The Curious Middle

Polina & Yelena
  • 4.9 (116)
  • Society & Culture
  • Monthly

We're two San Francisco moms who got tired of pretending the obvious isn't obvious. Top 1.5% of podcasts globally not because we play it safe. We ask the questions people are thinking but won't say out loud, on the topics that actually shape how we live: media, politics, culture, parenting, careers and what it means to defend common sense in a state that often ignores reality. We're two women who've earned our opinions through life, careers, raising kids and educating ourselves, Expect ideas that challenge what you think you know. Conversations that don't wrap up neatly. And the occasional moment where one of us changes our mind on air, because that's what actually curious people do. Being "in the middle" isn't about being passive. It's about being grounded enough to question everything, open enough to learn from anywhere, and brave enough to push beyond comfortable assumptions. Expect conversations that challenge, entertain, and push you toward a more thoughtful, and wildly better life. Follow us on Instagram @thecuriousmiddlepod or reach out at thecuriousmiddlepod@gmail.com

  1. Oct 13

    What We Learned From an Iranian American Who Left the Left

    Medi from Rep America was born in Southern California to parents from Iran. Like Polina, he was a Democrat for most of his life, until he left the left. We talk about the moment Medi realized the left had moved on without him, and why so many former Democrats feel like they got scammed. Then we got into the hard stuff. Medi doesn't hold back on Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood, and why he thinks a secular Iran isn't enough. Yelena pushed back more than once. If we don't tell the Amish or Orthodox Jews to give up their identity, why say it to Muslims? And how do we criticize Islamism without making our Muslim neighbors feel like outsiders? We didn't settle it, but Yelena walked away with some clarity, and we think you will too. We also cover the Barbary Wars, the history of slavery nobody teaches in school, what Medi grew up with in a Muslim family, and why Christianity is growing in Iran. This episode is exactly why we call ourselves The Curious Middle. Watch this eposide on Youtube Find Medi: Website: https://repamerica.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RepAmerica Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/medikation

  2. Oct 5

    Jill Kargman: Old Money Hid Their Limos. New Money Posts Their Jets.

    Jill Kargman grew up on the Upper East Side and still felt like an outsider there. The creator of Odd Mom Out joins us o talk about status, Instagram, October 7, and why she calls herself politically homeless. Jill explains why so many Jewish New Yorkers have already switched, why Hollywood stays quiet, and what her daughter saw on campus after October 7. Then it's rapid fire: Birkins, four-nanny families, body-altering filters, and the Upper East Side habit that tells you someone's a jerk. We also talk about her new movie Influenced and her next project, a film based on her book Sprinkle Glitter on My Grave. Watch on Youtube Follow us on IG:

  3. Sep 26

    When a Lesbian Comes out..... as a Republican

    Meet Tanya. She was born in Los Angeles to parents who left the Soviet Union as refugees in 1979. After October 7, her group of friends and her lesbian basketball league turned on her. Teammates she'd played with for years stopped talking to her. When she said she was voting for Trump, they actually banned her from team events. Her story went viral, and now she's running for West Hollywood City Council, and working for ThinkAgain We chat about: Losing friends in the queer community after October 7 Why Tanya believes the fight against antisemitism is being lost online The moment she left the Democratic Party Why the best politicians change their minds https://highlyjewish.com Watch on YouTube Follow us on IG: https://www.instagram.com/thecuriousmiddlepod/ Email us: thecuriousmiddlepod@gmail.com 00:28 Born in LA to Soviet Jewish refugees 02:30 Growing up a proud Jew and Zionist 03:40 The Lambda basketball league 04:40 October 7 and the friends who turned away 06:19 Where the misinformation comes from 07:00 Fighting antisemitism online at Think Again 09:40 Moving to Iowa to campaign for Hillary 11:54 Admitting you were wrong 13:26 Coming out at 14 and refusing to tone it down 18:20 The moment she left the left 19:30 Kicked out of the league's social events 21:25 Why she's running for city council 23:40 Bike lanes, parking, and the fight over Fountain Avenue 26:16 Running as a worried resident 28:33 Who sits on the WeHo City Council now 30:32 West Hollywood's voters and the immigration debate 34:00 The Democratic Party and antisemitism 37:12 Tanya's take on the LA mayoral race 41:01 Advice for anyone running for local office 44:14 Where to find Tanya and Think Again

  4. Sep 9

    Reverend Sirico: Ruthless in the Pursuit of Truth, Gentle With People

    Father Robert Sirico shares the unlikely path that led him to the priesthood — from protesting alongside Jane Fonda to a political transformation sparked by a chance encounter with a conservative friend, who handed him Bastiat, Hayek, and Milton Friedman and unraveled everything he thought he knew. Now president emeritus of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, Father Sirico makes the moral case against socialism without abandoning genuine compassion for the poor.   Memorable Quotes from Reverend Sirico:  "if you want to feed the poor, you have to be able to build a factory that makes bread." " We must be ruthless in our pursuit of the truth always, but always gentle with people." Advocating even a soft form of anti-Semitism is by itself renouncing Jesus Christ." "If you want to feed the poor, you have to be able to build a factory that makes bread." "The socialism of the early Christians said, 'all that is mine is yours.' The socialism of today says, 'all that is yours is mine.'" — Rev. Sirico, quoting Winston Churchill Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCblDlKsPVQ&t=753s   Tony Sirico's Introduction of Rev. Robert A. Sirico at the Acton 20th Anniversary Dinner    • Tony Sirico's Introduction of Rev. Robert ...   ‪@actoninstitute‬

  5. Sep 2

    The Largest "Pro-Human Rights" NGOs Behave Like a Religion That Casts Out Dissenters.

    Danielle Haas spent 14 years inside Human Rights Watch editing their reports before she quit and helped found Eightrights.org, an insider-led group holding the human rights sector accountable. In this episode, she walks us through how Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, and Doctors Without Borders operate with almost zero outside scrutiny, and how human rights became a civil religion for secular Westerners, complete with its own priesthood and rituals at Davos. We also get into just how much influence these NGOs hold: their reports and messaging shape mass media, academia, public policy, and the UN, and where the funding for these "neutral" organizations actually comes from.  We discuss why Amnesty International suspended its own Israel chapter, a group of Israeli leftists who've worked there since 1964, for refusing to call the war a genocide. And we cover why Human Rights Watch called Hamas's casualty figures "reliable" with no way to verify them.

  6. Aug 26

    Venezuela Was a Top-5 Economy. Then Came Socialism.

    Germania Rodriguez was 11 years old when her family fled Venezuela . Her mother, one of the regime's most aggressive journalist critics, had just been falsely accused by Hugo Chávez's government. Two decades later, sitting in NYU lecture halls, Germania became a Bernie Sanders supporter anyway. In this episode, Germania joins The Curious Middle to explain how someone who watched socialism destroy her home country still fell for it in an Ivy League classroom — and what finally broke the spell.   We get into why the New York Times and Hollywood have a decades-long blind spot for left-wing dictatorships, the actual difference between Norway's social democracy and Venezuela's socialism, why "free stuff" isn't the same thing as the government seizing the means of production, and how Cuba spent 70 years exporting revolution across Latin America. Venezuela went from a top-5 global economy in the 1960s to nearly 9 million refugees and 70%+ of households in poverty in under 30 years. Germania breaks down how that happened, and why the same playbook is showing up in New York City politics right now.   Timestamps:  0:36 – Fleeing Venezuela at 11: her mother's persecution by the Chávez regime 2:00 – Quitting the Daily Mail after refusing to stay silent about the NYT calling Delcy Rodríguez a "moderate" 3:09 – Media bias: is it ideology, or access  5:17 – The NYT's long history of covering for communism 6:29 – Hollywood's blind spot: Danny Glover, Chávez, and a Peabody-winning documentary 8:34 – The cost of being a radical centrist: everyone hates you 9:36 – Confession: Germania was a "Bernie Bro" at NYU 11:04 – What made her fall for it 14:10 – NYU campus culture in 2016, and Bernie's Castro comments 15:47 – How moral superiority becomes an excuse for authoritarianism 16:12 – Is anyone actually moving toward the center? 17:06 – The John Leguizamo clip: confusing social programs with socialism  18:34 – What "socialism" actually means, according to the DSA's own website 20:11 – Venezuela's refugee crisis: nearly 9 million fled 20:39 – 71–73% of Venezuelan households now live in poverty 21:12 – How Venezuela went from a top-5 global economy to collapse 25:25 – Less than 30 years to destroy a country 25:43 – The same playbook, today, in Zohran Mamdani's New York City 26:39 – Where's the actual red line between healthy social programs and socialism? 27:58 – Bodega owners vs. taxpayer-funded competition 28:34 – What government should do — and where it should stop 30:57 – Gun control and Chávez's disarmament of Venezuelans 2:04 – NYC rent control and the housing supply death spiral 33:22 – "If I were a billionaire, I'd fund a sexy pro-capitalism Netflix show" 34:12 – Norway vs. Venezuela: what makes one work and the other collapse 36:05 – Why progressive support for Chavismo is its own kind of racism 37:53 – Cuba's 70-year role exporting revolution across Latin Americaa 39:49 – Did the US actually win the Cold War?  40:44 – "Democracy privilege," and forgetting what's at stake

  7. Aug 16

    James Lindsay Shares How Bigotryphobia has Hijacked Every Institution We Depend on and Trust

    James Lindsay returns for a two-hour deep dive: his own journey from lifelong Democrat to Trump voter, how Trump Derangement Syndrome became what he calls one of the most wide-ranging psychological operations in modern history, the 130-year throughline from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to today's "Israel Derangement Syndrome," what Salafism and the book Milestones actually teach, and why he says American schools are deliberately inducing emotional crises in kids to turn them into activists.  Notable Quotes "It's one of the most wide-ranging psychological operations that's ever been executed on the American public — honestly, the global public." — James Lindsay, on Trump Derangement Syndrome "The second she said 'I'm voting for Trump,' it clicked in my head. I have permission from my broader social universe to do this." — James Lindsay "You must never, ever give one drop more information than was asked for." — James Lindsay, on talking to people who disagree with you "People overestimate how well they know things. The only way to open their mind is to have them explain what they think they know but don't actually know for themselves, at length." — James Lindsay, on the illusion of explanatory depth "The idea is: we're going to do a bunch of stuff, so let's blame the Jews for doing that stuff, so that when we do it, people get mad at Jews and not at us." — James Lindsay, on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion "Anti-Zionism is a reformulation of the classic Soviet anti-imperialist narrative against Britain and against the United States." — James Lindsay "Don't let anybody ever call you a racist for objecting to Islam. It is certainly not racial in any way whatsoever to reject Islam." — James Lindsay "Have you tried voting? If Republicans who care about this country showed up in double their present numbers, almost every one of these problems we're freaking out about could be stopped." — James Lindsay "We are bigotryophobic to the point where we're so afraid that people will identify us as some social evil — specifically, some form of bigotry — that we will do anything to make sure that perception doesn't leak out." — James Lindsay "Better, in fact, is worse — because it hides the possibility of a fundamentally different world." — James Lindsay, on critical theory "This is psychological, emotional abuse on children, done intentionally, as an educational program backed by the state." — James Lindsay, on ethnic studies curricula   People & Organizations to Follow RAIR Foundation USA — Amy Mek's investigative organization tracking radical mosques, imams, and Islamist funding in the US Benedict Beckeld — writer/researcher who argues "oikophobia" (hatred of one's own society), not suicidal empathy, is the real driver Gad Saad — evolutionary psychologist and author, coined/popularized "suicidal empathy" White Rose Magazine — cited for essays on Islam as a political ideology   Time stamps 1:13 — James's political evolution begins (TDS backstory) 6:42 — The "very fine people" clip story 14:02 — TDS as a mass psychological operation 15:59 — No Kings rallies irony 18:11 — How to talk to people who disagree with you 19:54 — Illusion of explanatory depth / toilet study 27:05 — Israel Derangement Syndrome introduced 29:26 — History: Protocols of the Elders of Zion 34:15 — Post-WWI Middle East / British Mandate history 39:55 — 1948 War and the Nakba 42:01 — Six Day War, USS Liberty, Soviet pivot to anti-Zionism 44:25 — Anti-Zionism enters Western academia / the New Left 50:58 — Where does this go? Predictions 55:23 — Hitler Youth "March Violets" analogy — generational risk 56:50 — Will Democrats absorb the DSA? 58:49 — Milestones / Sayyid Qutb and Islamism defined 59:46 — Rair Foundation — identifying radical mosques 1:01:48 — Islamophobia vs. racism distinction 1:06:20 — Legal limits: bribery, zoning, money flows 1:10:59 — Low voter turnout math / "have you tried voting" 1:12:52 — Civics education gap 1:17:43 — California corruption / ballot harvesting 1:21:52 — Religion of peace critique / Salafism defined 1:30:15 — Terrorist attack statistics 1:32:20 — Suicidal empathy / oikophobia question 1:34:00 — Psychosocial valuation theory 1:34:55 — Bigotryophobia coined and defined 1:39:59 — Critical race theory / Derek Bell's interest convergence 1:41:36 — Horkheimer: traditional vs. critical theory 1:48:21 — Trauma bonding in ethnic studies curriculum 1:50:50 — Cruise with James   Books Referenced How to Have Impossible Conversations — Peter Boghossian & James Lindsay (2019) Milestones — Sayyid Qutb (1964), the foundational text of Muslim Brotherhood Salafism Race, Racism and American Law — Derek Bell (1970), the founding text of critical race theory "Traditional and Critical Theory" (essay) — Max Horkheimer (1937) "Against Repetition" (paper) — Kevin Kumashiro, early 2000s Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind — Gad Saad (2026), #1 NYT bestseller Hitler's untitled second book (often called Zweites Buch / "the secret book"), referenced re: the "March Violets" youth radicalization pattern Other Media Mentioned The "very fine people" Charlottesville supercut that changed James's mind about Trump Charlie Kirk vs. Hassan Piker debate clip (went viral on socialism) David Remnick's interview with a DSA spokesperson James Lindsay's appearance on the Gillian Michaels podcast New Discourses podcast — newdiscourses.com James Lindsay's study cruise, November 15–22, sailing from Tampa, FL

  8. Aug 10

    A Book Title and a Label that Will Get You Cancelled: White, Blonde, Jew.

    Alyssa Rosenheck was one of the only Jewish kids in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when a classmate stood up in class, pointed at her, and said, "The Jew took it." She pushed the girl down. Her dad's response: "My daughter has my permission to deck anyone who offends her family or faith."  That courage runs hrough everything that followed: a tennis scholarship, a decade in corporate medical sales, a thyroid cancer diagnosis that scared her into finally living, a camera she picked up to heal, and a divorce that hinged on one line from her husband she "can't unhear." After October 7th, Alyssa lost a book deal, got labeled part of a literary boycott, and co-founded Artists Against Antisemitism instead of going quiet. Her new book, White Blonde Jew, is what she wrote instead.   In this episode:   (02:00) Growing up one of the only Jews in Tulsa — and the classmate who pointed at her and said, "The Jew took it" (08:55) Chasing financial security after an unstable, alcoholic childhood — tennis scholarship to 3M to spine sales (11:15) The thyroid cancer scare that became her first real "life pivot" (13:33) Picking up a camera as therapy — and building a 14-year photography career from it (15:55) Her advice for anyone raised by an alcoholic parent (18:15) The marriage, and the line from her husband she "can't unhear": "He did not want to have Jewish children" (22:43) The New Southern — accidentally writing the most inclusive design book in the industry (24:45) Her 2021 "light bulb moment" on Israel, BDS, and October 7th (27:00) Losing a book deal 10 days into speaking out — and co-founding Artists Against Antisemitism (29:08) Fighting BDS resolutions in Nashville (31:26) Inside White Blonde Jew — out August 18 (40:15) The Kashariyot, and why being underestimated is a weapon  Quotes "I really allowed my haters to title the book. If it offends you, great, I wrote it for you. And if it doesn't, and you feel seen by it, I also wrote it for you." "Cancer gave me so much more than it took away." "When you get pushed down, you have to double down in the very thing that they don't want you to do." "It was a little bit like digital Ozempic." — on losing friends and followers after speaking out "My skin color would not have insulated me or protected me on October seventh, nor would it have protected me against the Nazis." "This project serves as historical insurance." "You can't create when you're stressed. You can't create when you're in chaos. You can't create when you're in fear." About the book: White Blonde Jew (BenBella Books / Geffen Books) releases August 18 — pre-order now. Three sections, White / Blonde / Jewish, each chapter closing with a book-club discussion prompt.

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About

We're two San Francisco moms who got tired of pretending the obvious isn't obvious. Top 1.5% of podcasts globally not because we play it safe. We ask the questions people are thinking but won't say out loud, on the topics that actually shape how we live: media, politics, culture, parenting, careers and what it means to defend common sense in a state that often ignores reality. We're two women who've earned our opinions through life, careers, raising kids and educating ourselves, Expect ideas that challenge what you think you know. Conversations that don't wrap up neatly. And the occasional moment where one of us changes our mind on air, because that's what actually curious people do. Being "in the middle" isn't about being passive. It's about being grounded enough to question everything, open enough to learn from anywhere, and brave enough to push beyond comfortable assumptions. Expect conversations that challenge, entertain, and push you toward a more thoughtful, and wildly better life. Follow us on Instagram @thecuriousmiddlepod or reach out at thecuriousmiddlepod@gmail.com

Information

  • Creator
    Polina & Yelena
  • Years Active
    2015 - 2026
  • Episodes
    169
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Show Website
    The Curious Middle

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