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Much as I like the idea that the madness is passing, I can’t help but think that Haidt exemplifies precisely the sort of overly sanguine center-left liberalism that helped create this mess in the first place. I read the article; it’s the same “the Democrats are good, they just need to get the crazies in line and tone down the rhetoric” and “the Republicans are a 110% lost cause threat to democracy” thinking that completely misses the point that a majority of the population dislikes and mistrusts both parties, and for good reason. He also seems to have zero interest in digging into the issues of institutional capture that Wesley raised. But they’re important. If something’s written into law, which a lot of “wokeness” has been, then it’s not just going to go away if these issues stop dominating the news cycle. Even if the NYTs becomes more “balanced,” that may simply be a way of papering over the deeper problems, which still won’t be recognized, let alone addressed, by the elite liberal establishment.

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I haven't listened through the entire podcast, but my favorite moment of this and any of the prior podcasts is when Wesley absolutely loses it starting @23:07, when Chait goes through the reasons why successor ideology makes it impossible to run an institution. Hilarious to hear the normally serious, professorial Yang guffawing at how ludicrous the woke tenets of white supremacy are. I think I could run that 40 seconds on loop for an hour and not grow tired of it. This, and Bari Weiss' Honestly, are fast becoming my favorites. Great work, keep going!

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Is there an RSS feed to use in podcast apps?

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