The Politics of Everything

Dec 20 2023 101 ep. 2.1k

The Politics of Everything Podcast artwork

Produced by The New Republic and hosted by literary editor Laura Marsh and writer Alex Pareene, The Politics of Everything is a podcast about the intersection of culture, politics, and media.

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The Battle Over “Cop City” (Rerun)

Dec 20 2023 31 mins

Since its approval by the Atlanta City Council in 2021, the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center—more commonly referred to as Cop City—has been a flashpoint of controversy. The $90 million facility is set to be built within a large forest adjacent to predominantly Black and poor neighborhoods; in protest, activists have taken up residence in the forest to try to stop its const

The Return of the Cattle-Mutilation Conspiracy Theory (Rerun)

Dec 06 2023 37 mins

In the early 1970s, ranchers in the Southwest began to share strange reports of cattle mutilations—carcasses discovered with organs missing, and with no obvious physical explanation for the deaths. A variety of culprits were suggested—secret government programs, satanists, cults, or extraterrestrials—despite multiple forensic investigations that turned up nothing suspicious a

The Road to Nowhere (Rerun)

Nov 22 2023 34 mins

Americans are in a toxic relationship with their automobiles. They’re bad for us—polluting, noisy, and increasingly dangerous to pedestrians—yet we remain fully committed to them. They’re also bad at their primary function: transport. Urbanists and environmentalists for years have proposed solutions to break the automotive spell: improved mass transit, walkable cities, cong

What’s Causing Those Airline Close Calls?

Nov 08 2023 35 mins

Every week, it seems, brings a new report of an airport mishap or a near collision between airplanes. Why are so many of these happening now, and what does it tell us about the state of commercial air travel? On episode 74 of The Politics of Everything, co-hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with journalist and private pilot James Fallows about the particular circumstances of s

Behind the Shoplifting Panic

Oct 25 2023 35 mins

On any given day, it’s easy to find a new video on the internet or social media purporting to show a violent retail theft. Such videos make riveting viewing, and—coupled with reports from chain retailers about a plague of theft affecting their bottom lines—might suggest we’re in a golden age of shoplifting. The reality, however, is likely much more complex. On episode 73 of

The Battle Over “Cop City”

Oct 11 2023 31 mins

Since its approval by the Atlanta City Council in 2021, the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center—more commonly referred to as Cop City—has been a flashpoint of controversy. The $90 million facility is set to be built within a large forest adjacent to predominantly Black and poor neighborhoods; in protest, activists have taken up residence in the forest to try to stop its const

Will Women’s Tennis Cross the Saudi Rubicon?

Sep 27 2023 38 mins

In recent years, Saudi Arabia has been flexing its financial muscle in international sports. And despite the country’s dismal human rights record, an increasing number of athletes, teams, leagues, and even entire sports have become part of the Saudi portfolio. On episode 71 of The Politics of Everything, co-hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene discuss whether women’s tennis, with

Welcome to the Anti-Woke Economy

Sep 13 2023 26 mins

Consumer boycotts were once thought of as a tactic primarily employed by the left, but the right has recently used them to great effect—just ask Anheuser-Busch and Target, to name just two companies that have recently been caught in conservatives’ crosshairs. Perhaps not surprisingly, given our polarized moment, there’s a movement among conservatives to create an economy of e

Silicon Valley Is Destroying the World (Rerun)

Aug 30 2023 33 mins

It’s no coincidence that Stanford University was founded in Palo Alto, where many decades later scores of tech companies also got their start. Palo Alto is the birthplace of the “Palo Alto system,” an approach to training race horses that attempted to speed up the process by applying techno-scientific principles and injecting lots of cash. This ethos of optimization, argues t

The Fiery Gas Stove Wars (Rerun)

Aug 16 2023 37 mins

We’ve known for a while that gas stoves are bad for both your health and the environment. But a few weeks ago, the discourse went into overdrive. First, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced it would consider regulations on indoor air pollution from gas stoves. Not long after, a study asserted that gas-burning stoves are responsible for roughly 12.7 percent of childhoo