The Republican Party’s full embrace of the culture war as a political tactic — from drag queen story hour to critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives — has been chiefly guided by activist and polemicist Christopher Rufo, author of the new book “America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything.” But is the effort fundamentally nihilistic? And is it overly obsessed with sex while claiming to uncover pedophiles everywhere in our midst? This week on Deconstructed, Rufo joins Ryan Grim to defend his approach and his philosophy.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The House overwhelmingly passed a resolution on Tuesday pledging "the United States will always be a staunch partner and supporter of Israel” and that Israel is “not a racist or apartheid state.” This week on Deconstructed, Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, joins Ryan Grim to discuss the resolution sparked by recent remarks from Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. Miller and Grim break down the bipartisan furor to swiftly condemn Jayapal calling Israel “a racist state” and promise unconditional support for the Israeli government, despite its decadeslong campaign to violently force Palestinians off their land.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, we’re sharing an episode of the podcast Lever Time with David Sirota from our friends at the investigative news site The Lever. On this week’s episode of Lever Time, David Sirota is joined by law professor Stephen Vladeck, author of the new book, "The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic."The Supreme Court has received a lot of attention in the last several years for its extreme rulings on matters such as abortion rights, environmental regulations, and affirmative action. But there’s another very important court procedure that doesn’t receive nearly as much attention: the aptly named “shadow docket.”These are the cases that occur outside of the court’s regular docket and usually involve urgent matters, such as requests for emergency stays, injunctions, and other types of temporary relief. These cases are often decided through brief orders, meaning without oral arguments, full written opinions, or even disclosing how the justices voted. But in recent years, the court has increasingly used the shadow docket to effectively leapfrog over the appeals court system on major decisions, sometimes with devastating effects.David and Stephen dive deep into the shadow docket’s history, how it continues to undermine the Supreme Court’s credibility, and how most of these decisions are not based on any kind of legal rationale or precedent. A transcript of this episode is available here.Links:The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic (Hachette Book Group, 2023)Supreme Court “Shadow Docket” Under Review by U.S. House of Representatives (American Bar Association, 2021)If you like Deconstructed, be sure to search for Lever Time with David Sirota on your podcast player to subscribe.For a special discount on a full subscription to The Lever’s investigative reporting and news, go to Levernews.com/Deconstructed Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Friday afternoon, the House narrowly passed a defense bill full of Republican culture war priorities. Hopeful efforts earlier in the week to rein in U.S. foreign policy fizzled out by week’s end, including an amendment to block the transfer of cluster munitions to Ukraine and other countries. On this week’s Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Erik Sperling, executive director of Just Foreign Policy, and The Intercept’s Deputy Editor Nausicaa Renner to discuss how a bipartisan bill to prevent the Biden administration from sending cluster bombs to Ukraine went from gaining momentum to being undermined by another bill introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Centrist and right-wing economists continue to advocate for laying off workers and engineering a recession to address inflation. But why not set price controls instead? This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by James K. Galbraith, a professor of government and business relations at the University of Texas at Austin. Galbraith has an extensive history of working in government, including as executive director of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress and an economist for the House Banking Committee. Galbraith and Grim discuss the implementation of price controls by the U.S. government, how it brings down prices, how the Biden administration has used it and could use it more, and how Galbraith’s father — economist and politician John Kenneth Galbraith — was instrumental in setting price controls during World War II.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, we’re sharing an episode of the podcast Lever Time with David Sirota from our friends at the investigative news site The Lever. David and The Lever’s Andrew Perez are joined by ProPublica journalist Justin Elliott, who recently co-authored an exposé detailing how Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito failed to disclose luxury gifts provided by billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer. This story follows ProPublica’s reporting from earlier this year about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who also failed to disclose gifts he received from his own billionaire benefactor, Harlan Crow. They discuss how these new revelations raise questions about the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, why a lack of judicial oversight contributes to the problem, and how powerful GOP operative Leonard Leo ties all of these stories together.If you like Deconstructed, be sure to search for Lever Time with David Sirota on your podcast player to subscribe.For a special discount on a full subscription to The Lever’s investigative reporting and news, go to Levernews.com/Deconstructed Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A top National Institutes of Health official told Covid scientists he uses his personal email to evade strictures of the Freedom of Information Act, according to records obtained by congressional investigators probing the origins of Covid-19. This week on Deconstructed, journalist Jimmy Tobias joins Ryan Grim to discuss the U.S. government's response to the question of Covid's origins, attempts by NIH officials to skirt transparency, and the ongoing battle to access intelligence investigations into the origin of the pandemic.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Russia accused Ukraine of striking a bridge that connects mainland Ukraine with the Crimean Peninsula. This is amid the emerging counteroffensive by Ukraine attempting to push back Russian troops. This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Amed Khan, who has 20 years of experience funding and implementing humanitarian relief. Khan is currently based in Ukraine, where he has been seeing the war’s destruction firsthand. Grim and Khan discuss the recent developments in the war and Khan’s experiences working in Ukraine.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, we’re sharing an episode of the podcast Lever Time with David Sirota from our friends at the investigative news site The Lever. David sits down with prominent investigative journalist Leslie Kean, who earlier this month published a blockbuster report about a potential secret government UFO effort. According to Kean and her co-author, a former U.S. intelligence official-turned-whistleblower recently gave Congress classified information about covert programs that he says possess intact and partially intact aircraft of non-human origin.Kean has become known for her diligent reporting on UFOs (they’re now officially called “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” or UAP) and how the government is hiding information about them from the public. David and Leslie dig into her new story as well as the long history of UFO sightings and official obfuscation: What does the government know? How long have they known it? And why aren’t they telling us?If you like Deconstructed, be sure to search for Lever Time with David Sirota on your podcast player to subscribe.For a special discount on a full subscription to The Lever’s investigative reporting and news, go to Levernews.com/Deconstructed Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., says he’s leaving his options open when asked about a presidential run. No Labels, a centrist political organization, is looking to run a split ticket between one Republican and one Democrat. Manchin is considered the likeliest candidate and has dropped increasing hints that he is considering it. This week on Deconstructed, Daniel Boguslaw, politics reporter at The Intercept, interviews Manchin's former political operative and right-hand man, Scott Sears, about the senator’s career and political ambitions. Sears helped Manchin secure political wins across the state before switching parties and throwing it all in for Donald Trump.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Imran Khan became Pakistan’s prime minister through a most unusual route. As he explained in an interview on Sunday night, Khan was for decades the nation’s most famous cricketer, before transitioning into the world of philanthropy, building hospitals and supporting universities. From there, he moved into politics, founding a party — the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI — and sweeping into power in 2018. But he had a slim majority, and was ousted in a no-confidence vote by 2022. Since then, he and his party have been the target of a relentless crackdown by the nation’s military, which has ruled the country directly or indirectly for decades. On this week's Deconstructed, Ryan Grim speaks to Khan about his career, the political crisis facing Pakistan, and his diminishing hope for a negotiated resolution. If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why is “fund the police” a losing message for Democrats? That’s the question and type of messaging Deconstructed is exploring this week with Anat Shenker-Osorio, the founder of ASO Communications and host of the podcast “Words to Win By.” Grim and Shenker-Osorio discuss why certain messages do well and others fail, why reframing the debate is essential, and how to craft messages that resonate and win. They also revisit Grim’s recent conversation with political strategist Dmitri Mehlhorn and unpack why messaging that gravitates toward the right and center is not effective.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ever since Congress created a federal debt limit, it has managed to raise it before U.S. borrowing reached the limit. For the first time, it looks as though that may not happen, and the government could conceivably default on its obligations. Today on Deconstructed, Jon Schwarz is joined by the economist Stephanie Kelton to talk about the history that brought us to this moment, why both political parties may take us over this ridiculous and dangerous brink together, and what it all means for now and the future.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Sunday, as the first round of Turkish elections were underway, the government expelled a team of international election observers. The delegation, including members of Spain’s parliament, was invited by a leading Kurdish party to observe the elections. This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Ismael Cortés, one of the election observers who was expelled. Cortés is a member of the left-wing Podemos party in Spain and a representative in Spain’s Congress of Deputies. Cortés tells how, as he visited voting sites in southern Turkey, he and his team were arrested by Turkish officials and later expelled from the country. He emphasizes that even though he and the team were mistreated by Turkish officials, it is nothing compared to the repression Kurdish people face.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Sunday, Turkey’s presidential election could unseat Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim has a wide-ranging conversation with guests, covering Turkey's election, the arrest of the former prime minister of Pakistan, and ongoing struggles in Palestine. Selim Koru, an analyst at the Ankara-based Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey talks about the political climate in the country ahead of the election. Pakistani journalist Waqas Ahmed breaks down the arrest of Imran Khan, the cricket star turned politician. The Intercept’s Alice Speri discusses the one-year anniversary of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh’s killing and recent developments in the West Bank.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Dmitri Mehlhorn, a tech executive who has emerged as one of the most powerful financiers in the Democratic Party and a strategist who often takes direct aim, with millions of dollars, at the party's left flank. He was in the news this week for helping finance E. Jean Carroll's defamation suit against Donald Trump. Mehlhorn and Grim discuss their competing views on political strategy, the best way to challenge Republicans, and the way forward for the party.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The media world over the last few week has been rocked by major disruptions: Fox ousts Tucker Carlson, CNN fires Don Lemon, BuzzFeed News is shutting down, Twitter has become a less reliable resource, and Vice Media shutters its flagship program “Vice News Tonight.” Over the last two decades, the media landscape has transformed with the advent of social media, and signs of another evolution are surfacing. This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of Semafor, to talk about his new book "Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral.” They discuss the role social media played in transforming media and politics over the last 15 years, and how one of the most viral moments in history alarmed Facebook.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Recently, peculiar skirmishes have broken out in the U.S. over our history. In Louisiana, Florida, North Carolina, and many other places, conservatives have made efforts to sanitize the teaching of what exactly happened in America’s past. But it’s important to keep in mind this is just part of a much longer war — and, in fact, those who want to misrepresent history have won many victories. This is evidenced by the fact that the conventional wisdom about the past in the U.S., what everyone “knows,” is often wrong or far too simplistic.This week on Deconstructed, senior writer Jon Schwarz speaks to historians Kevin Kruse and Julian Zelizer about their new book, “Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past.” With 20 chapters by 20 different historians, the new book takes a look at key fairy tales and replaces the standard bland hokum with the far more interesting reality.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If engagement on TikTok is any indication, a Democratic primary held today among people under 50 would result in a landslide for Marianne Williamson. Williamson has only posted 63 videos but has drawn more than 10 million views, according to a TikTok data counter. This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim speaks with Williamson about her growing popularity with Gen Z, why her message focusing on the economic hardships Americans are facing resonates, and what the Democratic Party is missing.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last month, the United Auto Workers took part in a historic election. Shawn Fain was elected president of the union, who represents a reform group, looking to give more power to its workers. At the same time, DHL workers have been engaged in a unionizing push, at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport; the Teamsters, a union with a rollercoaster of a history, are trying to organize the DHL workers. This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Brandi Dale and Steve Fightmaster, two DHL workers active in the unionizing efforts at the airport. Then, Grim is joined by labor reporter Alex Press, who breaks down developments with the United Auto Workers leadership and provides an update on Amazon’s unionization attempts.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bridge International is the largest for-profit education chain in the world, serving upward of 750,000 children in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Liberia, and India. The founders, two Harvard graduates, developed an attractive business model for investors. With centrally-produced curriculum and bare-bone standardized schoolhouses, Bridge offered a vision of making a profit while doing good. But then rumors started to swirl about the dark side of the company.This week on Deconstructed: Journalists Neha Wadekar and Ryan Grim narrate the saga of Bridge International Academies. As allegations of sexual abuse and neglect emerged against Bridge, investor responsibility became the center of a controversy at the World Bank.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected]. The MIT case study video interview with Shannon May and music was produced by the Legatum Center at MIT and provided under Creative Commons Attribution. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a matter of a few days, Silicon Valley Bank collapsed when a panic set in, causing a run on deposits. “The blue chip VCs suggested something, then that leaked to other ones, then other ones — we had all our investors calling us and basically demanding we pull our cash,” one source told Ryan Grim. This week on Deconstructed, Grim is joined by Damon Silvers, who has been involved in trying to prevent financial fraud and crisis for more than 20 years. He was the deputy chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the 2008 bank bailout, and was formerly the policy director of the AFL-CIO.Grim and Silver discuss what led to a rush of Silicon Valley Bank depositors withdrawing all at once, the subsequent fallout, how the weakening of Dodd–Frank in 2018 paved the way for the current banking crisis, and what reforms are needed to prevent a future and even bigger economic catastrophe.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., brought forward a war powers resolution, backed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, that would bring U.S. troops home from Syria. On Wednesday night, the resolution was rejected by Democrats and Republicans alike. During the debate, some advocated for an endless occupation, while their arguments unwittingly made the point that the U.S. government may not be the best group to solve the crisis. This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Robert Ford, who was President Barack Obama’s ambassador to Syria up until 2014. Although he was known inside the White House as a hawkish supporter of arming the Syrian opposition, this week he came out in support of Gaetz’s resolution to pull out U.S. troops. Ford describes some of the political maneuvering and behind-the-scenes conversations taking place in 2013 and why he is calling to remove U.S. troops from Syria.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mehdi Hasan’s debates tend to go viral, like those against John Bolton, Erik Prince, or a Saudi ambassador. Hasan wipes the floor during debates and interviews. But it’s not an easy process; as Hasan says, it requires a lot of preparation. In “Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking,” Hasan outlines the best ways to win debates against all sorts of opponents. This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Hasan, where they discuss some of his greatest viral debate clips, along with helpful tips to win debates.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Deconstructed, host Ryan Grim revisits his reporting on how the Democratic Majority for Israel, Mainstream Democrats PAC, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent so much money on the politics of Israel that the question of Israel-Palestine now dominates Democratic primaries.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2019, residents of The Villages, an iconic retirement community in Florida, were suddenly hit with a 25 percent hike in their property taxes. In the master-planned community of 130,000 across the state’s Sumter, Lake, and Marion counties, many residents are on fixed incomes. The tax hikes were intended to subsidize new developments south of the community, rather than cover new amenities or upgrades for current residents. The entity known locally either as “the developer” or “the family” benefited from the tax hike and could then escape paying fees associated with the expansion of their development. This week on Deconstructed, host Ryan Grim takes us to The Villages to meet residents who banded together to rollback the tax hike but who were ultimately blocked by powerful players. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the local political machine run by The Villages fought the residents, leading to one of their champions being thrown in jail.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the racial justice movement was heating up in 2020, a new “activist” arrived on the scene in Denver, Colorado. The man, who looks like a biker, is named Michael Adam Windecker II. He was able to make his way into the Denver racial justice activists’ inner circle and eventually began helping organize protests. He also attempted to involve some of the activists in criminal activity, like a plot to assassinate the state attorney general. But Windecker was not an activist; he was a fed. This week on Deconstructed, investigative reporter and Intercept contributor Trevor Aaronson joins host Ryan Grim to discuss Windecker’s story. Aaronson and Grim discuss the FBI’s approach to the racial justice uprising in 2020, the FBI’s infiltration of Black activist groups, and how the FBI’s use of informants may create crime rather than prevent it. Aaronson is the host of the new podcast “Alphabet Boys,” which chronicles the story of Windecker’s infiltration of the movement. If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“White Supremacy Culture,” an article by Tema Okun, was first written to outline and analyze how white supremacy operates in organizations. But in the past few years, with renewed attention on the racial justice movement, the short article has been used as a weapon within progressive organizations and by the right. As organizational infighting continues, many have used the article as a way to claim that basic elements of organizational life — editing, performance reviews, deadlines, urgency, the written word, perfectionism, etc. — are actually all characteristics of white supremacy culture. This week on Deconstructed, Tema Okun joins host Ryan Grim to discuss her article, its evolution, and its misuse, speaking out for the first time against its weaponization. Okun breaks down the history of her article, how it has been used in ways she did not intend, and what the true intention of the piece is. If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

President Joe Biden is naming Jeff Zients to be his next chief of staff. Zients, a corporate Democrat, was previously in the White House helping steer its pandemic response and leading vaccination efforts. Previously, Zients helped oversee two health care companies embroiled in Medicare and Medicaid fraud allegations, which they paid tens of millions to settle. This week on Deconstructed, Intercept reporter Daniel Boguslaw and The American Prospect’s Robert Kuttner join Ryan Grim to discuss Zients’s past in the world of for-profit health care. Zients is also a former Facebook board member, worrying progressives pushing for the administration to rein in Silicon Valley. If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected].  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russia brokered a cease-fire agreement in 2020 between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The two were engaged in a bloody six-week war, the deadliest in the region in decades. Conflict between the two countries has recently escalated again. Azerbaijan set up a blockade of the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region, causing a shortage in food, medicine, and energy. The roughly 120,000 people who live there are at increasing risk of famine. To break down the situation, Ryan Grim is joined by freelance journalists Joshua Kucera, Lilit Shahverdyan, and Alison Tahmizian who cover the area.If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected].  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ten years ago this week, Aaron Swartz, a key figure in the fight for an open internet, died by suicide. This week we also learned of the tragic death of New York Times journalist Blake Hounshell, whose death is being investigated by police as a suicide. His family said in a statement, “It is with great sorrow that we have to inform you that Blake has suddenly died this morning after a long and courageous battle with depression.” A gofundme has been set up for Blake’s wife and two children. Ryan Grim speaks to Jason Cherkis, who’s writing a book on suicide prevention and is the author of the groundbreaking article at HuffPost Highline titled “The Best Way to Save People From Suicide."The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline offers 24-hour support for those experiencing difficulties or those close to them, by chat or by telephone at 988. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week Israel inaugurated the most right-wing government in its history, with the country’s longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the helm once again. Avner Gvaryahu of the group Breaking the Silence, which collects testimonies of Israeli soldiers about their experiences in the occupied territories, joins Ryan Grim to discuss his country’s latest political turn.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week, the Biden administration declassified a trove of documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. While this action brings the government closer to the full disclosure of relevant files mandated by a 1992 law, it still keeps the most sensitive records secret. Jefferson Morley, author and editor of the "JFK Facts" Substack, joins Ryan Grim to discuss the latest disclosures.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The new documentary “To the End” takes viewers behind the nationwide organizing efforts that culminated in the landmark climate provisions of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The film focuses on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, activist Varshini Prakash, climate policy writer Rhiana Gunn-Wright, and political strategist Alexandra Rojas as they push to keep climate at the top of the national agenda. Ryan Grim talks with the film’s director, Rachel Lears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week’s Georgia Senate runoff gives Democrats a 51-49 majority in the upper chamber. Raphael Warnock raised a staggering $175 million this cycle to take on former football star Herschel Walker, all of which translated into a relatively slim 3 percentage point victory on election day. Georgia Republican political operative Brian Robinson and Intercept contributor George Chidi join Ryan Grim to discuss the election. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Earlier this month, the Pennsylvania state House voted to impeach Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, citing the “catastrophic consequences” of his reform-minded approach to the office. The Intercept’s Akela Lacy spoke with Krasner about the impeachment, the state of crime and criminal justice in the city, and his record as district attorney.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How is it that Democrats were able to buck historical trends and avoid the kind of midterms massacre traditionally suffered by the party in power? And why did so many election forecasts miss the mark? Ryan Grim talks with Tom Bonier of Democratic data firm TargetSmart about what the media got wrong in 2022.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Elon Musk gave Twitter employees an ultimatum: commit to a new, “hardcore” workplace culture of “long hours at high intensity,” or get out. Jon Schwarz talks with Bloomberg reporter Mike Leonard about how Musk is trying to squeeze profit out of the company and whether he’s likely to succeed. Then, Jon and fellow Intercept reporter Ken Klippenstein discuss how Twitter has enriched their journalistic lives.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Tuesday, Democrats miraculously avoided the sort of major rout at the polls normally associated with a new president’s first midterms. Most surprisingly, Democrats still have a narrow path to maintain control of the House of Representatives if a few outstanding races swing their way. That path would be even wider if not for a disappointing set of losses in New York. Ryan Grim speaks with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and to Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, about what went wrong in the state.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In August, Kansas voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure that would have removed abortion rights from the state’s constitution. In a few days, voters in Kentucky will weigh in on a similar measure that will decide the future of abortion in that state. Jazmin Smith and Robert Kahne, co-hosts of the "My Old Kentucky" podcast, which covers Kentucky politics, join Ryan Grim to discuss how the vote is likely to unfold.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The race for Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District pits Rep. Matt Cartwright, a populist Democrat, against Jim Bognet, a Trump-endorsed Republican. The district is one of a small handful nationwide that voted for Donald Trump in 2020 while electing a Democrat to the House of Representatives; it’s now a test case for whether a progressive candidate can win over enough Trump voters to prevail in a swing district in 2022. One such Trump voter is John Petrizzo, a local restaurant owner who’s supporting Cartwright this November. Petrizzo joins Ryan Grim to discuss the peculiar politics of the 8th District. The two are also joined by Rachel Bovard, senior director at the Conservative Partnership Institute.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In their new book “Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress's Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump,” reporters Karoun Demirjian and Rachael Bade lay out how Democrats put political self-preservation ahead of a genuine effort to hold President Donald Trump accountable for his abuses of power. The authors join Ryan Grim to discuss the missed opportunities and historical what-ifs of Trump's two impeachments.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The last two times a new president confronted his first midterm election, it turned out to be a wave year for the opposition party. 2022 is confounding that pattern, with Democrats slightly favored to hold the Senate and Republicans slightly favored to take the House. Journalists Jon Ralston and George Chidi join Ryan Grim to discuss two potentially pivotal states, Nevada and Georgia, where tight races for the Senate are underway.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“I want you all to know that among progressives, it has become clear that you cannot claim to hold progressive values yet back Israel’s apartheid government.” Those words, spoken by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., at a Palestine Advocacy Day event, created a firestorm within the Democratic Party last month. When journalist Katie Halper decided to discuss the comments in one of her regular editorials for Hill TV’s “Rising,” she had no idea that she was about to ignite a firestorm of her own. Ryan Grim and Jacobin writer Branko Marcetic join Halper to discuss.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This Sunday, Brazilian voters head to the polls to decide between incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro and former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Earlier this week in Italy, Giorgia Meloni of the right-wing Brothers of Italy party won election as prime minister on an anti-immigration platform. Academic and translator Arthur Goldhammer joins Ryan Grim to discuss the Italian election. Then Grim is joined by Brazilian sociologist Sabrina Fernandes, who breaks down the election in her country.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week, the White House released a proposed framework for the regulation of cryptocurrency. The document gives the green light to regulators to continue crafting rules around the industry, and even explores the creation of a “CBDC”: a central bank digital currency. Actor, writer, and crypto skeptic Ben McKenzie joins Ryan Grim to discuss the framework and the future (or lack thereof) of the crypto industry.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Helena Andrews-Dyer joined a local mom group in her gentrifying Washington, D.C., neighborhood, she found that being one of the only Black mothers in the mix gave her a new outlook on race and motherhood. In her new book, “The Mamas,” she chronicles the socioeconomic and racial tensions lurking beneath the surface of her relationships with white liberal parents.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If Democrats can add a single seat in the Senate and hold their majority in the House in the midterm elections, they could actually write Roe v. Wade into law. Tom Bonier is a data analyst who dives deep on the shocking surge of women registering to vote in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision. Brandi Calvert is a Kansas real estate agent who became a key leader in the fight to defend abortion rights in Kansas. Ryan Grim talks to both about this new women's march to the polls.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.