Hello! This week we have on Zephyr Teachout, Professor at Law at Fordham University and columnist at the Nation , for a long talk about protectionism, neoliberalism, and how to capture the spirit of the country. Can liberals just sell free market capitalism and off-shoring to an angry public? Or will there have to be seem change in messaging that will allow the left to define the future of work in this country? We also talk a lot about corruption — Zephyr wrote a book about it — and the unpreced...
Apr 16, 2025•1 hr 10 min
Hello! Today we talk about what the supporters of the tariffs might actually be thinking and why we might take the latest Trump gambit a little more seriously as a lasting movement/idea. What is it about the vision of a manufacturing/factory town America that seems like its so appealing to a portion of the population and how does nativism and “anti globalism” fit into the vision? Are we about to see a terrible horseshoe take hold of part of the country? All this and more this week! This is a pub...
Apr 09, 2025•1 hr 16 min
Hello! Today we have on Saikat Chakrabarti, the former chief of staff for AOC and one of the formers leaders of the Justice Democrats. Saikat is currently running for Congress against Nancy Pelosi. We talk about the possibilities of a Democratic Tea Party, how progressives need to think about actually doing stuff, and a lot about housing. This was a great episode and one that I think should inform you on what the political landscape could look like if the Democratic Party actually has a full-on ...
Apr 02, 2025•1 hr 2 min
We talk about SignalGate, Trump’s clown show problem, and a little bit about Richard Linklater’s “Waking Life” and why the Alex Jones from 25 years ago might have been ahead of his time. What does “combative centrism” mean? Does anyone actually care? All these topics and more discussed in this here episode. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe...
Mar 26, 2025•1 hr 17 min
Hello! This week we talk about the growing tea party vibes around the Democratic party, Schumer’s shame, the anti-establishment energy that’s emanating from the Blue MAGA base, and the new attempts to rebrand old ideas into new ones. Will anyone in the Democratic establishment survive the next decade? Or is it all over but the crying? Also we talk about Columbia University and the cowardice of elite private colleges. Enjoy! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subsc...
Mar 19, 2025•1 hr 7 min
Hello! Today we talk with the authors of “ In Covid’s Wake: How our Politics Failed Us ” by Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee. We talk about what we got wrong during the pandemic, how to battle groupthink, especially when it comes to science, and why so many people were willing to accept one version of public health without proper debate or questioning. This was an informative and thought-provoking episode, one that made us rethink a lot of what we knew about what was happening in the early months ...
Mar 12, 2025•1 hr 17 min
Hello! Today we talk about the big WWE showdown at the White House between Zelensky and the tag team of Trump and JD Vance, where our alarm meters are for “wait maybe Trump actually is going to do all the stuff he said he’s going to do,” and we talk about the Democratic plan to “play dead” and wait for the perfect moment to form like Voltron and come to save the day with their big glowing sword and tiger heads. Enjoy! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers...
Mar 05, 2025•1 hr 26 min
Hello! Today we talk about Elon’s gambit to get everyone to respond to a work email on a weekend, the Eagles will they/won’t they trip to the White House, the Trump administration’s vague crackdown, and we talk for a long time for some reason about leap years and how they’re weird. ENJOY! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe...
Feb 26, 2025•2 hr 34 min
Hello! Today, Jay talks to long-time TTSG community member Kyle Paoletta about his new book, American Oasis: Finding the Future in the Cities of the Southwest . We talk about British travel writing, the building of Albuquerque and Phoenix, climate change, Las Vegas and how the future of American cities might be found in the history of hundreds of years of people trying to live in the American desert. What does the desert signify and what can early occupants of these lands teach us about how to s...
Feb 19, 2025•1 hr 12 min
Hello! Very excited to see so many new subscribers to the podcast over the past two weeks. As a reminder, we are a fully listener supported show so if you could help us keep the lights on over here with a paid subscription, we would greatly appreciate it. Our goal is to always at least provide one show a week for free, which TTSG has been doing now for almost five years. This week, we take a page from sports podcasts and do a fantasy draft of celebrities who should run for President in 2028. We ...
Feb 12, 2025•1 hr 17 min
Hello! Today we’re talking all things Elon with Ryan Mac, a reporter at the NYT and the co-author along with Kate Conger of CHARACTER LIMITS : How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter. Ryan’s probably reported more on Elon than pretty much anyone in the press and he gives us his perspective on what’s happened, what moves Elon has made that he also made during his career in business, and what we might expect in the upcoming weeks. Thanks! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other ...
Feb 05, 2025•1 hr 1 min
Hello! Today we have on repeat guest Karen Hao, a journalist who writes for the Atlantic and has been one of the sharpest minds on OpenAI and this emerging industry. We talk about DeepSeek, the Chinese AI model that deleted over a trillion dollars out of the NASDAQ and temporarily tanked NVIDIA’s seemingly unstoppable growth and how it might change the way American banks, government, and users think about Sam Altman and his mandate of “scale, scale, scale.” Enjoy! This is a public episode. If yo...
Jan 29, 2025•57 min
Hello! We talk today about the Biden Crime Family, Trump’s sleepy and then not-sleepy speech, the Panama Canal, Mars, and whether Trump actually had prepared for his big (second) moment. Then we go into Elon’s salute and the eerie silence that has fallen over the “resistance” and what that might mean for the next few years. Enjoy! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe...
Jan 22, 2025•1 hr 10 min
Hello! Today’s episode is a lively one! We talk about optimization, working out, RFK Jr., and how health and the woowoo New Age trends of the 1970s somehow got right-coded and then turned into a pathway to becoming one of the worst people on earth. Our guest to discuss all this is Maya Vinokour, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Russian Studies at NYU. Her first book, called Work Flows , focused on labor discourse in Soviet Russia came out last year. Her thoughts on all this can be fou...
Jan 15, 2025•1 hr 13 min
Hello! Today we have a belated 1/6 anniversary special with repeat guest John Ganz, whose great book “ When the Clock Broke ” can be ordered here and whose essential substack can be read here. We discuss how the public will remember January 6th and whether it might already be fading from the collective memory. What do we make of it today after last November’s election? How do we think Trump will treat 1/6, whether the people in jail who are now pleading for pardons or the lasting imprint it may ...
Jan 08, 2025•2 hr 34 min
Hello! After a long string of edifying and informative conversations with experts and thinkers, Tyler and I catch up on the big fight in MAGA world over H1B visa holders, highly skilled immigrants, and what we make of Vivek’s big tweet about… Saved By the Ball? Kids going to malls instead of studying? Really what year did he think he lives in? Anyway, all this discussed in this episode! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes...
Jan 02, 2025•1 hr 13 min
Hello! Today we have another informative and deep episode with Claire Dunning, a historian and associate professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. Her first book, which came out with the University of Chicago Press in 2022, is a history of urban nonprofits and philanthropic organizations titled Nonprofit Neighborhoods: An Urban History of Inequality and the American State . More recently she has written about what she calls the “nonprofit industrial complex” as well...
Dec 18, 2024•1 hr 14 min
Hello! Today we have on Max Kim, the Seoul correspondent for the LA Times and a repeat TTSG guest to provide a worthy service. If you are interested in what's happening in Korea but don't know a whole lot about Korea history, politics, or even who President Yoon might be outside of a few viral clips of him singing and his incredibly stupid recent coup attempt, Max is here to provide his analysis and his reportage on everything from what Yoon might been thinking, how he came into power, the Korea...
Dec 11, 2024•1 hr 17 min
This week we have on David Hill, the author of a great Rolling Stone article on the online sports betting industry. Dave is the best writer on this topic in America and we talked about his childhood in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the history behind some of these big companies like Draftkings and FanDuel and how they try to exploit players to turn a profit. We also talk about how those profits have not really materialized for these companies and how the whole industry feels like a giant bubble right n...
Dec 04, 2024•1 hr 11 min
Hello! Today for the holiday weekend, we have Nancy Fraser, the Henry and Louise Loeb Professor of Political and Social Science at the New School. She has written widely on feminism, injustice, the problem with identity politics, and neoliberalism. Her most recent books are Cannibal Capitalism and The Old is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born , both of which were published by Verso. We revisited an extremely prescient essay she wrote in 2017 for American Affairs about progressive neoliberalism, he...
Nov 27, 2024•58 min
Hello! Today we have Jamie Lauren Keiles, the author of an upcoming book about the rise of nonbinary identity in America, back on the show. We talk about the thinly veiled post mortems by some within the Democratic coalition to abandon 'the whole trans thing,' the history of how trans rights became such a large part of the country's political conversation, and much more. If you want to follow Jamie's very cool instagram, it's @ sexchange.tbt . Enjoy! This is a public episode. If you'd like to di...
Nov 20, 2024•1 hr 21 min
Hello! Today we brought back our polling experts Ben Recht, a professor of computer science at UC Berkeley and Leif Weatherby, a professor of German and the founding director of the Digital Theory Lab at NYU. We set out to really talk about one question: Can we trust these polls and were they right or wrong? Then we talked a lot about how campaigns think and how our data driven society leads to a bunch of very odd and almost random decisions but also very little reflection. Luddites rejoice, thi...
Nov 13, 2024•1 hr 18 min
Hello! Today we brought back our polling experts Ben Recht, a professor of computer science at UC Berkeley and Leif Weatherby, a professor of German and the founding director of the Digital Theory Lab at NYU. We set out to really talk about one question: Can we trust these polls and were they right or wrong? Then we talked a lot about how campaigns think and how our data driven society leads to a bunch of very odd and almost random decisions but also very little reflection. Luddites rejoice, thi...
Nov 13, 2024•1 hr 18 min
Tyler and Jay talk about the distressing results with Trump at 92% to win on the needle, what might happen for the Democrats in the future, and spend a whole lot of time talking about the "minority vote" and what went wrong. We promise we do very little "I told you so" in this episode. Honestly, it's about as morose as you'll ever hear us as we both go through what we think the next four years will look like. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get a...
Nov 06, 2024•1 hr 5 min
Hello! We talk about the Trump rally in New York City, Kamala’s closing statements and why, despite months of criticizing the Harris/Walz campaign and living in deep blue states, we both ended up voting for it. We also try to tee up what the next four years might look like for the Democrats whether Harris wins or loses. As always, this show is funded by subscriptions. We give everything away for free and don’t have any paywalls but we do rely on your generosity to keep the lights on and the Zyn ...
Oct 30, 2024•1 hr 10 min
Hello! This week we are discussing the state of reading in America and the big Atlantic article that said that college kids can’t really make it through difficult books anymore and blamed woke or something. Our guest is Susannah Grossman, a veteran teacher who has been on both sides of this debate. Really good episode this week imho — lotta lively talk and perspective from someone who has been inside these classrooms. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers...
Oct 23, 2024•1 hr 22 min
Hello! Today we’re talking about Kamala Harris’s plan for Black men, crypto, one million loans for $20,000, and Trump’s 30 minute spotify playlist party which included his favorite song (Time to Say Goodbye). We also give our best case for the Harris campaign’s strategy and its endless tacks to the right. The LEAST toxic TTSG in months! As always, we appreciate all our listeners but if you could help us keep the lights on, please reach over and hit that subscribe button for $5 a month. Thank you...
Oct 16, 2024•1 hr 11 min
Hello! Today’s episode is about THE GREAT BLACK HOPE , a new book by the historian Louis Moore. We talk about the history of Black quarterbacks, both in college and the NFL, the financial and societal pressures that have both led to change and kept some things the same. On a larger scale, we talk about how sports serves both as a testing ground for ideas about race but also how racism locks in certain ways of thinking. Thanks! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other su...
Oct 09, 2024•1 hr
Hello! Apologies for the slight delay in getting this episode out but we have a great show today with the writer Jazmine Hughes. We talk about Ta-Nehisi Coates’s new book about writing, the West Bank and his travels, the writer-as-activist-celebrity, and the strange and tangled relationship that we, as minority writers, have with prestige media outlets. Enjoy! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.co...
Oct 02, 2024•1 hr 10 min
Hello! This week Tyler pays tribute to the great literary critic Fredric Jameson who tragically passed away recently. We talk about the importance of his work and why it will be hard to find someone like him given the state of the academy and literary culture. And then we dive into what happened between RFK and Olivia Nuzzi and how journalism ethics talk ruins every party. Enjoy! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit...
Sep 25, 2024•1 hr 2 min
