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The conservative mind of Yuval Levin Jan 09, 2020

Show notes

Something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently is the way we often conflate two very distinct things when we assign political labels. The first is ideology, which describes our vision of a just society. The second is something less discussed but equally important: temperament. It describes how we approach social problems, how fast we think society can change, and how we understand the constraints upon us.

Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, the editor-in-chief of the public policy journal National Affairs, and the author of the upcoming book A Time to Build. Levin is one of the most thoughtful articulators of both conservative temperament and ideology. And, perhaps for that reason, his is one of the most important criticisms of what the conservative movement has become today.

There’s a lot in this conversation, in part because Levin’s book speaks to mine in interesting ways, but among the topics we discuss are:

The conservative view of human nature
Why the conservative temperament is increasingly diverging from the conservative movement
What theories of American politics get wrong about the reality of American life
The case Levin makes to socialists
How economic debates are often moral debates in disguise
Levin’s rebuttal to my book
The crucial difference between “formative” and “performative” social institutions
Why the most fundamental problems in American life are cultural, not economic
Why Levin thinks the New York Times should not allow its journalists to be on Twitter
Whether we can restore trust in our institutions without changing the incentives and systems that surround them

There’s a lot Levin and I disagree on, but there are few people I learn as much from in disagreement as I learn from him.

Book recommendations:

Democracy in America by Alexis De Tocqueville

The Quest for Community by Robert Nisbet

Statecraft as Soulcraft by George Will

If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like:

David French on “The Great White Culture War"

George Will makes the conservative case against democracy

My book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.

Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.com

You can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app.

Credits:

Producer and Editor - Jeff Geld

Engineer- Cynthia Gil

Researcher - Roge Karma

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How an epidemic begins and ends Jan 08, 2020

Show notes

Introducing season 3 of The Impact!

The 2020 candidates have some bold ideas to tackle some of our country's biggest problems, like climate change, the opioid crisis, and unaffordable health care. A lot of their proposals have been tried before, so, in a sense, the results are in.

This season, The Impact has those stories: how the big ideas from 2020 candidates succeeded — or failed — in other places, or at other times. What can Sen. Elizabeth Warren's proposal to fight the opioid crisis learn from what the US did to fight the AIDS epidemic? How did Germany — an industrial powerhouse that invented the automobile — manage to implement a Green New Deal? How did public health insurance change Taiwan?

Subscribe to The Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to automatically get new episodes of the latest season each week.

On this special preview:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is running for president with a plan to fight the opioid epidemic. Her legislation would dramatically expand access to addiction treatment and overdose prevention, and it would cost $100 billion over 10 years. Addiction experts agree that this is the kind of money the United States needs to fight the opioid crisis. But it’s a really expensive idea, to help a deeply stigmatized population. How would a President Warren get this through Congress?

It’s been done before, with the legislation Warren is using as a blueprint for her proposal. In 1990, Congress passed the Ryan White Care Act, the first national coordinated response to the AIDS crisis. In the decades since, the federal government has dedicated billions of dollars to the fight against AIDS, and it’s revolutionized care for people with this once-deadly disease.

But by the time President George H.W. Bush signed the bill into law, hundreds of thousands of people in the US already had HIV/AIDS, and tens of thousands had died.

In this episode, Vox's Jillian Weinberger explores how an epidemic begins, and how it ends. We look at what it took to get the federal government to finally act on AIDS, and what that means for Warren’s plan to fight the opioid crisis, today.

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Nathan Robinson’s case for socialism Jan 06, 2020

Show notes

“Socialism” is simultaneously one of the most commonly used and most confusing terms in American politics. Does being a socialist mean advocating for the complete abolition of capitalism, markets, and private property? Does it mean supporting a higher tax rate, Medicare-for-all, and Sen. Bernie Sanders? Or does it simply mean a deep hatred of systemic injustice and the institutions that perpetuate it?

In his new book Why You Should be a Socialist Nathan J Robinson, the founder and editor-in-chief of the Current Affairsmagazine, attempts to shed light on these questions. In his writing, Robinson distinguishes between a “socialist economy” (think collective ownership, worker cooperatives, single-payer health care) and what he calls a “socialist ethic": a deep sense of moral outrage that animates agents of radical change. This distinction may sound like a dodge, but I think Robinson gets at something here that — while hard to understand from the outside — is crucial to understanding today's left politics. We also discuss:

- The central role of democracy to the socialist worldview

- What it means to be a “libertarian socialist”

- What Robinson's socialist utopia would look like

- Why so many socialists have turned on Sen. Elizabeth Warren in favor of Sen. Bernie Sanders

- Robinson’s special loathing for South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg

- What he believes Sanders’s “political revolution” would look like

- The lessons of Jeremy Corbyn

- Whether the deep difference between liberals and socialists is temperament

- Why “public vs. private” is often a false choice

- The challenge of economic growth

And much more.

Book recommendations:

Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky

The Anarchist FAQ by Ian McKay

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like:

Leftists vs. Liberals with Elizabeth Bruenig

Matt Bruenig’s case for single-payer health care

Why my politics are bad with Bhaskar Sunkara

New to the show? Want to listen to Ezra's favorite episodes? Check out The Ezra Klein Show beginner's guide.

My book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.

Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.com

You can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app.

Credits:

Producer and Editor - Jeff Geld

Engineer- Cynthia Gil

Researcher - Roge Karma

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How to topple dictators and transform society (with Erica Chenoweth) Jan 02, 2020

Show notes

The 2010s witnessed a sharp uptick in nonviolent resistance movements all across the globe. Over the course of the last decade we’ve seen record numbers of popular protests, grassroots campaigns, and civic demonstrations advancing causes that range from toppling dictatorial regimes to ending factory farming to advancing a Green New Deal.

So, I thought it would be fitting to kick off 2020 by bringing on Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard specializing in nonviolent resistance. At the beginning of this decade Chenoweth co-authored Why Civil Resistance Works, a landmark study showing that nonviolent movements are twice as effective as violent ones. Since then, she has written dozens of papers on what factors make successful movements successful, why global protests are becoming more and more common, how social media has affected resistance movements and much more.

But Chenoweth doesn’t only study nonviolent movements from an academic perspective; she also advises nonviolent movement leaders around the world (including former EK Show guests Varshini Prakash of the Sunrise Movement and Wayne Hsiung of Direct Action Everywhere) to help them be as effective and strategic as possible in carrying out their goals. This on-the-ground experience combined with a big-picture, academic view of nonviolent resistance makes her perspective essential for understanding one of the most important phenomena of the last decade -- and, in all likelihood, the next one.

References:

"How social media helps dictators" by Erica Chenoweth

"Drop Your Weapons: When and Why Civil Resistance Works" by Erica Chenoweth

Book recommendations:

These Truths by Jill Lepore

Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea by Mark Kurlansky

From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Keenga-Yamahtta Taylor

If you enjoyed this podcast, you may also like:

Varshini Prakash on the Sunrise Movement's plan to save humanity

When doing the right thing makes you a criminal (with Wayne Hsiung)

My book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.

Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.com

You can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app.

Credits:

Producer and Editor - Jeff Geld

Engineer- Cynthia Gil

Researcher - Roge Karma

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ask Ezra Anything Dec 30, 2019

Show notes

It’s here. The final AMA of 2019. Among the questions you asked:

- If you believe that changing someone's mind about a topic, any topic is difficult, how do you function as a journalist?

- What’s your opinion on capitalism?

- What have you learned about yourself since being a dad that has surprised you the most?

- You talk a lot about polarization. But it seems your audience leans liberal. So how do you reconcile that?

- Do you believe in free will?

- What’s your take on the left/liberal divide?

- Red wine or white wine?

- We know 2020 will come down to a small collection of swing states. Shouldn’t the Democrats just run whichever candidate will be strongest in those states?

- What’s with Vox and NBER papers?

- What would get journalists to leave Twitter?

- What happens if Trump loses the election but refuses to leave office?

All this, plus you get to hear from the mysterious Jeff Geld…

My book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.

Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.com

You can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app.

Credits:

Producer, Editor, Guest Interviewer - Jeff Geld

Researcher - Roge Karma

Engineer - Cynthia Gil

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Best of: Work as identity, burnout as lifestyle Dec 26, 2019

Show notes

Here, at the end of the year, I wanted to share one of my favorite episodes of 2019 with you.

Earlier this year, two essays on America’s changing relationship to work caught my eye. The first was Anne Helen Petersen’s viral BuzzFeed piece defining, and describing, “millennial burnout.” The second was Derek Thompson’s Atlantic article on “workism.”

The two pieces speak to each other in interesting ways, and to some questions I had been reflecting on as my own relationship to work changes. So I asked the authors to join me for a conversation about what happens when work becomes an identity, capitalism becomes a religion, and productivity becomes the way we measure human value. The conversation exceeded even the high hopes I had for it. Enjoy this one.

Book recommendations:

Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials by Malcolm Harris

White: Essays on Race and Culture by Richard Dyer

The Vertigo Years: Europe, 1900-1914 by Philipp Blom

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

New to the show? Want to listen to Ezra's favorite episodes? Check out The Ezra Klein Show beginner's guide.

My book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.

Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.com

You can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app.

Credits:

Producer and Editor - Jeff Geld

Engineers - Cynthia Gil

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Republicans vs. the planet Dec 23, 2019

Show notes

Dave Roberts is an energy and climate writer at Vox and a senior fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. He started as his career covering climate science and clean energy technology, but -- for reasons we discuss here -- he now writes just as much about political psychology, media ecosystems, political institutions, and how they intersect with climate change. We cover a lot in this conversation, including:

“Tribal epistemology,” and why it’s crucial to climate paralysis
How the GOP went from the party of cap-and-trade to the party of climate denial
Why the right and left-wing media ecosystem’s diverged so dramatically
What today’s climate activists get right about our politics that their predecessors got wrong
The carbon tax dead-end
How nuclear energy became so divisive
The conflicting moral and social visions at the heart of the climate movement
Why it is impossible to separate technological innovation from the policy ecosystem that shapes it
Whether climate change really is an “existential” threat
What climate change will mean for the world’s poor

References:

Dave Roberts on America's "epistemic crisis."

Book recommendations:

Caught Stealing by Charlie Huston

"State of the Species" by Charles C. Mann

My book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.

Submit questions for our upcoming "Ask Me Anything" at ezrakleinshow@vox.com

You can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app.

Credits:

Producer and Editor - Jeff Geld

Researcher - Roge Karma

Engineers - Cynthia Gil

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The geoengineering question Dec 19, 2019

Show notes

Most analyses of how to “solve” climate change start from a single, crucial assumption: that carbon emissions and global warming are inextricably linked. Geoengineering is a set of technologies and ideas with the potential to shatter that link.

Can we use them? Should we? Could they be used in concert with other solutions, or would simply opening the door drain support from those ideas? Even if we did want to deploy geoengineering, who would govern its use? And is mucking with the earth at this level more dangerous than climate change itself — which may, ultimately, be the choice we face?

Jane Flegal is a geoengineering expert at Arizona State University and a program officer at the Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust. She’s able to parse this debate with an unusual level of clarity, fairness, and rigor. This isn’t an argument for or against geoengineering. It’s a way to think about it, and that turns out to be a way to think about the climate change problem as a whole.

Book recommendations:

The Planet Remade by Oliver Morton

Experiment Earth by Jack Stilgoe

Frontiers of Illusion by Daniel Sarewitz

My book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.

Submit questions for our upcoming "Ask Me Anything" at ezrakleinshow@vox.com

You can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app.

Credits:

Producer and Editor - Jeff Geld

Researcher - Roge Karma

Engineers - Cynthia Gil & Ed Cuervo

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How to solve climate change and make life more awesome Dec 16, 2019

Show notes

The climate series is back! The reason for the delay is that I wanted to make sure that this episode was next up in the series. Once you start listening, you’ll understand why.

So far, we’ve spent the series talking about the problem we're facing and what the world will ultimately look like if we fail. Today’s conversation is different: It is about what it will take to solve climate change and what kind of world we can build if we succeed.

Saul Griffith is an inventor, a MacArthur genius fellow, and the founder and CEO of Otherlab, a high-tech research and development company on the frontlines of trying to imagine our clean energy future. Griffith and his team were contracted by the Department of Energy to track and visualize the entirety of America’s energy flows — and as a result, he knows the US energy system better than just about anyone on this planet. Griffith is also clearer than anyone else I’ve found on the paths to decarbonization, and how to navigate them.

Most conversations about climate change are pretty depressing. This conversation is not. We have the tools we need to decarbonize. What’s more, decarbonizing doesn’t mean accepting a future of less — it can mean a more awesome, humane, technologically rich, and socially inspiring future for us all. This conversation is about a vision of decarbonization that is genuinely awesome, and how we can actually get there.

References:

Otherlab's diagram of US energy flows

Griffith's piece on paths to decarbonization

Book recommendations:

Debt: The First 5,000 Yearsby David Graeber

Freedom's Forge by Arthur Herman

The Extinction Rebellion Handbook

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

My book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.

The first batch of stops for my book tour is up! Get tickets at http://www.whywerepolarized.com

Submit questions for our upcoming "Ask Me Anything" at ezrakleinshow@vox.com

You can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app.

Credits:

Producer and Editor - Jeff Geld

Researcher - Roge Karma

Engineer - Cynthia Gil

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Paul Krugman on climate, robots, single-payer, and so much more Dec 12, 2019

Show notes

It’s cliché to call podcasts wide-ranging. But this conversation, with Nobel-prize winning economist and NY Times columnist Paul Krugman, really is. A sample of what we discuss:

- How economists mucked up the climate debate

- What a Democratic president should pass first

- The politics and policy of Medicare-for-all

- Krugman’s three-part test to determine whether a program needs to be paid for (don’t miss this!)

- Why Pete Buttigieg is wrong on tuition-free college

- Why Andrew Yang is wrong on automation

- What the Obama administration got wrong, and right, in the financial crisis

- The means-testing vs. universal program debate is a false dichotomy

- What it would take to revitalize the economies of middle and rural America

- The productivity puzzle

- The antitrust problem

- Geographic inequality