How Do We Fix It?

Having skewered right-wing populism and its demagogues in his two previous best-selling books, politics professor, writer, and podcaster Yasha Mounk turns now to the thre...

Yes, it's our 400th episode. But instead of looking back over the past eight-and-a-half years of our podcasts, we consider the future: How collective optimism or pes...

Affective polarization in America – the gap between voters' positive feelings about their own political party or "side" and negative feelings toward the opposing party – has sharpl...

It's easy to look at the impacts of rigid polarization and blame our leaders and political parties, the media, or the education system. In this episode, we hear an argument th...

Destructive conflict aims to destroy the other side. But constructive conflict can be a force for good.In this episode we learn how good conflict helps move people beyond pola...

Almost everyone has an opinion about the impact of social media on political polarization. Most of us believe that Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, YouTube and other sites...

Have you ever been asked by a political opponent to describe what's wrong or weak about your own side's arguments? That's what Richard and Jim do here. This episode ...

Why is American politics so dysfunctional? Is it because we are too polarized or too fragmented? Throughout this fall we will be exploring different aspects of polarization— arguab...

Toxic polarization is "the problem that eats all other problems... It's the sludge at the base of everything else," our guest Mónica Guzmán tells us. In this really usefu...

Why aren’t Democrats doing much better in elections for Congress and also in state races? We explore several reasons. One is that Democrats have been losing the support of many bla...

Globalization, technology, devastating impacts from the foreclosure crisis and the opioid addiction have wreaked havoc on communities left behind by the modern economy. Some of the...

Why do we connect emotionally with some places and not others? Why does that matter? What does loving the place you live in have to do with healing the partisan divide? We explore ...