The Argument
The Argument is a weekly debate podcast hosted by Jerusalem Demsas and Matthew Yglesias. Each episode features one host arguing a distinctive point of view on topics like affirmative action, internet anonymity, and liberal hypocrisy. The show aims to provide substantive discussions backed by facts and research, avoiding typical screaming matches or softball interviews. New episodes are released every Thursday.
Episodes
How environmentalists lost the plot
Is modern environmentalism anti-progress?This week, Jerusalem Demsas and Matthew Yglesias read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring – the book that launched the modern environmental movement. Jerusalem and Matt find themselves surprised by what's actually in it. Is it a visionary scientific critique or a romantic backlash against modernity? And did Carson's legacy help or hurt the cause sh
Do we need to build God to cure cancer?
AI companies keep promising it will cure cancer. But what does that actually mean — and would an AI capable of doing it be one we'd want to live alongside? Jerusalem Demsas and Kelsey Piper debated the question live in San Francisco, in front of a crowd of researchers, investors, and skeptics who had plenty to say about it. One of them is going to be very wrong. Listen and judge for yourself.
Why is crime falling everywhere?
America is on track for its lowest homicide year since 1900, but nobody seems to be celebrating. Matt Yglesias and Jerusalem Demsas debate why crime has dropped so dramatically and what caused the pandemic-era highs in the first place. Were the George Floyd and BLM protests to blame for the increase in crime? Were cops holding back because they felt disrespected? Or was it pandemic-era disruptions
Why Democrats and Republicans want you to pay $50,000 for a car
This week on The Argument, Jerusalem Demsas and Matthew Yglesias debate the tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. Jerusalem argues that Americans should have access to cheaper, climate-friendly cars, while Matt says industrial policy requires a more cautious approach.They dive into the failure of Trump’s tariffs, what serious industrial policy looks like, and how the climate activists are once aga
Did Joe Biden really kill Spirit Airlines?
Spirit Airlines is dead and the right, true to form, is blaming Joe Biden. The immediate cause of Spirit's demise is pretty clear: the war with Iran spiked jet fuel costs, and the already-battered airline couldn't absorb the hit to its bottom line. Last we checked, Joe Biden didn't start any wars with Iran. In this episode, Matthew Yglesias and Jerusalem Demsas break down what reall
Boy moms and Nazi POWs: how "The Feminine Mystique" changed feminism
Betty Friedan thought Korean POWs were dying in captivity because their mothers were housewives. She thought boy moms were making their sons gay. She wrote a whole chapter comparing suburban kitchens to concentration camps — in 1963, while America was still processing what concentration camps actually were. "The Feminine Mystique" is one of those important books that everyone "knows
Should we end asylum?
Matthew Yglesias wants to end asylum. On a new episode of The Argument, Matt argues that the post-WWII asylum framework is not just politically untenable but practically unworkable. Jerusalem Demsas, true to form, disagrees.New episodes post every Thursday.For an ad-free version, show notes, and full transcript, subscribe at TheArgumentMag.com. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overc
Can America still be a force for good?
For the past century, America's foreign interventions often carried the pretense of liberal idealism – to help bring peace and prosperity to people around the world. But it doesn't take a history scholar to know that positive outcomes weren't always the result. In the latest episode of the Argument, Jerusalem Demsas and Matthew Yglesias debate the merits of liberal hypocrisy, its be
Destroy the internet to save it?
People tend to defend online anonymity by pointing to the long tradition of anonymous speech in American democracy.But modern anonymity is an entirely new beast. Should we ban anonymity on the internet? That's what The Argument's Jerusalem Demsas and Slow Boring's Matthew Yglesias debate in The Argument's latest episode.New episodes post every Thursday.You can find The Argument
Should Race Matter in College Admissions?
When the Supreme Court rejected affirmative action at colleges and universities in 2023, finding that Harvard and the University of North Carolina practiced race-based discrimination against Asian American students, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, "eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it." The case, decided along ideological lines, caused a stir among progressives
Matthew Yglesias vs. Jerusalem Demsas: The Trailer
Watch the official trailer for The Argument — a new podcast cohosted by Jerusalem Demsas and Matthew Yglesias.Has affirmative action gone too far? Should we abolish internet anonymity? Is liberal hypocrisy worth defending?Welcome to The Argument, a weekly podcast from Jerusalem Demsas and Matthew Yglesias, where two friends argue about politics, policy, and whatever else is on their minds.This is
Stop Letting Instagram Explain Your Love Life -- The Science of Attraction
Are men naturally promiscuous and drawn to younger women? Are women obsessed with tall, older, rich men? Dating discourse is littered with pop evolutionary psychology that makes broad claims about how men and women are under a thin veneer of scientific credibility. But how much of it is backed by real science?In this episode of The Argument, host Jerusalem Demsas interviews UC Davis psychology pro
The Scientific Method Comes for Criminal Justice
Economists love to say there are no free lunches. Jennifer Doleac thinks criminal justice is one of the rare places where that’s wrong.In this episode, host and Editor of The Argument, Jerusalem Demsas talks with Doleac—economist and author of The Science of Second Chances—about what happens when you treat crime policy like an empirical problem instead of a morality play. Rejecting the false choic
Ross Douthat on the End of Conservatism
Trump didn’t just reshape the GOP—he may have ended what we used to call “the conservative movement.” New York Times columnist Ross Douthat joins host Jerusalem Demsas to map the new right: the collapse of fusionism, the rise of nationalism, and a media ecosystem where influencers matter more than institutions.Then they argue about what liberalism can and can’t solve. Can abundance and faster grow
Did the Opioid Epidemic Help Republicans Win?
Over less than 25 years, the opioid epidemic killed over 800,000 Americans. These deaths and the resulting economic and political ramifications were unequally distributed across the country. Some places were ravaged, others barely noticed what was happening. In this episode, host Jerusalem Demsas is joined by economist Carolina Arteaga to unpack new research linking the opioid crisis to increasing
Are Children People?
Children are a problem for liberalism -- and it’s one you can see in everything from school-board wars to fights over “indoctrination.” If all individuals are free and equal, endowed with rights by their Creator, then does that include children? Kids are fully human, yes, but they’re also dependent, impulsive, and not yet capable of adult autonomy. So when do rights actually kick in?Rita Koganzon,
Why NIMBYs Oppose Housing (with Chris Elmendorf)
NIMBYism is usually explained as selfishness: homeowners protecting property values, or neighbors who just hate change. But a growing body of research suggests something simpler and harder to argue with: aesthetics.What if people oppose new housing not only because of who might move in or what it might do to traffic, but because the building just looks “wrong”?In this episode, Jerusalem Demsas tal
Matthew Yglesias on What Went Wrong with Modern Liberalism?
If we want to address racism, should we talk more about race – or less?Matthew Yglesias argues liberals undermined their own principles when politics shifted from judging people as individuals to sorting them into moral categories based on group identity. We debate “the fox in liberalism’s henhouse,” collective blame, and why “accurate” generalizations can still poison a pluralistic society.The A
We're Getting Frog-Boiled by AI (with Kelsey Piper)
A lot of Americans are uneasy about AI, and so are many of the people building it. Yet we keep scaling and deploying these systems faster than we’re building rules to govern them. Why? The Argument's Kelsey Piper has a few explanations, from foreign competition to a sense of inevitability to a conservative party terrified of regulation. Even if the incentives are clear, our collective compla
Best Of: Liberalism Under Pressure w/ Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, & Derek Thompson
At the end of the year, I wanted to revisit our very first podcast conversation with some of my favorite liberal journalists. In our very first live show in Washington, D.C., Derek Thompson, Ezra Klein, and Matt Yglesias joined me for a disagreement-ridden conversation to tape the first episode of our new video podcast, The Argument.We talk about why Matt spends so much of his time arguing with th
How Liberal Elite Failure Fueled Far-Right Populism
Why is far-right populism on the rise? Political scientist Gabriele Gratton has a controversial theory: For decades, technocrats moved policy decisions — on austerity, climate, and more – away from the realm of mass politics and toward independent authorities, courts, and experts. The result? A populist backlash fueled by the desire to reassert control over policy.In Gratton's telling, the po
America’s Reading Crisis: What Mississippi Got Right
America's literacy problem is a policy choice. As schools shifted away from phonics toward guessing-based instruction, a generation of kids paid the price. But a quiet reversal is underway in an unexpected place. Mississippi rebuilt reading instruction from the ground up and saw real gains. If it worked there, why are other states so resistant to copying it?The Argument is a podcast dedicated
Why We Feel Screwed: Immigration, Growth, and the Zero-Sum Mindset
Why do so many people believe immigrants are screwing them even when the evidence says otherwise? Economist Sahil Chinoy joins host Jerusalem Demsas to break down his massive 20,000-person study on zero-sum thinking — the worldview that assumes someone else’s gain must be your loss. They dig into how family histories of enslavement and immigration shape attitudes today, why young Americans are so
Is Inequality the Problem?
Rising income inequality hurts democracy, health, happiness, and basically anything you can think of … right? Sociologist Lane Kenworthy doesn't think so. In his new book Is Inequality The Problem? Kenworthy argued that inequality is overrated as “the” cause of our problems — and discussed why the data pushes him toward a different set of priorities. Host Jerusalem Demsas is skeptical. Togeth
The Climate Movement’s Biggest Miscalculation (with Robinson Meyer)
Climate activists spent a decade arguing that if Democrats passed a huge climate bill, created green jobs, and centered “climate justice,” voters—especially the young—would reward them.They got their bill: the Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest climate law in U.S. history. Then youth support for Democrats, Republicans tore key pieces out all while red states took the money and blue states made i
How Silicon Valley Became MAGA-Curious
Silicon Valley’s sharp right turn didn’t come out of nowhere. Former tech worker and current tech writer Jasmine Sun walks us through how a once-solidly liberal sector became MAGA-curious. We talk about:The rise of “effective accelerationism” (E/acc)Why parts of the tech elite feel betrayed by the Biden administrationHow backlash to regulation, internal employee revolts, crypto crackdowns, and AI
Arguing the Politics of Climate with Bill McKibben
What if climate policy can’t survive voters, courts, and NIMBYs?Bill McKibben is a pioneering climate writer and activist whose books and campaigns helped mainstream the case for rapidly replacing fossil fuels with clean energy. On today's episode, McKibben and host, Jerusalem Demsas, argue about the politics and economics of climate and discuss his new book Here Comes The Sun.McKibben's
Why Free Speech Is Losing on the Left and the Right
Why is free speech losing ground? From crackdowns on immigrants, protesters, and law firms to campus speech codes, social-media “jawboning,” and government pressure – we're witnessing the erosion of the free speech culture that once defined American democracy.Greg Lukianoff is the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a free speech organization. In this epis
Trump's Tariffs, Explained
Economics writer Joey Politano joins host Jerusalem Demsas to explain the great tariff comeback story. From bananas and coffee to washing machines and Christmas ornaments, Trump’s new trade war is making life more expensive – but why? They unpack how tariffs actually work, why Trump’s obsession with them never went away, and what it says about America’s growing economic nationalism. Plus: why are
The Battle to Rewrite COVID-19
Was everything we did during COVID-19 a mistake — or are critics rewriting history? In this episode, Jerusalem Demsas talked with The Atlantic's Roge Karma about his reporting on “COVID revisionism,” which is gaining popularity across the political spectrum. The belief posits that not only were lockdowns, masking, and other public-health measures ineffective, but officials knew they wouldn’t
RFK, Tylenol, and America’s Autism Panic
Last week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the Trump administration's Health Secretary, outdid himself. During a Thursday Cabinet meeting, he alleged that "children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism." This is part of Kennedy's ongoing quest to link Tylenol use in pregnancy to autism, a theory he previewed in September alongside the president. My guest today is worr
Why even (some) liberals are worrying about the debt
The day-to-day chaos of the Trump administration can make it easy to ignore slow-moving threats on the horizon — like the $37 trillion national debt. How can you pay attention to a crisis building months or years away when every morning brings reports of basic freedoms being stripped away?In this episode of The Argument, host Jerusalem Demsas interviews economics journalist Jordan Weissmann about
Liberalism Under Pressure w/ Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, & Derek Thompson
In our very first live show in Washington, D.C., Derek Thompson, Ezra Klein, and Matt Yglesias joined host Jerusalem Demsas for a disagreement-ridden conversation to tape the first episode of our new video podcast The Argument.We talk about why Matt spends so much of his time arguing with the left, whether Ezra thinks it matters “who shot first” as the right ramps up its attacks, why Derek picked
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