Erik Wemple of the Washington Post explains why TV news seems to have so much power over the 2020 election.
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The TV election | Today, Explained

The 45th president of the United States has thus far refused to acknowledge the 46th. Political scientist Zeynep Tufekci explains this latest test of America’s democracy.
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No concession! | Today, Explained

On Monday, President-elect Joe Biden announced a COVID-19 task force staffed with career scientists and public health administrators. But while the country experiences record cases, they won't take office for months.
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Biden’s coronavirus plan | Today, Explained

Lawmakers in Washington are fighting over an internet law you’ve never heard of called Section 230. It’s a sword and shield that basically means internet companies like Twitter and Facebook can police their platforms however they want, and they’re not liable for what people post there. But now, the law is increasingly under fire on both sides of the aisle. Recode reporter Sara Morrison explains the growing criticism of Section 230 and whether scrapping or reforming it is really the best way to make the internet better.
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Why is everyone talking about Section 230? | Tell Me More

If you’re looking for a weekend watch, Vox’s critic-at-large, Emily VanDerWerrf recommends Promising Young Woman, available for digital rental on Amazon, Google, Apple, and more. Carey Mulligan plays a woman who avenges the rape of a friend by pretending to be drunk, so men will take her home. Then, she scares them (hopefully) straight. But the true villain of this story isn’t any one man; it’s all of them at once.
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Promising Young Woman | What to Watch

Vox's Zack Ward, Jenn Williams, and Alex Beauchamp discuss how the US Capitol insurrection fits into the broader spectrum of far-right political violence in the US. They debate whether the incident should be considered an act of terrorism, and if so, what that means in terms of how to craft policy responses to the threat. They end by looking at President Donald Trump’s role in uniting disparate far-right groups, from white supremacists to eco-fascists to anti-government militias, into a loose but dangerous coalition that may persist long after he leaves office.
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Was it terrorism? | Worldly

A very big tech company now has a very small union. Recode’s Shirin Ghaffary explains why highly paid workers in an anti-union business still organized and made history.
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Okay, Google: unionize! | Today, Explained

Nabil Ayers wasn’t looking for trouble; he just wanted to drive around the country with his bandmates making music. They had other ideas, though, which came to a head when they were busted by cops for carrying an entire tour’s worth of weed. 

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$2,000 on a lawyer  | The Best Money I Ever Spent

Harvard political theorist Danielle Allen has written an entire book about the deeper argument of the Declaration of Independence and the way our superficial reading and folk history of the document obscures its radicalism. (It’ll make you look at July Fourth in a whole new way). Her most recent book, Cuz, is a searing indictment of the American criminal justice system, driven by watching her cousin go through it and motivated by the murder that ended his life. Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, which Allen directs, has released the most comprehensive, operational road map for mobilizing and reopening the US economy amidst the Covid-19 crisis. And to top it all off, a two-year bipartisan commission of the American Academy of Arts &amp; Sciences, which Allen co-chaired, recently released a report with more than 30 recommendations on how to reform American democracy — and they’re very, very good.
This is a preview of a wide-ranging conversation for a wide-ranging moment. Allen and I discuss what “all men are created equal” really means, why the myth of Thomas Jefferson’s sole authorship of the Declaration of Independence muddies its message, the role of police brutality in the American revolution, democracy reforms such as ranked-choice voting, DC statehood, mandatory voting, how to deal with a Republican Party that opposes expanding democracy, the case for prison abolition, the various pandemic response paths before us, the failure of political leadership in this moment, and much more.
Listen to the whole episode here. 
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What we get wrong about the Declaration of Independence | Ezra Klein Show shorts

President Trump has been impeached for inciting an insurrection on the Capitol one week ago. CNN’s Elle Reeve was there and explains who was duped into mobbing the government.
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The people behind the insurrection | Today, Explained

Manifesting is the latest iteration of The Law of Attraction, the belief that you can make things happen through desire and attention. Rebecca Jennings explains how it works, and how it doesn’t.
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What is "manifesting"? | One Good Answer

Matt Yglesias and Zack Beauchamp discuss the possible consequences of the Capitol insurrection for the GOP.
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After the Capitol attack, what's next for Republicans? | The Weeds

Covid-19 and the accompanying economic downturn have been a catastrophe for millions of American families, including when it comes to paying their rent. An estimated 40 million people could face eviction in the months to come if the federal government doesn’t step in and deliver much-needed support for renters and landlords. Vox’s Jerusalem Demsas explains the scope of America’s impending eviction crisis, why it’s a community problem, and what can be done to help.
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America's eviction crisis | Tell Me More

Vox's Andrew Prokop explains how Democrats are pushing to impeach Donald Trump again for inciting the attack against the Capitol.
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A second impeachment | Today, Explained

Who’s to blame when the president incites a mob and undermines a free and fair election? Vox’s Andrew Prokop explains what measures Trump took to try to overturn the election, which Republicans supported him, and why he ultimately failed. We also take a look at what this could mean for the future of the Republican Party and democracy.
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The danger of indulging Trump’s election lies | Tell Me More

Infighting among Republican lawmakers reached a breaking point this week. The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins explains why and the tough road ahead for the GOP.
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The flamethrowers and the fire extinguishers | Today, Explained

If you’re looking for a weekend watch, Vox’s critic-at-large, Emily VanDerWerrf recommends A Teacher from FX on Hulu. Homeland’s Kate Mara and Love Simon’s Nick Robinson star as high school teacher Claire WIlson and student Eric Walker, who have an affair. Salacious premise aside, the series takes care to explore the repercussions of abuse and power imbalances.
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A Teacher on Hulu | What to Watch 

Zack, Jenn, and Jen Kirby discuss the assault on the US Capitol by a pro-Trump insurrection that has shaken America to its core, and they talk about the damage the siege has done to America’s image abroad and what that means for the future of global politics and democracy.
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America, humiliated | Worldly

Washington Post national security reporter Dan Lamothe explains how a number of agencies and politicians put together a historically bad security plan for Congress on Wednesday.
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How security at the Capitol failed | Today, Explained

On November 3, as the country fixated on the incoming presidential election results, voters in Oregon approved a seemingly innocuous ballot measure with revolutionary potential. Proposition 109, which passed with 56 percent of the vote (the same margin by which Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the state), legalizes the use of psilocybin, the main psychoactive compound found in magic mushrooms, in supervised therapeutic settings. 
Multiple studies have found that use of psilocybin in a medical context has the power to cure depression, addiction, and anxiety at rates that no existing drug or therapy can boast (although these results still need to be replicated with larger sample sizes before drawing definitive conclusions). Scores of renowned scholars, artists, and entrepreneurs talk about their use of psychedelic drugs as one of the most important experiences of their entire lives. The details of how the Oregon initiative will be implemented still need to be worked out, but the prospect of making these drugs widely available in a therapeutic context could have transformative impacts on American mental health care and, perhaps, on our culture writ large. 
There isn’t anyone I’d rather discuss this law and its implications with than Michael Pollan. Pollan is the author of dozens of landmark books, but his most recent, How To Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, is the best exploration of the transformative therapeutic potential of psychedelics to date.
My first conversation with Pollan in 2018 was one of my favorites of all time on the show, and this one didn’t disappoint either. We discuss how Pollan’s work inspired the Oregon ballot initiative, what Proposition 109 actually does and the challenges it will face, the lost history of psychedelics being used as a therapeutic tool in the 1950s, why the mental health profession in America is so excited about the revolutionary possibilities of psychedelic treatment, why the “noetic experience” induced by psychedelics has such incredible healing potential, whether widespread psychedelic use would create massive population-level changes in society, and much more.
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The psychedelic society | Ezra Klein Show shorts

Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York explains what it was like to live through today’s violent (attempted) transfer of power.
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The breach, explained by Rep. Maloney (locked in her office) | Today, Explained

What can be done to speed up the distribution of the Covid vaccine in the United States? Matt Yglesias and Dara Lind explain.
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How (not) to distribute vaccines | The Weeds

Viruses mutate, but this time it’s different.
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The virus gets more contagious | Today, Explained

 Vox’s book critic Constance Grady recommends these great novels from underrepresented authors.
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Fiction by women of color | Ask a Book Critic

Vox's Dylan Matthews explains
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How will Biden handle the poverty crisis? | Tell Me More

Tuesday’s election will decide who controls the Senate, but the president is still hung up on the election he already lost.
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All eyes on Georgia | Today, Explained

Vox's Terry Nguyen explains
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Fake news in Asian American communities | Tell Me More

In the fourth of our five-part series, “You, Me, and Covid-19,” we’re not the only animals who got Covid-19 this year. Vox's Brian Resnick explains why our health and theirs are intertwined.
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Animals catch Covid-19, too | Today, Explained

If you spent 2020 comfort-watching favorites instead of finding new things, you might have missed these fantastic shows and films that were new in 2020: Babylon Berlin on Netflix, I May Destroy You on HBO Max, Da 5 Bloods on Netflix, and The Painter and the Thief on Hulu.
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Pop culture from 2020 you shouldn’t miss | What to Watch

Vox's Anna North explains
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Parents across the country are burnt out | Tell Me More

Vox's Nicole Narea explains
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Does Biden have a plan to reunite families? | Tell Me More

A round-up of some pop culture favorites that got us through the year. Featuring Sean Rameswaram, host of Today Explained. 
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Pop culture that got us through 2020 | What's the Story?

Jenn, Alex, and Jen wrap up 2020 by discussing the biggest stories that flew under the radar this year because of, well, everything.
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The end of Angela Merkel’s chancellorship | Worldly

Ma Rainey, the “mother of the blues,” arrives at a recording studio in 1927 to make a new album with her band, including an ambitious young trumpeter. But even the most powerful Black artists run up against the limits of segregated America.
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Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom | What to Watch

Gwen Adora explains how her business has been impacted by Visa and Mastercard cutting ties with Pornhub.
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How Pornhub's policy changes will impact sex workers | Today, Explained

There are few conversations I’ve had on this show that are quite as relevant to our current political moment as this one with Princeton political scientist Frances Lee.
Joe Biden will occupy the White House come January, but pending the results of two runoff Senate elections in Georgia, Democrats either won’t control the Senate at all or will face a 50-50 split. In either case, an important question looms large over the incoming administration: Will Republican senators negotiate with Biden in good faith? Lee’s work is an indispensable framework for thinking about that inquiry.
In her most recent book, Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign, Lee makes a point that sounds strange when you hear it but changes everything once you understand it. For most of American history, American politics has been under one-party rule. For decades, that party was the Republican Party. Then, for decades more, it was the Democratic Party. It’s only in the past few decades that control of Congress began flipping back and forth every few years, that presidential elections became routinely decided by a few percentage points, that both parties are always this close to gaining or losing the majority.
That kind of close competition, Lee writes, makes the daily compromises of bipartisan governance literally irrational. "Confrontation fits our strategy,” Dick Cheney once said. "Polarization often has very beneficial results. If everything is handled through compromise and conciliation, if there are no real issues dividing us from the Democrats, why should the country change and make us the majority?”
Why indeed? This is a conversation about that question, about how the system we have incentivizes a politics of confrontation we don’t seem to want and makes steady, stable governance a thing of the past.
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Frances Lee on why bipartisanship is irrational | Ezra Klein Show shorts

One of the most popular porn sites on the internet just purged over ten million videos. VICE’s Samantha Cole explains why.
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Pornhub just deleted 80% of its videos | Today, Explained

Comedian and writer Josh Gondelman on why the $80 he spent on TSA pre-check status is the best money he ever spent. 
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$80 on TSA PreCheck | The Best Money I Ever Spent

From as early as 1392 to 1579, merchant guilds in Coventry, England, would produce annual plays for the feast of Corpus Christi, which occurred in midsummer. The Coventry Plays were much larger and lasted longer than others, and thereby were a bigger deal for audiences. The plays would dramatize various biblical stories. “Coventry Carol” was the second of three songs in the nativity play. But even though the song is theoretically very dark, it may have been quite the opposite for audiences of the time period. That’s because medieval drama in general was, above all, funny.
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How 'Coventry Carol' became a Christmas song | One Good Answer

How do Supplemental Security Income benefits for children impact families? Vox’s Dylan Matthews, Dara Lind, and Matt Yglesias explore some new research.
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The benefits of SSI for kids | The Weeds

The Covid-19 vaccine is being distributed in the United States, and you have questions. Vox’s Umair Irfan has answers.
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Your vaccine questions, answered | Today, Explained

Vox's Dylan Scott explains
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How will the Biden administration treat big pharma? | Tell Me More

The world’s biggest democracy is contending with what might be the world’s biggest labor stoppage.
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India’s farmers strike | Today, Explained

Recode's Peter Kafka explains
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What's going on with Substack? | Tell Me More

Many Americans say they're hesitant to get a vaccine for Covid-19. In this episode, epidemiologist Maria Sundaram explains how to talk to the “vaccine hesitant” people in your life.
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How to talk about the vaccine | Today, Explained

The Scandanavian word for “cozy culture” isn’t just an interior design aesthetic. Vox fellow and writer Melinda Fakuade talked with a Norwegian expert on what is and is not Hygge and why it’s even more essential this winter.
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Hygge for the holidays | What's the Story?

Vox's Jen Kirby explains
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Brexit and the Ireland/Northern Ireland border | Worldly

John Wilson is beautifully obsessed with the details. As he documents the mundanities off New York City, he holds a magnifying glass over the world’s beautiful weirdness with amazing results.
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How to With John Wilson | What to Watch

Martin Kenyon was one of the first people to get the Covid-19 vaccine this week in the UK. He talks about his experience.
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The vaccine, explained by Martin (who got it) | Today, Explained

It’s often said that Joe Biden has an instinct for finding the political center — that of his party, and that of the country. To understand how Biden has changed, and how he might govern, we need to understand how the ideological context of American politics is changing, and why.  
Felicia Wong is the President and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive think tank that has done some of the best work on the way the ideological firmament of politics is shifting. Wong believes that the set of governing assumptions behind both conservative and progressive policymaking, what broadly gets called “neoliberalism,” is devolving. And she, and Roosevelt more broadly, have done some of the best work mapping the different worldviews and factions competing to take its place. 
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Joe Biden and "the new progressivism" | Ezra Klein Show shorts

Biden won. And won. And won. Giuliani can fail. And fail. And fail.
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No coup for you! | Today, Explained

In the 2019, two essays on America’s changing relationship to work caught my eye. The first was Anne Helen Petersen’s viral BuzzFeed piece defining, and describing, “millennial burnout.” The second was Derek Thompson’s Atlantic article on “workism.”
The two pieces speak to each other in interesting ways, and to some questions I’ve been reflecting on as my own relationship to work changes. So I asked the authors to join me for a conversation about what happens when work becomes an identity, capitalism becomes a religion, and productivity becomes the way we measure human value. The conversation exceeded even the high hopes I had for it. Enjoy this one.
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Work as identity, burnout as lifestyle | Ezra Klein Show shorts

Vox's book critic Constance Grady recommends books for Wilkie Collins fans. Spontaneous combustion included
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The wild world of Victorian thrillers | Ask a Book Critic

Joe Biden is assembling a team of veteran policymakers for his cabinet. But which of his picks has taken the political world by surprise. Vox’s Dara Lind, Matt Yglesias, and Alex Ward explore some unexpected choices from the president-elect.
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Biden’s most surprising cabinet pick | The Weeds

Melbourne, Australia, had a first wave. Then it had a second wave. Then it decided it was done with Covid-19.
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How Melbourne eradicated Covid-19 | Today, Explained

Vox's German Lopez explains
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Has addiction treatment gotten better during the pandemic? | Tell Me More

In an end-of-year plot twist, Congress is working on a fresh bipartisan stimulus bill.
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It’s beginning to look a lot like stimulus | Today, Explained

The department store is one of the great movie and TV backdrops of the 20th century. It’s been where pop culture has gone to think about the middle class. But the department store is fading away, replaced by something much less cinematic. Vox’s Constance Grady discusses what's become the new department store and what it looks like in movies and TV.
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The death of the department store | What's the Story

Vox's Ella Nilsen explains
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Getting out the vote in Georgia | Tell Me More

Between the pandemic and holiday shopping, shipping companies are overwhelmed with e-commerce returns. So some companies are partnering with brick-and-mortar stores to keep costs down.
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E-commerce returns go in-person | Recode Daily

Millions of women left the workforce as Covid-19 forced school closures, but that doesn’t mean they have less on their plates.
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A woman’s work is never done | Today, Explained

Jenn, Alex, and Jen talk about the diplomatic spat between China and Australia that erupted this week after a Chinese official tweeted a fake image of an Australian soldier threatening a young Afghan child with a knife.
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Beijing’s bad tweet | Worldly

Will Zoom continue to be the dominant video conference service after the pandemic ends? Recode’s Rani Molla discusses just how successful the company has been this past year and what plans they have to stay in the game after our need to Zoom decreases.
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The future of Zoom | Recode Daily

Film critic Alissa Wilkinson and critic-at-large Emily VanDerWerff recommend a mix of festive classics and under-the-radar holiday films. 
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Hello, holiday season | What to Watch

The Supreme Court ruled that New York state can’t limit how many people gather in church, even during a pandemic. Vox’s Ian Millhiser explains why this is one of the most significant religious liberty cases in the last 30 years. 
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God-given right? | Today, Explained

If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future. 
Best known for the Mars trilogy, Robinson is one of the greatest living science fiction writers. And in recent years, he's become the greatest writers of what people now call cli-fi — climate fiction. The name is a bit of a misnomer: Climate fiction is less fictitious speculation than an attempt to envision a near future that we are likely to inhabit. It’s an attempt to take our present — and thus the future we’re ensuring — more seriously than we currently do. Robinson’s new book does exactly that. 
In The Ministry for the Future, Robinson imagines a world wracked by climate catastrophe. Some nations begin unilateral geoengineering. Eco-violence arises, as people begin to begin experience unchecked climate change as an act of war against them, and they respond in kind, using new technologies to hunt those they blame. Capitalism ruptures, changes, and is remade. Nations, and the relations between them, transform. Ultimately, humanity is successful, but it is a terrifying success — a success that involves making the kinds of choices that none of us want to even think about making. 
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The most important book I read this year | Ezra Klein Show shorts

The proliferation of streaming services has given consumers lots of ways to watch TV. But it’s introduced new problems too. 
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Why Roku doesn’t carry HBO Max, for now | Recode Daily

Writer Jo Livingstone’s essay on moving to New York City and allowing themself to be scammed.
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$60 on a sketchy palm reading | The Best Money I Ever Spent

Low-income students are dropping out of college because many don’t have a reliable way to get online.
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America Offline | Today, Explained

Congress is deadlocked on Covid-19 relief, but the economic situation in the United States is getting worse as the virus spreads. Vox’s Emily Stewart, Dara Lind, and Matthew Yglesias explain the odds of people getting more help soon.
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How likely is another Covid-19 relief bill? | The Weeds

As the country awaits FDA approval for a coronavirus vaccine, what questions should we be asking about how it will be distributed? Recode’s Rebecca Heilweil discusses some of the challenges vaccine distributors and health care providers may encounter from dry ice shortages to dose tracking.
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What it will take to distribute the vaccine | Recode Daily

Vox fellow Melinda Fakaude explains how eggnog is made (there are, in fact, eggs involved!) and how it became a staple of the holiday season.
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Eggnog, explained | One Good Answer

President-elect Biden has started announcing his Cabinet nominees, but Matthew Yglesias says the most important positions aren’t the ones you’d think.
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The key to the Cabinet | Today, Explained

The shift to online learning is worsening education inequality. Vox senior reporter Anna North explains why the education gap widens when classrooms go remote, and some practical low-tech ways educators are trying to make sure students continue to learn despite pandemic conditions.
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Why remote learning worsens education inequality | Recode Daily

Covid-19 vaccines are coming out faster than many thought possible. But distributing the vaccines could be an even tougher challenge.
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What if developing a vaccine was the easy part? | Today, Explained

Recode’s Jason Del Rey explains how the pandemic battered an already-struggling retail industry and the path forward for malls and department stores.
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The death of department stores | Recode Daily

The long Thanksgiving weekend calls for something satisfying to watch. Here are four shows and movies we think you’re going to love, however you’re spending your holiday.
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Thanksgiving weekend | What to Watch

One night in the 1960s, Vera Rubin made a strange observation about the stars that sent her on a decades-long quest. She discovered an invisible, untouchable substance that holds the universe together.
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Unexplainable: Dark Matter | Today, Explained

Recode’s Rebecca Heilweil explains the free speech anti-Twitter application where conservatives are going.
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Parler | Recode Daily

With two months left in the Trump presidency, the US is reducing the number of troops in Afghanistan in an attempt to end America's longest war. But Biden will still inherit the conflict.
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Withdrawing won’t end the war | Today, Explained

Email may seem old fashioned these days, but Substack -- an email newsletter service -- is growing in popularity. Recode’s Peter Kafka explains why so many writers are leaving their full-time jobs at media companies to try and make it on their own, bringing their writing straight to your inbox.
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Are Substack newsletters the future of journalism? | Recode Daily

Brand meme making is a growing trend in the world of corporate marketing. Vox contributor Luke Winkie explains who the people are behind your favorite memes of some of the biggest brands and how they’ve turned their thirst to go viral into full-time jobs.
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The people who make brand memes for a living | What's the Story

Retail was struggling. Then came the virus. Recode’s Jason Del Rey explains how the American mall will never be the same.
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The Death of the Mall | Today, Explained

Alex and Jen discuss President Trump’s decision to draw down the number of US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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Fewer troops, forever wars | Worldly

You can now fill your prescription at Amazon's pharmacy. Recode’s Jason Del Rey explains why the e-commerce giant is getting into healthcare.
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Amazon Rx | Recode Daily

The Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen made five films about the West Indian community in London between the 1960s and 80s. Each one explores a different facet of their lives, from true-story courtroom dramas to a sublime all-night dance party.
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Small Axe on Amazon Prime | What to Watch

An ethnic conflict in Ethiopia has thrown the Horn of Africa into disarray and could upset order on the continent.
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The peacemaker’s civil war | Today, Explained

After creating and running Parks and Recreation and writing for The Office, Michael Schur decided he wanted to create a sitcom about one of the most fundamental questions of human existence: What does it mean to be a good person? That’s how The Good Place was born. He recruited Pamela Hieronymi, a professor at UCLA specializing in the subjects of moral responsibility, psychology, and free will, to join the show as a “consulting philosopher” — surely a first in sitcom history.
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How Michael Schur created The Good Place | Ezra Klein Show shorts

I’ve been fascinated by the sharp change in how the tech platforms — particularly the big social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, and to some degree, YouTube — are acting since the 2020 election. It’s become routine to see President Donald Trump’s posts tagged as misinformation or worse. Facebook is limiting the reach of hyper-viral stories it can’t verify, Twitter is trying to guard against becoming a dumping ground for foreign actors trying to launder stolen secrets, and conservatives are abandoning both platforms en masse, hoping to find more congenial terrain on newcomers like Parler. 
So is Big Tech finally doing its job, and taking some responsibility for its role in our democracy? Are they overreaching, and becoming the biased censors so many feared? Are they simply so big that anything they do is in some way the wrong choice, and antitrust is the only solution?
Casey Newton has spent the past decade covering Silicon Valley for The Verge, CNET, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Today, he writes Platformer, a daily blog and newsletter focused primarily on the relationship between the big tech platforms and democracy. He’s my go-to for questions like these, and so I went to him.
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How 2020 changed Facebook and Twitter for the better | Ezra Klein Show shorts

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Recode’s Sara Morrison explains how the FCC could restore regulations cut by the Trump administration that made the Internet less fair.
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