Content by Matthew Sheffield
Artificial intelligence is going to change the world, but how much of it is hype?
Gary N. Smith and Jeff Schatten debate and discuss how chatbots will change education, employment, and a lot more
Baby Boomers fundamentally changed America, when will other generations get their chance?
Washington Post columnist Philip Bump talks about his new book ‘The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America’
Dominion’s Fox lawsuit has incontrovertibly exposed that Fox isn’t news
The Daily Beast’s Diana Falzone and Justin Baragona report from inside the troubled right-wing network
The Christian Right was a theological rebellion against modernity before it became a force for Republicans
Religion scholar David Hollinger on the soteriology of reaction and his book ‘Christianity’s American Fate’
Christianity, Islam, and equal rights are often in conflict, but do they have to be?
Author Wajahat Ali discusses his book ‘Go Back to Where You Came From’ and how non-believers and the faithful need to come together
The sexuality of reaction is complicated and contradictory
Writers Seyward Darby and Katherine Abughazaleh discuss how far-right influencers have created a form of religious prudery
The world’s richest people are starting to realize the system they’ve created is unstable, but they can’t stop
Author and filmmaker Douglas Rushkoff talks about why oligarchs are planning for disaster and his book, ‘Survival of the Richest’
The old neoliberal consensus is dead, will a ‘designer economy’ replace it?
Historian Nils Gilman on why leaders on the left and right are realizing the state must play a bigger role in the economy
The strange political history of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency
David Golumbia, author of ‘The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism’ talks about the rigid ideologies behind crypto
To make a better future, we must first realize why we didn’t get the one we were promised
Author Richard Barbrook talks about the failed promises of tech liberation, neoliberalism, and the ‘Californian Ideology’
Many older comedians would rather attack the audience than update their material
Comedian Lisa Curry discusses why some standup comics are crying ‘cancel culture’ instead of coming up with new jokes
Male popular culture is obsolete, and men are suffering because of it
Men’s support group leader Brandon Bradford says many men are feeling lonely because society never taught them sustainable mental health
What makes Trump supporters change their minds about him?
Filmmaker Melissa Jo Peltier discusses her documentary about disillusioned Trump voters, “The Game Is Up”
America’s public libraries are facing an epidemic of censorship
Jonathan Friedman of PEN America tells how far-right activists are trying to silence LGBT and progressive authors
After envisioning themselves as centrists, tech billionaires like Elon Musk have moved to the far right
Writers Jacob Silverman and Chris Lehmann discuss Twitter, cryptocurrency, and libertarian radicalization
Will defamation lawsuits be the apocalypse of (Alex) Jones?
Legal analyst Liz Dye discusses how the U.S. legal system is finally holding conspiracy millionaire Alex Jones to account
Many Black Americans don’t actually like Democrats, what does that mean for politics in the long-term?
Author Brandi Collins-Dexter discusses her book Black Skinhead and the varieties of Black political experience
EWTN, a TV channel founded by a cloistered nun, has quietly become a right-wing media juggernaut
Slate writer Molly Olmstead on how EWTN and the Catholic right are spending big to shift public opinion
Politics has changed drastically in the past 10 years, why are Democrats still running the same plays?
New Republic writer Alex Shephard discusses the larger implications of Joe Biden’s low approval ratings
Americans want progressive change, but to be able to deliver it, progressives will need to change first
Progressive strategist Max Berger on why the American left needs to focus on building institutions and making its case
Extremist groups are targeting state and local officials for harassment and intimidation
Right-wing extremism researcher David Neiwert discloses how groups are trying to force their viewpoints in cities and schools
Big finance and corporate monopolies have blocked the original promise of the internet
Technology activist and author Cory Doctorow discusses 30 years of the Worldwide Web
How right-wing media became the glue that holds the Republican party together
Historian Nicole Hemmer discusses how reactionary media have radicalized millions of Americans since the 1940s
Low-quality pundits are getting rich telling people what they want to hear, inside the economics and psychology of how it works
‘Decoding the Gurus’ co-host Matthew Browne on how the tools of acquiring knowledge are being used to destroy it
Right-wing comedy isn’t funny, but it sure is effective
Authors Matt Sienkiewicz and Nick Marx discuss their new book about why lefties need to take right-wing comedy seriously
Will progressive and moderate Christians stand up against extremists politicizing their faith?
Singer and podcaster Malynda Hale talks about why progressive and moderate Christians need to defend the faith from within
How Pentecostal Christianity is taking over the world of religion, and why it matters
Author Elle Hardy discusses her book about the history of Pentecostalism and how it’s displacing other faiths across the globe
For decades, Republican consultants spent big to promote leftist candidates, now they’ve started creating fake ones
Instead of trying to build a majority, the American right has decided to divide and conquer
Latino evangelicals are reshaping American politics, politicians and parties should take notice
Sociology professor Gerardo Martí discusses how the rapid growth of evangelical faith among Latinos seems to be eroding a traditional Democratic constituency
How far-right media manipulated a father — and a nation
Jen Senko discusses her book and film, ‘The Brainwashing of My Dad,’ and how to help people escape from conspiracist media
Centrist elites have stalled political change and made room for the reactionary right
Luke Savage discusses his new book, ‘The Dead Center: Reflections on Liberalism and Democracy After The End Of History’
How much do political party elites know about their own voters?
Pollster and demographer Daniel Cox discusses why cultural issues often dominate U.S. politics, and how much surveys can actually tell us about public opinion
Do Joe Biden and his team realize who they’re dealing with?
Salon.com columnist Heather Digby Parton discusses how Democratic leaders seem to think flowery speeches are sufficient against hardcore reactionaries
The January 6th Capitol attack was the inevitable product of the Christian Right’s hatred of America
Journalist and researcher Bruce Wilson discusses how religious hatred for a ‘fallen nation’ fueled a presidential coup attempt
Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA are building a reactionary cult for young people, does anyone on the center-left care?
Rhetoric professor Matthew Boedy describes how a far-right group is radicalizing young Christians, and how little center-left groups are doing in response
Media elites have missed the damage caused by free trade, and how millions felt betrayed by Democrats
Journalist Farah Stockman discusses her new book on the meaning of work, and how educated elites have ignored the problems of others
The John Birch Society and the birth of the far-right rage machine
American politics is arguably the product of Robert Welch, a far-right activist who was mostly ignored by conventional journalists and historians
America’s polarization is ultimately an epistemic problem
Former libertarian writer and policy wonk Will Wilkinson discusses how many far-right Christians and secular libertarians have decided that facts are optional and evidence does not matter
Technology alone cannot solve the problems of social media
David Adams, founder and publisher of OSNews, discusses the cyclical nature of technology and the implications of computing’s return to the network
How the ‘Steele Dossier’ confused the public and ended up helping Donald Trump
Journalist and author Barry Meier discusses how private spy agencies manipulate the media and intimidate whistleblowers for wealthy clients
The disinformation economy isn’t invincible, meet two women working to end it
Nandini Jammi and Claire Atkin of Check My Ads want to make publishing lies unprofitable, while also helping advertisers protect their brands
Trump supporters will make it difficult for the GOP to copy Glenn Youngkin
Never Trump commentator Jim Swift on why Trump and his fans won’t allow the Virginia gubernatorial candidate’s strategy to be copied
White nationalists and jihadists are starting to realize they have a lot in common
Extremism researcher Moustafa Ayad talks about how religious extremists from across the world are starting to come together, and what that means for the rest of us
Far-right Christians think they’re living in a Bible story, and that you are as well
Literature professor Christopher Douglas discusses the modern-day rewriting of Biblical apocalyptic literature as a justification for political extremism
Why is Republican obstruction assumed to be a fact of American politics?
Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent talks in-depth about trying to push Democrats to discuss Republican extremism, and how Donald Trump himself was harmed by it
Political extremism is a twisted mirror of elite failure
Author Nimmi Gowrinathan on the motivations of female militants and the origins of violent extremism
How Linux and open-source software took the computing world by storm
Programmer and entrepreneur Miguel de Icaza talks about how Linux went from a college student’s hobby to powering most of the world’s computers, and his own story as a free software developer
Ezra Taft Benson and the tangled history of Mormon and evangelical extremism
Historian Matthew L. Harris speaks about the critical role that Mormonism played in the development of right-wing American politics
Fighting disinformation is something everyone can do, and must do to protect our democracy
Fact-checker and rumor killer Brooke Binkowski talks about the history of falsehoods, and how to combat them
Why critical thinking is the long-term cure for disinformation
While combating specific false beliefs is important, in the long run, helping people learn to spot misinformation is the best way to counter it