The Politics of Everything

Since its approval by the Atlanta City Council in 2021, the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center—more commonly referred to as Cop City—has been a flashpoint of controversy. The $90 million facility is set to be built within a large forest adjacent to predominantly Black and poor neighborhoods; in protest, activists have taken up residence in the forest to try to stop its construction. In January, conflict between police and protesters turned deadly. On episode 72 of The Politics of Everything, co-hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk to New Republic senior contributing editor Molly Taft about the Cop City protest as an environmental justice movement and New York magazine senior writer Sarah Jones about the novel applications of law used to charge protesters with serious crimes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

In the early 1970s, ranchers in the Southwest began to share strange reports of cattle mutilations—carcasses discovered with organs missing, and with no obvious physical explanation for the deaths. A variety of culprits were suggested—secret government programs, satanists, cults, or extraterrestrials—despite multiple forensic investigations that turned up nothing suspicious about the deaths. Then this spring, a minor police report about the mutilations of six cattle in Texas went from a Facebook post to multiple national articles in a matter of days. Why did such a seemingly small incident strike such a chord, and what does the American fascination with this particular conspiracy theory say about us? On episode 68 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene chat with Michael J. Goleman, a historian who researched the first great wave of cattle mutilations in the 1970s, and with cultural historian Colin Dickey, who has written extensively about American conspiracy theories, about their historical cycles and why, in the twenty-first century, they seem to have taken a very dark turn. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Americans are in a toxic relationship with their automobiles. They’re bad for us—polluting, noisy, and increasingly dangerous to pedestrians—yet we remain fully committed to them. They’re also bad at their primary function: transport. Urbanists and environmentalists for years have proposed solutions to break the automotive spell: improved mass transit, walkable cities, congestion pricing. But cars (and their companion scourge, parking) still dominate our public spaces. On episode 66 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with authors Daniel Knowles and Henry Grabar about the obstacles that prevent us from constraining car culture—and, perhaps, a solution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Every week, it seems, brings a new report of an airport mishap or a near collision between airplanes. Why are so many of these happening now, and what does it tell us about the state of commercial air travel? On episode 74 of The Politics of Everything, co-hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with journalist and private pilot James Fallows about the particular circumstances of some of the more alarming recent incidents, and with author Ganesh Sitaraman about whether the current systems governing air travel are robust enough to support this ever-growing industry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

On any given day, it’s easy to find a new video on the internet or social media purporting to show a violent retail theft. Such videos make riveting viewing, and—coupled with reports from chain retailers about a plague of theft affecting their bottom lines—might suggest we’re in a golden age of shoplifting. The reality, however, is likely much more complex. On episode 73 of The Politics of Everything, co-hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene chat with New York magazine staff writer James D. Walsh about how organized retail theft has evolved over the past decade, and with Amanda Mull, staff writer at The Atlantic, about the puzzling lack of data about theft and what other factors could be contributing to the perception of a great shoplifting surge. This episode is sponsored by Cambridge University Press. To learn more, please visit www.cambridge.org/LBJsAmerica [https://www.cambridge.org/LBJsAmerica], and save 20% off with discount code LBJ20. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]