Well, here we are. The second inauguration of Donald Trump is quickly approaching. And there’s no doubt that progressives have a lot of work to do in the months and years ahead. Our guest this week co-founded one of the biggest groups that initially came about in response to Trump 1.0. Leah Greenberg is co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, an organization with a mission to organize thousands of local groups to resist the GOPs agenda, elect local champions and fight for progressive policies. She joins WITHpod to discuss lessons learned from the past, ideas within Indivisible’s “Practical Guide to Democracy on The Brink” and glimmers of hope as ordinary people fight back.

Happy New Year! Given the holiday, we are sharing one of our most memorable conversations. Stay tuned through the end as we also share updates on this topic.

From the original description:
You’d probably guess that a major factor contributing to homelessness is a lack of money. Yet, very few programs provide unconditional and lump sum cash to unhoused individuals as a solution. There are a number of barriers that have impeded the broad implementation of this type of assistance, which include the lack of policymaker support and public mistrust in homeless people’s ability to manage money. Our guest this week found that direct cash transfers actually result in net societal savings over time. Jiaying Zhao is an associate professor, Canada research chair and a Sauder distinguished scholar at the University of British Columbia. She co-authored “Unconditional cash transfers reduce homelessness,” which was published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. Zhao, who has personally experienced housing insecurity in the past, joins WITHpod to discuss the cognitive taxes of poverty, rethinking the homogenous narrative about who homeless people are, the most surprising findings from the study, intended policy changes and more.

What are the effects when you give $1,000 a month in unconditional cash transfers to low-income Americans for three years? Our guests this week studied the behavioral and political outcomes of this in a 3,000-person study. Elizabeth Rhodes is the research director for the Unconditional Cash Study at OpenResearch, a nonprofit research lab founded by OpenAI founder Sam Altman. David Broockman is an associate professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley and worked as the principal investigator supporting the unconditional cash study. Together, they co-authored, along with others, a paper: "The Causal Effects of Income on Political Attitudes and Behavior: A Randomized Field Experiment.” Rhodes and Broockman join WITHpod to discuss some of the most surprising finds, why receiving cash overwhelmingly didn’t change people’s political leanings, how the money changed people’s attitudes about work and more.

The 1955 murder of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy who was abducted and lynched in Mississippi, is one of the most infamous crimes in American history. Yet, decades later, so much of what happened to Till is still widely unknown. Our guest this week points out that this is no accident. Wright Thompson is a senior writer for ESPN and is the author of several books including his latest, “The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi,” which is the subject of this week’s conversation. Thompson’s family farm is 23 miles from the site of Till’s murder, and yet he didn’t learn about some of the most shocking details until becoming an adult. Thompson joins to discuss what he uncovered while writing the book, his familial connection to the story and the reckoning that must happen if we are to heal one of the country’s original sins.

We’re in strange times. In the U.S., we’re finding ourselves in a situation in which the possibility of genuine democratic retrenchment and some version of presidential authoritarian dictatorship is a real possibility. There’s a lot to consider as the liberal democracy we’ve become accustomed to could erode right before our eyes in the near future. Steve Levitsky is a professor of government at Harvard and serves as the director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. Levitsky is also a New York Times bestselling author of numerous books including, “How Democracies Die” and “Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point,” which he co-authored with Daniel Ziblatt. He joins WITHpod to discuss entering into a new era, the uncertainty of this moment, the process by which a democracy might backslide into something that's less democratic and resisting the erosion.

There’s a lot to consider about what Trump 2.0 portends for the future of our country, lives and democracy. A lot of questions remain. And perhaps maybe now more than ever, it’s all been keeping Chris up really late at night, like so many of you. Chris and WITHpod producer Doni Holloway unpack post-election thoughts and discuss moving forward.

More information about Chris' latest book, "The Siren's Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource" + info about the book tour here.

It’s a given that any political party is going to have ideological factions around different issues. But what happens when the ostensible leader of a party has no real ideology? It’s a big question to consider in the wake of Donald Trump’s re-election. Our guest this week has followed the inherent tensions, fissures and changes within the Republican Party. McKay Coppins is a staff writer at The Atlantic, an MSNBC contributor, and New York Times bestselling author of “Romney: A Reckoning.” He joins WITHpod to discuss his view of what conservatism is now at an ideological level, the rife contradictions amongst conservatives in this moment and what the Trump 2.0 years could mean for growing party incoherence.

The information environment is rapidly changing. And with more media sources at our disposal than ever before, we’re constantly navigating between online and IRL, or in real life spaces. How does that affect our understanding of the world around us, particularly in this unprecedented moment? Our guest this week has spent a lot of time thinking and writing about this. Matt Pearce is a journalist and serves as the president of Media Guild of the West, which represents unionized journalists in Southern California, Arizona and Texas. Pearce is also a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times and writes own Substack, which you can find at mattdpearce.substack.com. He joins WITHpod to discuss what’s happened to the press, its role post the 2024 election and more.