Andrew Breitbart argued long ago that "politics is downstream of culture." Is that true? Is there such a thing as liberal culture? Has Trump II revealed its apparent dominance to be hollow? Or is the death of liberalism overwrought? Join Samantha and guest Alex Lefebvre, author of Liberalism
The egalitarian history of Ukrainian identity.
Caitlin and Trent talk to anthropologist Rebecca Sear about the troubling trend in academia of allowing scientific racism, or the pseudoscientific belief that humans can be divided into genetically distinct racial groups with discrete measurements for things like IQ, personality traits, and behavior, to persist and present itself as a
Katrina Forrester's In the Shadow of Justice shows the radical potential—and political limitations—of John Rawls' philosophy.
The ICC as a body has important potential for advancing international justice and deserves more extensive support.
According to Vice President Vance, America is not an idea: America is a nation. A people. And there are some here who don't belong. Join Samantha and guest Guillaume Attia as they discuss the contrast between America as a nation and America as an idea, the philosophical foundations
Harvard’s case will set precedent for every college that relies on federal grants or hosts international students.
It is precisely because liberalism cannot take sides that liberals must.
Trent and Caitlin check in with journalist Steven Monacelli, a special investigative correspondent for the Texas Observer, about the evolution and current-day doings of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, the dangers they pose to citizens and noncitizens alike, and the experience of being a journalist observing resistance to
The Republican Congress has signaled they will do whatever it takes to support the largest population expulsion in history.
Adoptees are proof of the cruelty and carelessness at the heart of Trump’s assault on birthright citizenship.
A summary of June 2025 in the second Trump term.
The history of America is a long struggle between the drive for domination and the dream of freedom.
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Since the end of the Cold War, it's been easy to see nuclear competition as a thing of the past. As the dust settles over Iran—as Russia rattles the nuclear saber in Ukraine—it's increasingly clear that the question of nuclear weapons has been re-opened.
The Court has suddenly decided to place limitations on injunctions when they were preventing a brazenly unconstitutional executive order.
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Caitlin and Trent reconnect with librarian and intellectual freedom advocate Katie Talhelm for an update about the legislative attacks on public and school libraries since they last spoke. She provides a window into the procedure libraries follow to decide which books to acquire. Half the Answer can be heard on
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We discuss Mamdani, trade-offs, empathy, internationalism, and the post-Nazi transition.
The philosophical incoherence of originalism prevents the Court from performing its core functions as a supreme court.
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Trent and Caitlin talk to their old friend Clay Jackson, a former litigator and current licensed attorney in Texas. They discuss his plans to embrace a life in his new home on the range, recent developments in immigration rights, and the death penalty in the US. They discuss the history
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The reactionary right is in ascendance in the Trump administration. It's easy to dismiss them as a cabal of incoherent fools scrambling for Trump's ear. But there is a deeper philosophy animating their political project: one based on a longing for an imagined aristocratic past, a
The basics of a jurisprudence that, much more than originalism, defines the second Trump administration.
The real stakes of semantic fights.
Basic, liberal, anti-fascist messaging is energizing and persuasive when media actually amplifies it.
We cannot let this stand.