The Gray Area with Sean Illing

  • Book excerpt: A better theory of identity politics

    This is a podcast episode literally years in the making. It’s an excerpt — the first anywhere — from my book Why We’re Polarized. A core argument of the book is that identity is the…


  • The war on Muslims (with Mehdi Hasan)

    With “reeducation” camps in China, religious disenfranchisement in India, ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, street violence in Sri Lanka, mass shootings in New Zealand, the flourishing of far-right parties across Europe, and the mainstreaming of Islamophobia…


  • Post-debate special!

    Vox’s Matt Yglesias and I unpack the debate that did, and didn’t, happen. Related reading: “Joe Biden will never give up on the system” by Ezra Klein “4 winners and 3 losers from the January…


  • An “uncomfortable” conversation with Cory Booker

    There is a moral radicalism to the way Cory Booker lives out his politics. He lived for years in a housing project. He leads hunger strikes. He challenges political machines. He’s a vegan. He has…


  • The conservative mind of Yuval Levin

    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.…


  • How an epidemic begins and ends

    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…


  • Nathan Robinson’s case for socialism

    “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…


  • How to topple dictators and transform society (with Erica Chenoweth)

    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…