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Strongly-held opinions. Open-minded debates. A weekly ideas show, hosted by Jane Coaston.
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14 SEP 2022 · For decades, the story of the American feminist movement seemed like a progression of hard-won gains: Title IX, Roe v. Wade, the Violence Against Women Act, #MeToo. But in a post-“lean in” and post-Roe America, the momentum seems to have reversed, leaving some feminists to wonder: What are we fighting for? And who is in that fight?
So this week, “The Argument” is kicking off a three-part series to dive into the state of feminism today. In the first episode, Jane Coaston brings together two people who have helped shaped how we think about feminism. Anne-Marie Slaughter is the chief executive of New America and wrote the influential 2012 Atlantic essay “Why Women Can’t Have It All.” The article was critiqued by our second guest, Tressie McMillan Cottom, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (and a Times columnist). Ten years later, the two women discuss what’s next for feminism — personal disagreements included — and debate Jane’s fundamental question: Is feminism an identity that you claim or an action that you take?
(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)
7 SEP 2022 · Book banning has surged in America’s classrooms. The free speech advocacy organization PEN America has compiled a list of more than 1,500 reported instances of books being banned in public schools and libraries in less than a year. As students head back to school, what are the books we do and don’t want our kids to read? And what are the values America’s students are meant to take away from the pages of books?
So on this episode of “The Argument,” Jane Coaston is talking to two writers and teachers to figure out what high school English syllabuses should look like in 2022. Kaitlyn Greenidge is a contributing Opinion writer and novelist who has taught high school English and creative writing, and designed English curriculums for for-profit companies. Esau McCaulley, also a contributing Opinion writer, is an associate professor at Wheaton College.
Greenidge argues that at their best, English classes and the books read in them should be a place to find mutual understanding. “When you’re talking about what we should read in English class, you’re really talking about how to make a common language for people to talk across,” Greenidge says. But the question of whose stories are included in that common language — especially when it comes to what makes up the Western canon — is especially fraught. And to McCaulley, how teachers put a book in context is just as important as what their students are reading in the first place. “That’s what makes discussions around the canon complicated,” he says. "Because the teacher has to be able to see these texts as both powerful and profoundly broken, because they’re written by humans who often have those contradictions in themselves.”
31 AUG 2022 · Today, we're re-airing one of our most timely debates from earlier this year: Reforming the Supreme Court. This episode originally aired before the Dobbs decision was released this summer.
2022 is a big year for supporters of Supreme Court reform. Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that gave women nationwide the right to have abortions, has been overturned, and the debate around changing the way we structure the bench — in particular, packing the court — is getting only more heated.
The past decade has brought a shift in the makeup of the court — from Brett Kavanaugh, appointed despite sexual assault allegations, to Merrick Garland, blocked from confirmation, and Amy Coney Barrett, rushed to confirmation.
It’s the culmination of decades of effort by Republicans to make the courts more conservative. And now Democrats want to push back by introducing some radical changes.
Today, Jane Coaston brings together two guests who disagree on whether altering Supreme Court practices is the right call and, if yes, what kind of changes would make sense for the highest judicial body in the nation.
Russ Feingold is the president of the American Constitution Society and was a Democratic senator from Wisconsin from 1993 to 2011. Russ Miller is an attorney and law professor at Washington and Lee and the head of the Max Planck Law Network in Germany.
Mentioned in this episode:
“Americans No Longer Have Faith in the U.S. Supreme Court. That Has Justices Worried,” by Russ Feingold in The Guardian, published in October 2021.
“We Don’t Need to Reform the Supreme Court,” by Russ Miller in Just Security, published in February 2021.
“The Future of Supreme Court Reform,” by Daniel Epps and Ganesh Sitaraman in Harvard Law Review, published in May 2021.
10 AUG 2022 · Last week, Kansans voted in overwhelming numbers to protect abortion rights in their State Constitution — the first instance since the overruling of Roe v. Wade in which voters have been able to weigh in on the issue directly. But local battles aren’t just limited to abortion. There’s guns. There’s school curriculums. Most crucially, there’s voting rights. As national politics becomes increasingly polarized and stalemates in Congress continue, how we live is going to be decided by local legislation. It’s time we step into the state houses and see what’s happening there.
So on today’s episode, guests Zack Beauchamp and Nicole Hemmer help Jane Coaston understand what these state-level legislative battles mean for national politics. Beauchamp covers the Republican Party for Vox, and Hemmer is a historian of conservative media and an associate professor at Vanderbilt University. Both share the belief that state governments have become powerful machines in influencing the U.S. constitutional system, but to what extent that influence is helpful or harmful to American democracy depends. “This idea of the states as the laboratories of democracy, being able to try out different policies and different programs and see how they work in the state — that’s great,” Hemmer says. “But they’ve become these laboratories of illiberalism in recent years. And that’s something that we have to reckon with.”
3 AUG 2022 · Christian nationalism has been empowered in American politics since the rise of Donald Trump. From “Stop the Steal” to the storming of the U.S. Capitol and now, the overturn of Roe v. Wade — Christian nationalist rhetoric has undergirded it all. But given that a majority of Americans identify as Christian, faith also isn’t going anywhere in our politics. So what would a better relationship between church and state look like?
To discuss, Jane Coaston brings together two people who are at the heart of the Christian nationalism debate. Katherine Stewart is the author of “The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism” and has reported on the Christian right for over a decade. Esau McCaulley is a contributing writer for Times Opinion and theologian-in-residence at Progressive Baptist Church in Chicago.
Stewart feels that the movement is paving the way to something with graver consequence. “This is a movement that wants to promote theocratic policies,” she says. “But theocracy is really not the end point. It’s sort of a means to an end, which is authoritarianism.” McCaulley agrees the danger is real. But to him, there’s a place for faith-informed arguments in the public square. “When you try to enforce your religion as the base of your argument and the sole way of being a good American, that’s Christian nationalism,” he says. “And when you’re saying, well, hold on, here is a value that I want to advocate for, perhaps this is my best presentation of the issue, let’s vote and let society decide — I think that’s the best that you can hope for.”
27 JUL 2022 · American politics has an age problem. At least, that’s what voters think. According to a new New York Times/Siena College poll, 33 percent of Democrats who want a different candidate for president in 2024 pointed to Joe Biden’s age as a motivating factor. But a nearly equal percentage say they aren’t keen to have Biden for a second term because of his job performance — or lack thereof. Could the answer to appease voters be that Democrats just need some young blood? Or is there a deeper rift between voters — especially young ones — and political leadership?
Jane Coaston brings together Michelle Cottle, a Times editorial board member, and David Brooks, an Opinion columnist, to parse out what we are really talking about when we talk about age in politics. “What is age actually a proxy for?” Cottle asks. “Is it your concerns about fading ability, or is it concerns about a lack of fighting spirit?” But for Brooks, the question is centered more on stagnancy: “Why has the gerontocracy been able to stay in power? What is it about these people that they’ve been able to persevere and just stick around?”
20 JUL 2022 · For years, Republicans have been known as the party of moral outrage. Take for instance the recent book banning wars, or Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. But Democrats aren’t immune to moral outrage. At least that’s what Noah Rothman, a conservative writer and commentator, believes. He is the author of the new book “The Rise of the New Puritans: Fighting Back Against Progressives’ War on Fun.” In it, he argues that progressives, in their pursuit of liberal ideals, are fueling a movement of moral panics more reminiscent of 17th-century preachifying than 1960s liberalism — and that we’re all worse off for it.
Host Jane Coaston has doubts. So on today’s episode, she invites Rothman and the editor at large for Times Opinion, Alex Kingsbury, to debate if moral outrage has really moved from the right to the left. “Are Republicans cultural revanchists? Of course they are. That’s not new,” says Rothman. “What’s new [is], progressives are joining them in the fight.”
13 JUL 2022 · Today we're bringing you an episode of another Times Opinion show, First Person. Hours after this episode was released, the Supreme Court overturned New York State’s gun-permitting system — a decision with major implications for the regulation of guns outside the home. The case was, unsurprisingly, backed by the National Rifle Association. But it also found supporters in typically liberal public defenders, like Sharone Mitchell Jr.
Mitchell is the public defender for Cook County, which includes Chicago, a city with some of the strictest gun laws in the country. Growing up on the South Side, Mitchell was raised to believe that guns are dangerous and harmful, a view that was reinforced by his experiences as a public defender and gun control advocate. But those experiences have also led him to believe that gun-permitting laws are harmful, as he explains to Lulu Garcia-Navarro in this episode.
18 MAY 2022 · If you’re confused about the current state of the economy and where it’s headed, you’re not alone. The United States is experiencing inflation at the highest rate since the 1980s, and most Americans generally feel as bad about the economy as they did during the Great Recession of 2008. At the same time, unemployment is low and wages are rising.
On today’s episode of “The Argument,” host Jane Coaston consults two economics reporters to break down these conflicting trends in the economy and to ask the question so many people want answered: Are things going to get worse before they get better?
Peter Coy is an Opinion writer for The New York Times. Alexandra Scaggs is a senior writer at Barron’s, where she covers bonds markets. Both have different takes on how the Federal Reserve can try to bring inflation down without long-term repercussions, including a recession. “There are people who would say, well, fine, that’s what needs to happen, if that’s what it takes to extinguish this high inflation, so be it,” Coy says. “And I’m just saying, I’m not willing to go that far.”
20 APR 2022 · From Amazon and Starbucks to large media companies, unionization has become a siren call for workers — white- and blue-collar — fighting for rights and fair wages. But in 2022, after two years of a pandemic, how have our ideas about unions changed? And are Democrats, the so-called party of the unions, still allies in the fight for workers’ rights?
On today’s episode of “The Argument,” Jane Coaston asks two leading labor voices in America to debate the current role of unions, how the watershed vote at an Amazon warehouse is changing their work and whether Democrats have failed workers.
Liz Shuler is the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. Jane McAlevey is an organizer and a campaign strategist and the author of the recent book “A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing and the Fight for Democracy.”
“People used to say, ‘It’s the economy, stupid.’ It’s the base, stupid, in my argument,” McAlevey says, emphasizing the need for unions and large organizations like the A.F.L.-C.I.O. to learn from Amazon and focus on bringing more workers into the fold. “If we don’t return to bottom-up organizing, we’re simply not going to have the political muscle to force Democrats and Republicans to do that which they must: to honor the essential workers coming out of this pandemic.”
What’s your take on unions? How do you think unions should capitalize on this moment? We want to hear from you. Share your thoughts in the comments on The New York Times website once you’ve listened to the debate.
Strongly-held opinions. Open-minded debates. A weekly ideas show, hosted by Jane Coaston.
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