From this episode
Recommended books
Top books
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
Author:
Matthew Desmond
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
Authors:
Neil Postman
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Andrew Postman
Democracy in America
Authors:
Alexis de Tocqueville
,
Harvey C. Mansfield
,
Delba Winthrop
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
Author:
Isabel Wilkerson
The Origins of Totalitarianism: Hannah Arendt's Definitive Work on Antisemitism, Imperialism, and the Rise of Authoritarian Power
Authors:
Hannah Arendt
,
Anne Applebaum
Middlemarch (Penguin Classics)
Authors:
George Eliot
,
Rosemary Ashton
Episode overview
I answer your questions on the year’s political lessons, the struggles of young men and handling heat on the show.
The end-of-year Ask Me Anything episode has become a tradition on the show. So as 2025 comes to a close, I’m joined by Claire Gordon, the show’s executive producer, to answer your questions about an eventful year — how my thinking on the Trump administration has evolved, how well the Democratic Party has played its chips, what I think it means to be a Democrat right now, whether “Abundance” is centrist, how politicians might address adriftness of young people, how I’ve handled the criticism the show has received and how many packets of Splenda I consume in a day.
Note: This conversation was recorded on Tuesday, Dec. 2, and does not reflect more recent developments in Congress’s review of the Sept. 2 boat attack.