Chris Rufo Thinks the Right Can Control This. I Don’t.

Chris Rufo Thinks the Right Can Control This. I Don’t.

Christopher Rufo is arguably the most successful activist of the MAGA era. He rose to prominence fighting D.E.I. initiatives and critical race theory. In President Trump’s second term, he’s had a huge influence on policy, from Trump’s executive orders against D.E.I. and the attacks on the Department of Education to the ICE and C.B.P. deployments to Minneapolis. Rufo, helpfully, calls his shots. He has published a guide, “The New Right Activism: A Manifesto for the Counterrevolution,” in which he argued for the value of “agitprop” and counseled that “political life moves on narrative, emotion, scandal, anger, hope, and faith — on irrational, or at least subrational, feelings.” But more recently, in his writing and on the podcast he co-hosts, “Rufo & Lomez,” he seems worried about the new right he has helped build: its attraction to conspiracy theories, its racialist thinking, its internal fissures. So I wanted to have him on the show to talk about the problems he sees on his side, but also to interrogate whether he may have scored short-term victories while seeding profound long-term problems. Rufo is a senior fellow and director of the initiative on critical race theory at the Manhattan Institute. He’s a contributing editor of City Journal and the author of “America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything.” This episode contains strong language. Mentioned: “The New Right Activism [https://im1776.com/manifesto-counterrevolution/]” by Christopher Rufo “The Number [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/08/18/the-number]” by David D. Kirkpatrick “The unraveling of a cat tale [https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/the-unraveling-of-a-cat-tale]” by Jacqueline Sweet Book recommendations Unmasking the Administrative State [https://www.encounterbooks.com/books/unmasking-administrative-state/?srsltid=AfmBOoo1ziiZ-O8Bk2tGHvBhzYhJE_pOrVtihgqmsQqFXqpiGQ4lX_Ne] by John Marini The Revolutionary [https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/stacy-schiff/the-revolutionary-samuel-adams/9780316441094/] by Stacy Schiff The Managerial Revolution [https://www.lumebooks.co.uk/book/the-managerial-revolution-what-is-happening-in-the-world/] by James Burnham Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast [https://www.nytimes.com/column/ezra-klein-podcast], and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs [https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html]. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Mixing by Pat McCusker, Efim Shapiro, and Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Transcript editing by Kate Wilkinson and Marlaine Glicksman. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts [http://nytimes.com/podcasts] or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher [https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher]. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I Keep Telling People We’re Living in This Dystopian Novel

A hypervisual, looks-obsessed, wellness-crazed, postliterate society where we’re constantly staring at screens and evaluating one another based on metrics, as the country around us feels like it’s falling apart: That sounds like the world we live in. It’s also the world Gary Shteyngart created in his 2010 novel, “Super Sad True Love Story.” I’ve been thinking about the book a lot recently, especially with the rise of the “looksmaxxing” influencer Clavicular and the longevity guru Bryan Johnson, and this feeling that people are upset and agitated but grabbing at the wrong things to fix it. It feels uncannily like the experience of living inside Shteyngart’s novel. But Shteyngart isn’t just a dystopian prophet, he’s also an expert at living well amid the world’s darkness. His forthcoming book, “The Sensualist: Adventures in Pure Pleasure,” is an essay collection about his efforts to do exactly that. So I wanted to have Shteyngart on the show to understand how he predicted so many of the grimmer aspects of our present, but also how we might delight in the world’s “endless buffet of pleasure” in spite of them. This episode contains strong language. Note: We’re recording an "Ask Me Anything" episode soon. If you have a question, please email ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com using the subject like "AMA." We'd love to hear from you. Mentioned: “The End Point Of Viral Content [https://www.garbageday.email/p/the-end-point-of-viral-content]” by Ryan Broderick “How Jokes Won the Election [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/23/how-jokes-won-the-election]” by Emily Nussbaum “A Visit to Seoul Brings Our Writer Face-to-Face With the Future of Robots [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/visit-seoul-writer-future-robots-180963238/]” by Gary Shteyngart The Intimate City [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/671594/the-intimate-city-by-michael-kimmelman/] by Michael Kimmelman “Don’t Just Take the Slow Road; Design It [https://www.wesleyan.edu/about/news/2026/05/chris-murphy-dont-just-take-the-slow-road-build-it.html],” Commencement address at Wesleyan’s 194th Commencement Ceremony, Chris Murphy Book Recommendations: Men Like Ours [https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/men-like-ours-9781639735228/] by Bindu Bansinath A Tender Age [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/797017/a-tender-age-by-chang-rae-lee/] by Chang-rae Lee Motherland [https://www.harpercollins.com/products/motherland-julia-ioffe?variant=42684866396194] by Julia Ioffe Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast [https://www.nytimes.com/column/ezra-klein-podcast], and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs [https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html]. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Mary-Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts [http://nytimes.com/podcasts] or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher [https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher]. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Graham Platner, Jon Ossoff and the New Rules of Political Attention

Attention is working in really unusual ways this election cycle. Graham Platner, a political unknown a year ago, ended up dominating his Senate primary against Maine’s sitting governor – even as his campaign was rocked by a series of scandals. James Talarico also seemed to come out of nowhere to become the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas. Jon Ossoff has ginned up a ton of excitement as a potential 2028 presidential contender, in part because of his viral videos. Meanwhile, the former reality TV personality Spencer Pratt became a political star on X during his bid to become mayor of Los Angeles and yet failed to make the runoff. All of this has a lot of lessons for how attention is working right now in American politics. So I wanted to have on my favorite person to talk to on this topic. Chris Hayes is the host of “All In With Chris Hayes” on MS NOW and the author of “The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource.” Mentioned: “Donald Trump is going to win the election and democracy will be just fine [https://www.bangordailynews.com/2024/07/02/opinion/opinion-contributor/jared-golden-donald-trump-going-to-win-election-democracy-be-just-fine/]” by Jared Golden “We Took AOC to a Deep Red Data Center Town [https://substack.perfectunion.us/p/we-took-aoc-to-a-deep-red-data-center]” by More Perfect Union “America Dissected [https://crooked.com/podcast-series/america-dissected/]” by Dr. Abdul El-Sayed “Can James Talarico Reclaim Christianity for the Left? [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-james-talarico.html]” with James Talarico, The Ezra Klein Show “Joe Rogan Experience #2352 - James Talarico [https://youtu.be/_jOGPvMftb8?si=M_VWX08N0Giy8Nxw]” with James Talarico, The Joe Rogan Experience “Why Everyone Wants Jon Ossoff to Run for President [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/08/opinion/jon-ossoff-president.html]” by Michelle Goldberg “Obama Suddenly Panicked After Gazing Too Far Into Future [https://theonion.com/obama-suddenly-panicked-after-gazing-too-far-into-futur-1819570100/]” by The Onion Book Recommendations: Transcription [https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374618599/transcription/] by Ben Lerner The Godfather [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/290370/the-godfather-by-mario-puzo/] by Mario Puzo Alan Opts Out [https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/courtney-maum/alan-opts-out/9780316599122/?lens=little-brown] by Courtney Maum Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast [https://www.nytimes.com/column/ezra-klein-podcast], and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs [https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html]. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Julie Beer and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker and Aman Sahota. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts [http://nytimes.com/podcasts] or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher [https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher]. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What’s the Left’s Vision for Foreign Policy After Trump?

The Democratic Party is in the middle of a rupture over foreign policy – with Israel and Palestine at the center. In recent weeks, the Democratic senators Brian Schatz and Chris Van Hollen both called for a break with the Biden administration’s policies toward Israel. Schatz said the next administration needs “a whole new crop of foreign policy staffers,” while Van Hollen went further, accusing Biden’s senior decision makers of “complicity.” And Gaza has become a central issue splitting Democrats in primaries around the country. It’s become such a profound fault line, it reminds me of how the Iraq war remade the Democratic Party years ago. And Democrats face huge foreign policy questions beyond Gaza, too. Trump has taken a wrecking ball to the rules-based order, and the American public has become increasingly cynical about U.S. interventions abroad. Do Democrats want to try to restore what came before Trump? Is that even possible? Or is there a vision for something new? Matt Duss is at the center of foreign policy thinking on the left. He’s the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, previously served as Senator Bernie Sanders’s foreign policy adviser and is currently advising Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. So I thought he’d be the perfect person to ask: What would a left foreign policy actually look like? What would it try to do in the world?Mentioned: “The Hard Truth My Party Needs to Face [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/26/opinion/democrats-israel.html]” by Chris Van Hollen “Democrats Can’t Avoid a Reckoning With Gaza [https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democats-party-dnc-chair-gaza-genocide/]” by Matthew Duss “Why We Need a Progressive Foreign Policy [https://www.chrismurphyct.com/p/why-we-need-a-progressive-foreign]” by Chris Murphy “Congressman Jason Crow’s New Vision for American Foreign Policy [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTtXza31D0k]” by Jason Crow Book Recommendations: Crisis of the Common Good [https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621117/crisisofthecommongood/] by Chris Murphy From Life Itself [https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621117/crisisofthecommongood/] by Suzy Hansen Book of Mercy [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/29436/book-of-mercy-by-leonard-cohen/9780771021879] by Leonard Cohen Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast [https://www.nytimes.com/column/ezra-klein-podcast], and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs [https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html]. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Julie Beer and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts [http://nytimes.com/podcasts] or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher [https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher]. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The New Right’s Very Old Vision of Men

A new masculinist movement has gone mainstream on the right. The prominent voices in this movement yearn for an earlier time, when men were men and women were women. Sometimes that time seems to be the 1950s, like when Tucker Carlson extols a world where men go to work and women stay at home. But sometimes it goes way farther back. The pastor Doug Wilson advocates household voting, in which men vote for their wives. And Costin Vlad Alamariu, better known as Bronze Age Pervert, harks back to the Bronze Age — specifically the ancient Hittite and Mitanni Empires. Helen Lewis wrote a recent cover story for The Atlantic about this new antifeminist backlash, which she calls “the single most important force holding together the American right.” So I wanted to have her on the show to talk about these ideas, the political program of this movement and how seriously we should take it. Lewis is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of “Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights” and “The Genius Myth.” This episode contains strong language. Mentioned: Difficult Women [https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/438129/difficult-women-by-helen-lewis/9781784709730] by Helen Lewis “What Is the Longhouse? [https://firstthings.com/what-is-the-longhouse/]” by L0m3z The Last Men by Charles [https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781510786783/the-last-men/] Cornish-Dale Bronze Age Mindset [https://a.co/d/0a6BEhiV] by Bronze Age Pervert The End of History and the Last Man [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-End-of-History-and-the-Last-Man/Francis-Fukuyama/9780743284554] by Francis Fukuyama “The Men — and Boys — Are Not Alright [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-richard-reeves.html?]” with Richard Reeves, The Ezra Klein Show “Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace? [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/opinion/women-workplace-feminism-conservative.html]” with Helen Andrews and Leah Libresco Sargeant, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat “The Great Feminization [https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-great-feminization/]” by Helen Andrews “The Women Leaving the New Right [https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/young-women-leaving-maga-new-right.html]” by Sam Adler-Bell Book Recommendations: Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry [https://www.ndbooks.com/book/christie-malrys-own-double-entry/] by B.S. Johnson Madame de Pompadour [https://www.nyrb.com/products/madame-de-pompadour] by Nancy Mitford The Genius Factory [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/131876/the-genius-factory-by-david-plotz/] by David Plotz Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast [https://www.nytimes.com/column/ezra-klein-podcast], and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs [https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html]. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Kyle Grandillo. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts [http://nytimes.com/podcasts] or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher [https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher]. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.