Episode description

There are no “lone wolves” in the terrorist violence of white identity politics. So what’s that mean for white people who want to confront it? First, assistant secretary for homeland security under President Obama and current professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Juliette Kayyem, joins host Kai Wright to help us make sense of the moment with tools from her new book, The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters. Read her article for The Atlantic in response to the mass shooting in Buffalo here. Then, Sarah Posner, reporting fellow at Type Investigations and the author of Unholy: How White Christian Nationalists Powered the Trump Presidency, and The Devastating Legacy They Left Behind, helps us examine the packs in which these ideologies flourish, as candidates like Pennsylvania Republican Party's gubernatorial candidate, Doug Mastriano, continue to thrive. 

Companion listening for this episode:

The Dangerous Cycle of Fear (4/11/2022)

Asian American New Yorkers explain how Covid-era violence changed their lives, and what’s at stake for everybody when we fear each other. Then, rediscovering community through food.

“The United States of Anxiety” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on WNYC.org/anxiety or tell your smart speakers to play WNYC. 

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Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.