfeld and Renée DiResta || How Institutions Earn Trust in the New Media Age Sep 22, 2026

Show notes

Credentials used to be enough. Rachel Kleinfeld and Renée DiResta on what earns trust now.

Rachel Kleinfeld of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Renée DiResta of Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy join Corey to talk about their new paper, "How to Engage With New Media: A Strategic Guide for Nonprofit Organizations," co-authored with Margot Treadwell. The conversation moves from an institution caught flat-footed when a researcher becomes a target, to why a big following no longer guarantees reach, to how hard disagreements go better when nobody fears being screenshotted.

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✅ Share this episode with someone who still thinks red versus blue explains anything

Key takeaways

Kleinfeld says academic credentials and a nice institutional home no longer confer legitimacy. Authenticity and trust do, and they come from building a community that listens.
The paper cites Meta data showing 41% of posts on the average Facebook feed come from recommended content unconnected to people the user follows. DiResta explains why that means a large following no longer guarantees reach.
The paper's four questions come before any posting: who the audience is, what the mission is, which gatekeepers shape the field, and how to create content. Kleinfeld says audiences should be sorted by values and worldview, not demographics.
DiResta finds hard conversations work best in private group chats where no one fears being screenshotted. Kleinfeld says the place to start is common values.

About Rachel Kleinfeld

Rachel Kleinfeld is a senior fellow in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she advises governments, philanthropists, and activists on how democracies make major social change. Raised in a log house on a dirt road in Fairbanks, Alaska, she earned her BA at Yale and her graduate degrees at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.

About Renée DiResta

Renée DiResta is an associate research professor at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy and a contributing editor at Lawfare. She is the author of "Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality" and was formerly research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory.

Links

"How to Engage with New Media: A Strategic Guide for Nonprofit Organizations": carnegieendowment.org/research/2026/08/nonprofit-organizations-how-to-engage-social-media-new-media-strategy
"For Expertise to Matter, Nonpartisan Institutions Need New Communications Strategies": carnegieendowment.org/research/2025/09/communications-social-media-nonprofit-institutions-new-media-environment
Rachel Kleinfeld on Substack: rachelkleinfeld.substack.com
Renée DiResta: reneediresta.com

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Expertise still matters. Trust is what makes people listen to it.

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My Hometown (LIVE) || Reading "Whatever Happened to Freehold" and Taking Your Questions Sep 18, 2026

Show notes

What happens when the people who read your writing talk back?

A couple weeks ago, The Dispatch published an essay Corey wrote about his hometown of Freehold, New Jersey, growing older alongside his friends from high school, and what it means to lose someone who isn't gone. This episode, recorded live on Substack, Corey reads it himself and reacts to comments in real time on Substack Live as well as some that came in at The Dispatch, including one from a stranger that turns into a pretty candid moment.

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Links and Resources

Read the original essay at The Dispatch: "Whatever Happened to Freehold, New Jersey?" - thedispatch.com/article/freehold-new-jersey-springsteen-politics

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Our Partners

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Some things deserve disagreement. Few deserve losing a friend over.

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Mike Madrid, Author of "The Latino Century" || Political Parties Are Zombies, the Realignment Is Real Sep 15, 2026

Show notes

Mike Madrid on why both parties are running on empty, and what's actually filling the vacuum.

Mike Madrid, author of The Latino Century and co-founder of the Lincoln Project, joins Corey to argue that neither party is being reshaped so much as replaced. The conversation moves from a 13,000-person Texas town that could decide the midterms to what it costs a person to spend a career in gladiator politics, and why Madrid traded that fight for painting, pilgrimages, and personal writing.

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Key takeaways

Madrid argues both parties are "zombie parties," hollow shells running on inertia while voters increasingly organize around issues instead of labels.
Beeville, Texas, a 70% Hispanic town that went 70% for Trump, is why Madrid calls it the most important town in America for the midterms.
State Rep. James Talarico is connecting with Latino voters by framing politics as class, not identity: the working class had the American dream stolen from them.
After years of "gladiator politics," Madrid stepped back from the fight and now spends his time writing, painting, and teaching, calling it work that's better for his soul.

About Mike Madrid

Mike Madrid is a longtime Latino GOP political consultant and co-founder of the Lincoln Project. He's the author of The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy, and co-hosts the Latino Vote Podcast with Chuck Rocha. He writes The Great Transformation on Substack, where most of his reporting and essays now live, and this fall he's teaching courses built around his book at USC and UC Irvine.

Links

"The Latino Century" by Mike Madrid: simonandschuster.com/books/The-Latino-Century/Mike-Madrid/9781668015278
The Great Transformation on Substack: greattransformation.substack.com

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Partners

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The parties aren't just dying. Something else is already replacing them.

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To the Republic... To the Pub || A Friendly Fight Over Trump, Vance, ICE, and Elections || With My Buddy Chip, a Tea Party Guy Since the '70s Sep 11, 2026

Show notes

Two megaphones, two drinks, one bar. Corey quits talking about talking and just gets to the talkin'.

Second edition of "To the Republic... To the Pub." Corey sits down with his buddy Chip, a Tea Party guy since the '70s, and it turns into a real fight: Trump's second term, JD Vance, ICE and the Home Depot raids, and whether bipartisanship even means anything anymore. Not talking about people we disagree with. Talking with them.

FOR THE RECORD: Biden's Last Two Years vs. Trump's First 20 Months

Jobs: averaged 216,000/month in 2023 and 168,000/month in 2024 (BLS, revised). Under Trump, growth has slowed sharply, roughly 716,000 jobs added total from January 2025 through June 2026, versus 2 million over Biden's final 17 months.
Inflation: fell steadily under Biden, from a 4.1% average in 2023 to 2.9% by December 2024. Under Trump it's climbed back to 3.4% for the 12 months ending July 2026.
GDP: grew 2.9% in 2023 and 2.8% in 2024. Grew 2.1% in 2025, Trump's first year, and slowed to 1.5% in Q2 2026.
Stock market: the S&P 500 gained roughly 53% and the Dow roughly 31% combined over 2023 to 2024. Since Trump's inauguration, the S&P is up about 26.5% and the Dow about 21%.
Consumer sentiment (University of Michigan index): rose from 69.7 to 74.0 between December 2023 and December 2024. Fell to a near-record low of 44.8 in May 2026 and sat around 52 as of August.

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Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Pull up a stool. Folks we disagree with? It's more fun to talk to 'em than to talk about 'em.

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Nobody Hated Dolly || Michael Reneau on Faith, Home, and the Craft of Editing Sep 08, 2026

Show notes

A newspaper editor from East Tennessee on why Dolly Parton was one of the last people almost everyone agreed on, and what that says about faith, place, and the work of editing well.

Michael Reneau, executive editor at The Dispatch, joins Corey to talk about growing up 50 miles from where Dolly Parton was raised, and what her death revealed about a country that still finds a handful of people impossible to dislike. The conversation moves from Appalachia and Hurricane Helene to Bryan College, Flannery O'Connor, and the hardest thing Michael has ever watched his parents live through.

Calls to Action

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✅ Share this episode with someone who still thinks "dominionism" is a fringe word.

Key takeaways

Dolly Parton's death pulled praise from across the political spectrum, and Michael sees that as a clue about what Appalachia's isolation and hardship actually produced: solidarity, not the caricature.
Editing longer-form work, learned in part from mentor Marvin Olasky, means being ruthless about finding a story's essence, and Michael treats AI strictly as a tool, never as a substitute for that judgment.
The formative event of Michael's faith was watching his parents grieve his infant sister's death and hold onto their belief anyway, not any theological argument he later studied.

About Michael Reneau

Michael Reneau is executive editor at The Dispatch, where he oversees editing across the newsroom. Before joining The Dispatch in 2022, he was editor of World Magazine, and prior to that spent several years as editor and writer for an award-winning daily newspaper in East Tennessee. He lives in Greeneville, Tennessee, with his wife and four kids.

Links

The Dispatch: thedispatch.com
Michael's tribute to Dolly Parton: thedispatch.com/article/dolly-parton-tennessee-music-philanthropy

Connect with us

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Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Nobody agrees on much these days. Dolly was the exception.

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It's Hard to Hate Somebody Up Close || Walling In, Walling Out, an essay from The Fulcrum Sep 04, 2026

Show notes

A friend's Facebook post asks who's afraid of the truth. Corey wonders if he's who she means.

A couple weeks ago, The Fulcrum published an essay Corey wrote about an old friend's social media post, and what it stirred up about the walls we build online without meaning to. This episode, Corey reads it to you himself.

Calls to Action

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Links and Resources

Read the original essay at The Fulcrum: Walling In, Walling Out
Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone
The Village Square: villagesquare.us

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Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com
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Our Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room. Yes, really.

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When "Listening to the Holy Spirit" Becomes a Trump Card || Dr. Keri Ladner on Christian Dominionism Sep 01, 2026

Show notes

The theology quietly staffing Trump's cabinet, and why it doesn't need to make sense to work.

Dr. Keri Ladner studies the radicalization of the American religious right, from the Moral Majority to the New Apostolic Reformation. She joins Corey to unpack Christian dominionism, the Seven Mountain Mandate, and how movements with contradictory theologies ended up governing together.

Calls to Action

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✅ Share this episode with someone who still thinks "dominionism" is a fringe word.

Key Takeaways:

Contradictory theologies, same movement. NAR, Christian Reconstructionism, and neo-Confederacy don't agree on doctrine, but they've united around Trump and the belief that Christians are called to take dominion over government.

The Seven Mountain Mandate isn't about church. It reframes government, education, and business as spheres apostles are called to control, well beyond the pulpit.

A neo-Confederate is advising the Pentagon. Doug Wilson calls himself "paleo-Confederate." Ladner traces his influence in American Dominion, including his role leading prayer at the Pentagon.

Dr. Ladner's advice is deliberately unglamorous. Vote in the midterms. Turn abstract political fights into stories about real people you already know.

About Our Guest:

Dr. Keri Ladner is the author of Endtime Politics: From the Moral Majority to QAnon (2024) and American Dominion: The Rise and Radicalization of a New Christendom (Bloomsbury). Her work has appeared in Christian Century, Religion Dispatches, and Good Faith Media.

Links and Resources:

American Dominion, published by Bloomsbury (also on Amazon, or ask your local library to carry it)
Substack: "The Boogaloo," by Keri Ladner - keriladner.substack.com

Connect with us

Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com

YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion

Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn: @coreysnathan

Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

"Just talk to people."

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Gus Gusentine || A Navy SEAL Commander on Faith, War, and Identity Aug 28, 2026

Show notes

A Navy SEAL commander on identity, faith, and why we fight the wars we fight.

Captain Robert "Gus" Gusentine spent nearly 30 years in the Navy, commanding SEAL Team 10 and leading special operations forces from the Philippines to the Pacific. He joins Corey to talk about faith, painting, moral injury, and what it means to defend your identity without losing your soul.

Calls to Action

✅ Leave a rating and review: lovethepodcast.com/politicsandreligion

✅ Subscribe on Substack:coreysnathan.substack.com

✅ Watch and subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion

✅ Share this episode with someone who reads the news and someone who's given up on it.

Key Takeaways:

Identity is the last citadel of the soul. Gus argues that when you back someone into a corner over their identity, there's nowhere left for the conversation to go. That's why wars of religion cut so deep.

Faith and religion aren't the same fight. Drawing on a mentor's line, "we never go to war over faith, we always go to war over religion," Gus distinguishes belief itself from the practice and politics built around it.

Moral injury outlasts the battlefield. Gus and Corey discuss what happens when service members carry out orders that conflict with their conscience, and why caring for that wound is a command responsibility.

Art forces you to see differently. Gus talks about painting as a discipline that trained his eye long before it trained his hand, and how that same habit of seeing applies to leadership and writing.

About Our Guest:

Captain Robert "Gus" Gusentine served nearly 30 years in the Navy, including as an exchange officer with Germany's Kamphschwimmer Company, commander of SEAL Team 10, operations chief (J3) for Special Operations Command Pacific, and commander of Joint Special Operations Task Force Philippines. After retiring in 2014, he led the Strategic Leaders International course at the Naval Special Warfare Schoolhouse, teaching senior military officers and diplomats from around the world. He is also a painter and writes on Substack alongside Roger Herbert.

Links and Resources: