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Political Reality

Political Reality 24 Episodes Jun 17, 2026

Political Reality is a podcast that explores how politics and government function, aiming to cut through polarization and misinformation. It offers evidence-based discussions on democracy, fairness, and navigating political information. The show encourages listeners to find common ground and understand opposing viewpoints.

Episodes

What We Hope You Learned | S01E24 | Political Reality Jun 17, 2026 2554 Thank you for watching/listening to this season. We hope you find the show informative and will join us in Season 2

Season 1 Recap - What We Learned | S01E23 | Political Reality Jun 11, 2026 3273 Thanks for joining on this new endeavor.

How Does Democracy Score | S01E22 | Political Reality Jun 3, 2026 3702

PREVIEW: Being in Congress | S01E21 | Political Reality May 27, 2026 626 Full Episode https://www.patreon.com/posts/being-in-s01e21-159335999 Thanks to Derek Kilmer for joining us!

How to Talk Politics with Prof. Lindsey Cormack | Political Reality | S01E20 May 20, 2026 3566 Prof. Cormack’s excellent book, How to Raise a Citizen (And Why It’s Up to You to Do It): https://howtoraiseacitizen.com/ Her DC Inbox searchable database of e-newsletters from members of Congress (well worth exploring): https://www.dcinbox.com/ More of her research and writing: https://www.lindseycormack.com/ Follow Prof. Cormack: https://www.instagram.com/howtoraiseacitizen/

PREVIEW: European Affective Polarization | S01E19 | Political Reality May 14, 2026 607 🌍 Primary studies discussed in the episode: 1. 📄 Wagner, Markus (2024), “Affective polarization in Europe,” European Political Science Reviewhttps://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-political-science-review/article/affective-polarization-in-europe/36BDBF804365FE0B350E610E9E7C714E 2. 📄 Boxell et al. (2024), “Cross-country trends in affective polarization,” The Review of Economics and Stat

Damage to Science Under Trump | S01E18 | Political Reality May 7, 2026 3940 https://www.npr.org/2025/12/22/nx-s1-5642965/what-cuts-to-research-under-trump-have-meant-for-science-in-2025⁠ ⁠https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-026-00088-9/index.html⁠ ⁠https://www.science.org/content/article/how-trump-administration-dismantling-science-u-s⁠ ⁠https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/opinion/doge-hiv-funding.html⁠ ⁠https://scienceimpacts.org⁠ ⁠https://www.cgdev.org/blog/upda

PREVIEW: Politicization of Science | S01E17 | Political Reality Apr 29, 2026 607 https://www.patreon.com/posts/politicization-156907450

What would it take to solve homelessness in America? with Andrew Heaton! | S01E16 | Political Reality Apr 22, 2026 3880 1. 🎙️ Check out Andrew Heaton’s podcast and Substack, The Political Orphanagehttps://www.thepoliticalorphanage.com 2. ▶️ You can also find his podcast and other videos on YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/@AndrewHeatonTPO 3. 📚 Here’s one of his many books: Tribalism is Dumbhttps://www.amazon.com/Tribalism-Dumb-Where-Came-about/dp/B0DJKSZP6J 4. 🎧 Here are some of his Political Orphanage episodes th

PREVIEW: Urban Rural Bias | S01E15 | Political Reality Apr 15, 2026 610 Full Episode: https://www.patreon.com/posts/155715368 1. 📚 Katherine J. Cramer, The Politics of Resentmenthttps://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo22879533.html 📝 a. Non-paywalled, non-scientific, but nevertheless helpful and short(!) student summary of a talk by Kathy about this work https://civic.mit.edu/index.html?p=1891.html 2. 📄 Katherine J. Cramer, “Putting inequality

Alliances with Prof Paul Poast | S01E14 | Political Reality Apr 8, 2026 3273 1. 📄 Downs et al. (2009), “Is the good news about compliance good news about cooperation?”https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/abs/is-the-good-news-about-compliance-good-news-about-cooperation/636DE333F8E1EC944825DDBFD81BE294 2. 📄 Von Stein (2005), “Do treaties constrain or screen? Selection bias and treaty compliance”https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/a

PREVIEW: What does it take to change a mind | Political Reality | S01E13 Apr 2, 2026 610 1. 🚪 Broockman and Kalla, “Durably reducing transphobia: A field experiment on door-to-door canvassing” (the excellent paper that’s a great model for field experiments on this topic)https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aad9713 🧠 a. In general, Joshua Kalla and David Broockman’s work (joint and separate) is worth checking out, both on political persuasion and other topics (mostly connec

The SAVE act, Voter ID laws, and turnout in America | Political Reality | S01E12 Mar 25, 2026 2181 https://politicalrealitypodcast.com Show Notes for Voter ID Ep. 📄 Riker and Ordeshook, “A Theory of the Calculus of Voting” (paper where the key equation came from):https://www.jstor.org/stable/1953324 ⚡ World’s briefest summary of the above:https://adambrown.info/p/notes/riker_and_ordeshook_a_theory_of_the_calculus_of_voting 📊 Meta-study of papers that built from this earlier work (alas, it’s

PREVIEW: Gerrymandering: Mutually Artificial Democracy | Political Reality | S01E11 Mar 18, 2026 610 Show Notes Coming Soon

Cutting through the fog of war in Iran | Political Reality | S01E10 Mar 12, 2026 3175 📰 Reporting on extent to which 2025 US strikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckglxwp5x03o ⚛️ Details about Iran’s uranium enriched to 60%: https://www.armscontrol.org/issue-briefs/2026-03/us-war-iran-new-and-lingering-nuclear-risks 📄 March 2026 Congressional report about Iran’s nuclear capabilities: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IN12665 ☢️ I

PREVIEW: Which came first? The Media or The Message | Media Divides | S01E09 Mar 4, 2026 588 Full info on https://www.patreon.com/posts/152180612

How Parties Learn... if at all with Prof. Seth Masket | Political Reality | S01E08 Feb 26, 2026 2481 More about Seth & his work: https://www.sethmasket.com Seth’s book Learning from Loss: The Democrats 2016-2020 Preview of Seth’s new book (coming summer 2026): The Elephants in the Room: How Trump Voters Seized the Party from Republican Leaders Subscribe to his (excellent) Substack, Tusk Follow him on Instagram and Bluesky (he’s @smotus most places)

PREVIEW: Can we vote our way out of this? | Voting Systems | S01E07 | Political Reality Feb 18, 2026 588 Full Episode https://www.patreon.com/posts/can-we-vote-our-151099132 https://patreon.com/politicalreality Further Reading & Resources on Voting Theory 📘 1. Kenneth Arrow's amazing 1951 book, Social Choice and Individual Values: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300179316/social-choice-and-individual-values/ a. A good writeup of the basics of the math if you don't want to buy a book:

Fascism comes to America, it is wrapped in the flag w/ Prof. Tom Pepinsky | S01E06 Feb 12, 2026 4160 https://politicalrealitypodcast.com Follow Tom: Tom Pepinsky’s website with links to his research & books: https://tompepinsky.com Tom’s blog: https://tompepinsky.com/blog His substack: https://tompepinsky.substack.com/ Selected books and peer-reviewed works by Tom relevant to this episode: Recent paper on authoritarianism: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1

PREVIEW: Is Polarization actually a problem? | Political Reality | S01E05 Feb 4, 2026 588 Full Audio episode available on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/posts/is-polarization-149962215 Full Video episode available on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/posts/149974348 Many of the empirical trends mentioned come from the (still a favorite!) American National Election Studies dataset: Party identity (including strength of party identity) Affective polarization (specific

America is a nation of immigration | Political Reality | S01E04 Jan 29, 2026 3508 The graph on total immigration numbers vs. percentage of the US population is from the Migration Policy Institute. Evidence that the percentage of immigrants in the US peaked recently, but is in the ballpark of an earlier wave is from Pew Research. (n.b. I may have said in the episode that this was in 2023 or 24, when actually it was January 2025, more recent than I realized. I don't know if

Misinformation is bad, but not for the reasons most of us think with Prof. Joshua A. Tucker | Political Reality | S01E03 Jan 21, 2026 3630 https://politicalrealitypodcast.com How do we quantify misinformation? Thank you to Prof. Joshua A. Tucker for joining us on this episode about Misinformation.

How Democratic is your Democracy? | Political Reality | S01E02 Jan 14, 2026 2100 https://politicalrealitypodcast.com How do you measure democracy? Are these standards reasonable, onerous, empirical, propagandistic, unscientific or quantifiable?

We Don't Agree...Now What? S01E01 Jan 7, 2026 1263 Our daily lives seem increasingly overwhelmed by polarization, misinformation and dubious culture wars while we face countless serious problems that require thoughtful and evidence-based solutions. To move forward we need a shared reality of facts and reason with an equally shared dedication to democracy and fairness. The Political Reality podcast is here to fill that void, diving into how politic

Political Reality

Episodes

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