Episodes
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Back in 2018, Dario Amodei worked at OpenAI. And looking at one of its first A.I. models, he wondered: What would happen as you fed an artificial intelligence more and more data?
He and his colleagues decided to study it, and they found that the A.I. didnât just get better with more data; it got better exponentially. The curve of the A.I.âs capabilities rose slowly at first and then shot up like a hockey stick.
Amodei is now the chief executive of his own A.I. company, Anthropic, which recently released Claude 3 â considered by many to be the strongest A.I. model available. And he still believes A.I. is on an exponential growth curve, following principles known as scaling laws. And he thinks weâre on the steep part of the climb right now.
When Iâve talked to people who are building A.I., scenarios that feel like far-off science fiction end up on the horizon of about the next two years. So I asked Amodei on the show to share what he sees in the near future. What breakthroughs are around the corner? What worries him the most? And how are societies that struggle to adapt to change and governments that are slow to react to them supposed to prepare for the pace of change he predicts? What does that line on his graph mean for the rest of us?
This episode contains strong language.
Mentioned:
Sam Altman on The Ezra Klein Show
Demis Hassabis on The Ezra Klein Show
On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt
âMeasuring the Persuasiveness of Language Modelsâ by Anthropic
Book Recommendations:
The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes
The Expanse (series) by James S.A. Corey
The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The showâs production team also includes Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin and Aman Sahota. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.
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The internet is in decay. Do a Google search, and there are so many websites now filled with slapdash content contorted just to rank highly in the algorithm. Facebook, YouTube, X and TikTok all used to feel more fun and surprising. And all these once-great media companies have been folding or shedding staff members, unable to find a business model that works.
And into this weakened internet came the flood of A.I.-generated junk. Thereâs been a surge of spammy news sites filled with A.I.-generated articles. TikTok videos of A.I.-generated voices reading text pulled from Reddit can be churned out in seconds. And self-published A.I.-authored books are polluting Amazon listings.
According to my guest today, Nilay Patel, this isnât just a blip, as the big platforms figure out how to manage this. He believes that A.I. content will break the internet as we know it.
âWhen you increase the supply of stuff onto those platforms to infinity, that system breaks down completely,â Patel told me âRecommendation algorithms break down completely. Our ability to discern what is real and what is false breaks down completely. And I think, importantly, the business models of the internet break down completely.â
Patel is one of the sharpest observers of the internet, and the ways technology has shaped and reshaped it. Heâs a co-founder and the editor in chief of The Verge, and the host of the âDecoderâ podcast. In this conversation, we talk about why platforms seem so unprepared for the storm of A.I. content; whether an internet filled with cursory A.I. content is better or worse than an internet filled with good A.I. content; and if A.I. might be a kind of cleansing fire for the internet that enables something new and better to emerge.
Mentioned:
Help us win a Webby Award
âScenes from a dying webâ by Casey Newton
âThe Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproductionâ by Walter Benjamin
â257 CES gadgets in 3 minutes â CES 2015â by The Verge
Book Recommendations:
The Conquest of Cool by Thomas Frank
Liar in a Crowded Theater by Jeff Kosseff
Substance by Peter Hook
Everything I Need I Get From You by Kaitlyn Tiffany
Extremely Hardcore by Zoe Schiffer
Beyond Measure by James Vincent
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ was produced by Claire Gordon. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Isaac Jones and Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The showâs production team also includes Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.
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Thereâs something of a paradox that has defined my experience with artificial intelligence in this particular moment. Itâs clear weâre witnessing the advent of a wildly powerful technology, one that could transform the economy and the way we think about art and creativity and the value of human work itself. At the same time, I canât for the life of me figure out how to use it in my own day-to-day job.
So I wanted to understand what Iâm missing and get some tips for how I could incorporate A.I. better into my life right now. And Ethan Mollick is the perfect guide: Heâs a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania whoâs spent countless hours experimenting with different chatbots, noting his insights in his newsletter One Useful Thing and in a new book, âCo-Intelligence: Living and Working With A.I.â
This conversation covers the basics, including which chatbot to choose and techniques for how to get the most useful results. But the conversation goes far beyond that, too â to some of the strange, delightful and slightly unnerving ways that A.I. responds to us, and how youâll get more out of any chatbot if you think of it as a relationship rather than a tool.
Mollick says itâs helpful to understand this moment as one of co-creation, in which we all should be trying to make sense of what this technology is going to mean for us. Because itâs not as if you can call up the big A.I. companies and get the answers. âWhen I talk to OpenAI or Anthropic, they donât have a hidden instruction manual,â he told me. âThere is no list of how you should use this as a writer or as a marketer or as an educator. They donât even know what the capabilities of these systems are.â
Book Recommendations:
The Rise and Fall of American Growth by Robert J. Gordon
The Knowledge by Lewis Dartnell
Blindsight by Peter Watts
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ was produced by Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The showâs production team also includes Annie Galvin and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.
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Donald Trump can seem like a political anomaly. You sometimes hear people describe his connection with his base in quasi-mystical terms. But really, Trump is an example of an archetype â the right-wing populist showman â that recurs across time and place. Thereâs Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Boris Johnson in Britain, Javier Milei in Argentina. And thereâs a long lineage of this type in the United States too.
So why is there this consistent demand for this kind of political figure? And why does this set of qualities â ethnonationalist politics and an entertaining style â repeatedly appear at all?
John Ganz is the writer of the newsletter Unpopular Front and the author of the forthcoming book âWhen the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s.â In this conversation, we discuss how figures like David Duke and Pat Buchanan were able to galvanize the fringes of the Republican Party; Trumpâs specific brand of TV-ready charisma; and what liberals tend to overlook about the appeal of this populist political aesthetic.
This episode contains strong language.
Mentioned:
âRight-Wing Populismâ by Murray N. Rothbard
âThe âwaveâ of right-wing populist sentiment is a mythâ by Larry Bartels
âHow we got hereâ by Matthew Yglesias
Book Recommendations:
What Hath God Wrought? by Daniel Walker Howe
After Nationalism by Samuel Goldman
The Politics of Cultural Despair by Fritz R. Stern
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The showâs production team also includes Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.
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Weâll be back on Friday with a new episode. In the meantime, we wanted to share one of our favorite recent episodes from our sister podcast, âMatter of Opinion.â
Why does the economy look so good to economists but feel so bad to voters?
The Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman joins the hosts on âMatter of Opinionâ to discuss why inflation, interest rates and wages arenât in line with votersâ perception of the economy. Then, they debate with Paul how big of an influence the economy will be on the 2024 presidential election, and which of the two presumed candidates, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, it could benefit. Plus, Ross Douthatâs lessons on aging, through Michael Caine impressions.
Mentioned:
âBelieving Is Seeing,â from Paul Krugmanâs newsletter
âThe Age of Diminished Expectations,â by Paul Krugman
âThe Tripâ scene: âThis Is How Michael Caine Speaksâ
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American policy is uniquely hostile to families. Other wealthy countries guarantee paid parental leave and sick days and heavily subsidize early childhood care â to the tune of about $14,000 per year per child, on average. (The United States, by contrast, spends around $500 per child per year.) So itâs no wonder our birthrate has been in decline, with many people saying theyâre having fewer children than they would like.
Yet if you look closer at those other wealthy countries, that story doesnât entirely hold. Sweden, for example, has some of the most generous work-family policies in the world, and according to the most recent numbers from Our World in Data, from 2021, their fertility rate is 1.67 children per woman â virtually identical to ours.
Caitlyn Collins is a sociology professor at Washington University in St. Louis and the author of âMaking Motherhood Work: How Women Manage Careers and Caregiving.â To understand how family policies affect the experience of child-rearing, she interviewed over a hundred middle-class mothers across four countries with different parenting cultures and levels of social support for families: the United States, Sweden, Italy and Germany. And what she finds is that policies can greatly relieve parentsâ stress, but cultural norms like âintensive parentingâ remain consistent.
In this conversation, we discuss how work-family policies in Sweden frame spending time with children as a right rather than a privilege, how these policies have transformed the gender norms around parenting, why family-friendly policies across the globe donât increase birthrates, how cultural pressures in America to be both an ideal worker and an ideal parent often clash, why many American parents feel itâs impossible to have more than one or two children, how cultural discourse has led younger women to âdreadâ motherhood and more.
Mentioned:
âParenthood and Happiness: Effects of Work-Family Reconciliation Policies in 22 OECD Countriesâ by Jennifer Glass, Robin W. Simon and Matthew A. Andersson
âIs Maternal Guilt a Cross-National Experience?â by Caitlyn Collins
If you're interested in this topic, we also recommend checking out this series from the New York Times Opinion:
âWould You Have Four Kids if It Meant Never Paying Taxes Again?â by Jessica Grose
âAre Men the Overlooked Reason for the Fertility Decline?â by Jessica Grose
âIf We Want More Babies, Our âProfoundly Anti-Familyâ System Needs an Overhaulâ by Jessica Grose
Book Recommendations:
Competing Devotions by Mary Blair-Loy
Mothering While Black by Dawn Marie Dow
Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The showâs production team also includes Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Jessica Grose and Sonia Herrero.
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For a long time, the story about the worldâs population was that it was growing too quickly. There were going to be too many humans, not enough resources, and that spelled disaster. But now the script has flipped. Fertility rates have declined dramatically, from about five children per woman 60 years ago to just over two today. About two-thirds of us now live in a country or area where fertility rates are below replacement level. And that has set off a new round of alarm, especially in certain quarters on the right and in Silicon Valley, that weâre headed toward demographic catastrophe.
But when I look at these numbers, I just find it strange. Why, as societies get richer, do their fertility rates plummet?
Money makes life easier. We can give our kids better lives than our ancestors could have imagined. We donât expect to bear the grief of burying a child. For a long time, a big, boisterous family has been associated with a joyful, fulfilled life. So why are most of us now choosing to have small ones?
I invited Jennifer D. Sciubba on the show to help me puzzle this out. Sheâs a demographer, a political scientist and the author of â8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death and Migration Shape Our World.â She walks me through the population trends weâre seeing around the world, the different forces that seem to be driving them and why government policy, despite all kinds of efforts, seems incapable of getting people to have more kids.
Mentioned:âWould You Have Four Kids if It Meant Never Paying Taxes Again?â by Jessica Grose
âAre Men the Overlooked Reason for the Fertility Decline?â by Jessica Grose
âIf We Want More Babies, Our âProfoundly Anti-Familyâ System Needs an Overhaulâ by Jessica Grose
Book Recommendations:
Extra Life by Steven Johnson
The Bet by Paul Sabin
Reproductive States edited by Rickie Solinger and Mie Nakachi
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Mixing by Isaac Jones. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The showâs production team also includes Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Jessica Grose and Sonia Herrero.
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President Biden gave a raucous State of the Union speech last Thursday, offering his pitch for why he should be president for a second term. Itâs the clearest picture we have yet of Bidenâs campaign message for 2024. But while he listed off all kinds of proposals, itâs not as easy to parse what a second Biden term might actually look like. So I sat down with my editor Aaron Retica, who had a lot of questions for me about the speech itself and what Biden would be likely to accomplish if he got another four years in the job.
We discuss how my argument for Biden to step aside holds up after he gave such a deft, high-energy performance; what a second Biden administration would likely do when it comes to abortion rights and foreign policy; the issues that didnât receive much attention in the speech but would likely play a huge role in a second Biden term; the strongest 2024 campaign message that Iâve heard so far; and whether this is a Locke election or a Hobbes election â and what that means.
Book Recommendations:
Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century by John A. Farrell
A Nation Without Borders by Steven Hahn
The Field of Blood by Joanne B. Freeman
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The showâs production team also includes Annie Galvin and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.
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When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it scrambled the landscape of abortion access in America, including in ways that one might not entirely expect. Many conservative states made the procedure essentially illegal â that part was predictable. But thereâs also been this striking backlash in blue states, with many of them making historic efforts to expand abortion access, for both their residents and for women living in abortion-restricted states.
And this has created all kinds of new battle lines â between states, and states and the federal government â involving travel, speech, privacy and executive power. Itâs an explosion of conflicts and constitutional questions that the legal historian Mary Ziegler says has no parallel in modern times. Sheâs the author of six books on reproductive rights in America, including âRoe: The History of a National Obsession,â and the Martin Luther King Jr. professor of law at the University of California, Davis. âWeâre seeing, from conservative and progressive states, moves to project power outside of their borders in ways we really havenât seen in a really long time,â she told me.
In this conversation, Ziegler explains the bifurcated abortion landscape that has emerged since the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womenâs Health Organization overturned Roe. We discuss the different political and legal strategies conservative and progressive states are using to pursue their opposing goals; why the abortion rate has gone up, even as 14 states have implemented near-total bans on abortion; and how a second Trump administration could try to restrict access to abortion for all Americans, no matter what states they live in.
Mentioned:
âHarsh Anti-abortion Laws Are Not Empty Threatsâ by Mary Ziegler
Book Recommendations:
The Family Roe by Joshua Prager
Tiny You by Jennifer L. Holland
Defenders of the Unborn by Daniel K. Williams
âBefore Roe v. Wadeâ by Linda Greenhouse and Reva B. Siegel
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ was produced by Claire Gordon and Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. The showâs production team also includes Annie Galvin and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.
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Marilynne Robinson is one of the great living novelists. She has won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Humanities Medal, and Barack Obama took time out of his presidency to interview her at length. Her fiction is suffused with a sense of holiness: Mundane images like laundry drying on a line seem to be illuminated by a divine force. Whether sheâs telling the story of a pastor confronting his mortality in âGileadâ or two sisters coming of age in small-town Idaho in âHousekeeping,â her novels wrestle with theological questions of what it means to be human, to see the world more deeply, to seek meaning in life.
In recent years, Robinson has tightened the links between her literary pursuits and her Christianity, writing essays about Calvinism and other theological traditions. Her forthcoming work of nonfiction is âReading Genesis,â a close reading of the first book of the Old Testament (or the Torah, as I grew up knowing it). Itâs a countercultural reading in many respects â one that understands the God in Genesis as merciful rather than vengeful and humans as flawed but capable of astounding acts of grace. No matter oneâs faith, Robinson unearths wisdom in this core text that applies to many questions we wrestle with today.
We discuss the virtues evoked in Genesis â beauty, forgiveness and hospitality â and how to cultivate what Robinson calls âa mind thatâs schooled toward good attention.â And we end on her reading of the story of Israel, which I found to be challenging, moving and evocative at a time when that nation has been front and center in the news.
Book Recommendations:
Foxeâs Book of Martyrs by John Foxe
The Vision of Piers Plowman by William Langland
Theologia Germanica
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The showâs production team also includes Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero and Alex Engebretson.
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Joe Bidenâs presidency has been dominated by two foreign policy crises: the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. The funding the United States has provided in those wars â billions to both Ukraine and Israel â has drawn backlash from both the right and the left. And now, as the conflicts move into new stages with no clear end game, Bidenâs policies are increasingly drawing dissent from the center.
Richard Haass is an icon of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. He served as the president of the Council on Foreign Relations for 20 years and currently writes the newsletter Home & Away. Heâs recently been making the case that our foreign policy is insufficiently independent â that weâve become captured by allies that have interests that diverge from our own. His view of this moment is a signal of larger shifts that could be coming in the U.S. foreign policy consensus.
In this conversation, we discuss why he thinks Americaâs current strategy on both Ukraine and Israel is untenable, what he thinks the north star for our strategy in both cases should be, the Republican Partyâs 180-degree turn from internationalism to isolationism, what Americaâs biggest national security threat really is and more.
Mentioned:
âThe Two-State Mirageâ by Marc Lynch and Shibley Telhami
Book Recommendations:
The World That Wasnât by Benn Steil
Sparks by Ian Johnson
Diplomats at War by Charles Trueheart
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The showâs production team also includes Annie Galvin and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.
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We received thousands of questions in response to last weekâs audio essay arguing that Democrats should consider choosing a candidate at Augustâs D.N.C. convention. Among them: Is there any chance Joe Biden would actually step down? Would an open convention be undemocratic? Is there another candidate who can bridge the progressive and moderate divide in the party? Doesnât polling show other candidates losing to Donald Trump by even larger margins? Would a convention process leave Democrats enough time to mount a real general election campaign?
In this conversation, Iâm joined by our senior editor Claire Gordon to answer these questions and many more.
Mentioned:
âDemocrats Have a Better Option Than Bidenâ by Ezra Klein
âHereâs How an Open Democratic Convention Would Workâ with Elaine Kamarck on The Ezra Klein Show
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The showâs production team also includes Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.
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Last week on the show, I argued that the Democrats should pick their nominee at the Democratic National Convention in August.
Itâs an idea that sounds novel but is really old-fashioned. This is how most presidential nominees have been picked in American history. All the machinery to do it is still there; we just stopped using it. But Democrats may need a Plan B this year. And the first step is recognizing they have one.
Elaine Kamarck literally wrote the book on how we choose presidential candidates. Itâs called âPrimary Politics: Everything You Need to Know About How America Nominates Its Presidential Candidates.â Sheâs a senior fellow in governance studies and the founding director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution. But her background here isnât just theory. Itâs practice. She has worked on four presidential campaigns and 10 nominating conventions for both Democrats and Republicans. Sheâs also on the conventionâs rules committee and has been a superdelegate at five Democratic conventions.
Itâs a fascinating conversation, even if you donât think Democrats should attempt to select their nominee at the convention. The history here is rich, and it is, if nothing else, a reminder that the way we choose candidates now is not the way we have always done it and not the way we must always do it.
Book Recommendations:
All the Kingâs Men by Robert Penn Warren
The Making of the President 1960 by Theodore H. White
Quiet Revolution by Byron E. Shafer
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Kristin Lin. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The showâs production team also includes Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.
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Biden is faltering and Democrats have no plan B. There is another path to winning in 2024 â and I think they should take it. But it would require them to embrace an old-fashioned approach to winning a campaign.
Mentioned:
The Lincoln Miracle by Edward Achorn
If you have a question for the AMA, you can call 212-556-7300 and leave a voice message or email [email protected] with the subject line, â2024 AMA."
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This audio essay for âThe Ezra Klein Showâ was fact-checked by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The showâs production team also includes Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.
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For years, Agnes Callard has been on a mission to take ethical philosophy out of the ivory tower. She examines everyday human experiences â jockeying for status, navigating jealousy, marriage â with dazzling detail, publishing regularly in mainstream publications. And she tries to live by her philosophy, too, even if it violates social conventions, as many discovered when The New Yorker published a provocative profile of Callard last year.
We recorded this conversation in May 2021, before the New Yorker article drew attention to the details of her home life. (She lives with both her husband and her ex-husband.) But after our episode with Rhaina Cohen about imagining relationships more expansively, we thought it would be interesting to revisit Callard, who has spent so much time dissecting the dynamics and ethics of different relationships and their possibilities.
Mentioned:
âWho Wants to Play the Status Game?â by Agnes Callard, The Point
âAgainst Advice,â by Agnes Callard, The Point
âThe Other Woman,â by Agnes Callard, The Point
âParenting and Panic,â by Agnes Callard, The Point
"Aspiration" by Agnes Callard
Book Recommendations:
"Tolstoy: A Russian Life" by Rosamund Bartlett
"Pessoa: A Biography" by Richard Zenith
"Augustine of Hippo" by Peter Brown
âReal Deathâ by Mount Eerie
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and RogĂ© Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld, audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin.
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âIf only we had a partner for peace.â
Thatâs been the refrain in the Israel-Palestinian conflict for as long as Iâve followed it. But the truth is you donât need just a partner â you need two partners able to deliver at the same time.
So you could see it as a tragedy of history that Salam Fayyad joined the Palestinian Authority in 2002, at the height of the second intifada, just as Israeli society shifted hard to the right.
A Western-educated economist, Fayyad is a technocrat at heart. And as the Palestinian Authorityâs finance minister, and then as prime minister, he dedicated himself to the spadework of state-building. His theory was that instead of waiting around for the peace process to deliver Palestinian statehood, he would just build a state â institutions, infrastructure, security, sewers and all â and then statehood would follow.
And by many measures, he was remarkably successful. The economy boomed, crime plummeted, and in 2011 the United Nations declared the authority ready to run an independent state. But in April 2013, Fayyad resigned. And today, the Palestinian Authority in tatters, widely seen by Palestinians as corrupt and a failure.
Fayyad is now a visiting senior scholar at Princeton. And I wanted to have him on the show to talk about his time building a Palestinian state. What did he learn working with the various factions â including Hamas â in Palestinian politics? What did he learn working with Israel? How did we still end up here? And what, given all heâs seen and done, does he think should happen now?
Mentioned:
Into the Breach: Salam Fayyad and Palestine
âA Plan for Peace in Gazaâ by Salam Fayyad
Book Recommendations:
Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
The Arabs by Eugene Rogan
On The Trails of Mariam by Nadia Harhash
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The showâs production team also includes Annie Galvin and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.
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Around 40 percent of people who marry eventually get a divorce. Almost half of children are born to unmarried women. The number of close friends Americans report having has been on a steep decline since the 1990s, especially among men. Millions of us are growing old alone. We are living out a radical experiment in how we live, love, parent and age â and for many, itâs failing.
Thatâs partial context, I think, for the recent burst of interest and media coverage of polyamory. People want more love in their lives, and opening their relationships is one way to find it. A poll from last year found that one-third of Americans believe their ideal relationship would involve something other than strict monogamy.
But polyamory, for all its possibilities, isnât right for many, and it doesnât have that much to say about parenting or aging or friendship. As radical as it may sound, itâs not nearly radical enough. Itâs not just romance that could be imagined more expansively. Itâs everything.
âIf this is such a significant relationship in my life, why is there no term for it?â wonders NPRâs Rhaina Cohen about a relationship that transcends the language we have available for friendship. Her forthcoming book, âThe Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life With Friendship at the Center,â is a window into a world of relational possibilities most of us never even imagined existed. Itâs a call to open up what we can conceive of as possible. Some of these models might appeal to you. Others might not. But they all pose a question worth asking: What kinds of relationships would you want in your life, if you felt you could ask for them?
Mentioned:
âMenâs Social Circles are Shrinkingâ by Daniel A. Cox
The Two-Parent Privilege by Melissa S. Kearney
How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti
Book Recommendations:
Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon
We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman
Thy Neighborâs Wife by Gay Talese
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on X @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The showâs production team also includes Michelle Harris, Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.
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Political analysts used to say that the Democratic Party was riding a demographic wave that would lead to an era of dominance. But that âcoalition of the ascendantâ never quite jelled. The party did benefit from a rise in nonwhite voters and college-educated professionals, but it has also shed voters without a college degree. All this has made the Democratsâ political math a lot more precarious. And it also poses a kind of spiritual problem for Democrats who see themselves as the party of the working class.
Ruy Teixeira is one of the loudest voices calling on the Democratic Party to focus on winning these voters back. Heâs a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the politics editor of the newsletter The Liberal Patriot. His 2002 book, âThe Emerging Democratic Majority,â written with John B. Judis, was seen as prophetic after Barack Obama won in 2008 with the coalition heâd predicted. But he also warned in that book that Democrats needed to stop hemorrhaging white working-class voters for this majority to hold. And now Teixeira and Judis have a new book, âWhere Have All the Democrats Gone?: The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes.â
In this conversation, I talk to Teixeira about how he defines the working class; the economic, social and cultural forces that he thinks have driven these voters from the Democratic Party; whether Joe Bidenâs industrial and pro-worker policies could win some of these voters back, or if economic policies could reverse this trend at all; and how to think through the trade-offs of pursuing bold progressive policies that could push working-class voters even further away.
Mentioned:
ââCompensate the Losers?â Economic Policy and Partisan Realignment in the U.S.â
Book Recommendations:
Political Cleavages and Social Inequalities, edited by Amory Gethin, Clara MartĂnez-Toledano, and Thomas Piketty
Visions of Inequality by Branko Milanovic
The House of Government by Yuri Slezkine
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The showâs production team also includes Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.
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If youâre a Democrat, how worried should you be right now? Itâs strangely hard to answer that question. On the one hand, polls suggest Democrats should be very worried. President Biden looks weaker than he did as a candidate in 2020, and in matchups with Donald Trump, the election looks like a coin flip. On the other hand, Democrats staved off an expected red wave in the 2022 midterm elections. Biden has a strong record to run on, and Trump has a lot more baggage than he did in 2020.
So, in an effort to put all those pieces together, I had two conversations with two people who have polar opposite perspectives â starting with a more optimistic take for Democrats.
Simon Rosenberg is a longtime Democratic political strategist, the author of the newsletter Hopium Chronicles and one of the few people who correctly predicted the Democratsâ strong performance in 2022. He argues that the Democratic Party is in a better position now than it has been for generations. In this conversation, we talk about why he isnât worried about Bidenâs polling numbers, how anti-MAGA sentiments have become a motivating force for many voters, what he thinks about the shifts in working-class support of the Democratic Party, why thereâs such a huge gap between Bidenâs economic track record and how voters perceive the economy right now, how Bidenâs age is affecting the campaign, whether his foreign policy might alienate young voters and more.
Mentioned:
Columnist Assistant application
Book Recommendations:
A New Deal for the World by Elizabeth Borgwardt
On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
The Collector by Daniel Silva
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The showâs production team also includes Annie Galvin and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.
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Itâs been just over 100 days since Hamasâs attack on Israel, and the costs of the war are staggering. In polling from late fall, 64 percent of Gazans reported that a family member had been killed or injured. Nearly two million Gazans â almost the entire population â have been displaced from their homes, and analysis of satellite imagery reveals that about half the buildings in the Gaza Strip have probably been destroyed or damaged.
Israel believes that more than 100 hostages are being held captive in Gaza, and polling reveals that Hamas has gained popularity among Palestinians while support for Israel has plummeted around the world. When this war ends, will Israel really be safer? Who will govern Gaza? What will be left of Gaza?
Thomas L. Friedman is a New York Times Opinion columnist and the author of âFrom Beirut to Jerusalem,â among other books. He has covered the Middle East for decades and won a Pulitzer for his reporting from Israel. And so I wanted to ask him: What does he think of where Israel is now, and what does he imagine comes next?
Mentioned:
Columnist Assistant application
Thomas L. Friedmanâs recent columns
ââJoe Biden May Be the Last Pro-Israel Democraticââ by Thomas L. Friedman
Book Recommendations:
The Little Drummer Girl by John Le Carré
The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson
Iâm Your Man by Sylvie Simmons
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of âThe Ezra Klein Showâ was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The showâs production team also includes Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.
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