The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

Meghan Daum

Author, essayist and journalist Meghan Daum has spent decades giving voice—and bringing nuance, humor and surprising perspectives—to things that lots of people are thinking but are afraid to say out loud. Now, she brings her observations to the realm of conversation. In candid, free-ranging interviews, Meghan talks with artists, entertainers, journalists, scientists, scholars, and anyone else who's willing to do the "unspeakable" and question prevailing cultural and moral assumptions.

  1. 4d ago

    Evan Barker on Nothing Left, the Dark Art of Political Fundraising, and the Fracturing Left

    Meghan's guest this week is Evan Barker, a former progressive operative, fundraising strategist, and author of Nothing Left: Confessions of a Democratic Operative. Meghan was eager to sit down with Evan after following her journey from a working-class Midwestern Obama campaign volunteer to a high-powered consultant who ultimately grew disillusioned with the modern Democratic machine. Together, they pull back the curtain on what actually goes on inside campaign "call time," how wealthy donor advisors hijacked progressive priorities, and why the party's relentless focus on identity politics alienated the very working-class voters it claims to represent.   In this conversation, they dive into: The Brutal Reality of Political "Call Time": What it's like to sit beside candidates for eight hours a day begging billionaires for cash, using psychological tricks, and maneuvering past corporate gatekeepers. How Identity Politics Captured the Donor Base: How wealthy donors, young staffers, and ideological consultants created race-based funding mandates and cultural litmus tests that backfired across the country. Behind the Scenes at the DNC Spectacle: Evan's bizarre encounters chaperoning TikTok influencers, dodging Chicago vasectomy vans, and realizing the party's messaging was completely detached from everyday economic strain. Marrying MAGA Populism with Bernie Sanders Economics: Why a working-class party offering real health reform alongside common-sense border control could dominate American politics—if the two-party monopoly ever allows it.   Grab Evan's book Nothing Left: Confessions of a Democratic Operative and check out her work: 👉 https://www.evanbarker.net   🎙️ About Our Guest Evan Barker is an author, political strategist, and former Democratic campaign operative. Raised in a union family in the Midwest with a rare genetic lung condition, she got her start in politics volunteering for Barack Obama's 2008 campaign before rising through the ranks to direct high-dollar fundraising for progressive candidates across the country. A first-generation college graduate, she served as a director at the campaign consulting firm Left Rising, raising millions of dollars before publicly breaking with the progressive movement. She is the author of Nothing Left: Confessions of a Democratic Operative.   🏡 Housekeeping & Links Connect with Evan Barker: Grab a copy of her book Nothing Left and check out her latest writing. 👉 https://www.evanbarker.net Join The Club: Become a paid subscriber to The Unspeakeasy on Substack to unlock monthly hangouts for Founding Members. 👉 https://www.theunspeakablepodcast.com Unspeakeasy Retreats: Off-the-record, curated conversations in beautiful settings. Registration for this fall's Small Gathering for Big Ideas in New York's Hudson Valley is now open. 👉 https://tinyurl.com/573a9vnu Meghan's Writing Workshops: Featuring a coed summer Zoom course and a 3-night women's writing retreat in upstate NY this fall. Is one right for you? 👉 https://www.theunspeakablepodcast.com The Audiobook: Meghan's most recent book, The Catastrophe Hour, is out now. It's narrated by Meghan herself, in case you still haven't heard enough of her voice. 👉 https://tinyurl.com/ystzc5yz

  2. Jul 29

    Anne Frank Examines Her White Privilege: the Musical feat. PJ Adzima

    After a decade of ideological conformity, is American theater ready to laugh at itself again? This week Meghan is joined by Broadway star, comedian, and producer PJ Adzima, founder of Stage Time NYC and producer of Slam Frank—a mind-melting new musical that reimagines The Diary of Anne Frank through "an intersectional, multi-ethnic, genderqueer, Afro-Latin hip-hop lens." (You read that right.) Slam Frank was conceived by composer and lyricist Andrew Fox, who was stunned and inspired by a Twitter thread in which someone asked, "Did Anne Frank ever examine her white privilege?" (You also read that right.) A play within a play about a progressive theater company twisting itself into knots trying to stay on the right side of history, the show has provoked both walkouts and rave reviews—including in The New York Times. (Again, you read that right.) PJ and Meghan discuss the transformation of the theater world over the past decade, the legacy of The Book of Mormon (in which he starred for many years), the "Dear White American Theater" manifesto, and why he believes great art cannot be created by checking ideological boxes. They also talk about what happens when artists prioritize pleasing everyone over having a point of view—and why live performance still matters in an era dominated by algorithms and social media. PJ was recently added as a guest at The Unspeakeasy's Small Gathering for Big Ideas retreat, Oct 19-21 in Kingston, NY. He joins fellow speakers John McWhorter and Lisa Marchiano. Spaces are filling fast. Info here. Slam Frank opens off-Broadway at New York's Orpheum Theater in September. Guest Bio: PJ Adzima starred on Broadway in The Book of Mormon and is the founder of Stage Time, an underground-style variety theater company and artist collective in New York City. He is also producer of Slam Frank.   🏡 Housekeeping & Links Join The Club: Become a paid subscriber to The Unspeakeasy on Substack to unlock monthly hangouts for Founding Members. 👉 https://www.theunspeakablepodcast.com/ Unspeakeasy Retreats: Off-the-record, curated conversations in beautiful settings. Registration for this fall's Small Gathering for Big Ideas in New York's Hudson Valley is now open. 👉 https://tinyurl.com/573a9vnu Meghan's Writing Workshops: Featuring a coed summer Zoom course and a 3-night women's writing retreat in upstate NY this fall. Is one right for you? 👉 https://www.theunspeakablepodcast.com The Audiobook: Meghan's most recent book, The Catastrophe Hour, is out now. It's narrated by Meghan herself, in case you still haven't heard enough of her voice. 👉 https://tinyurl.com/ystzc5yz

  3. Jul 13

    Jenny Holland's Crusade To Save Culture, One Landmine At a Time

    This (almost) Fourth of July conversation originally appeared on Jenny Holland's channel, Saving Culture From Itself, but it's really a "collab," as they say in the pod-biz. Meghan has talked with Jenny before on YouTube livestreams, but this is the first time they've done an official podcast together. This conversation kept circling back to the kinds of tripwires and trigger points that cause people to tune out ideas before they even hear them—for instance my advocacy for Spencer Pratt in the L.A. mayoral race a few months ago and Jenny's support of . . . Brexit. (She lives in Belfast in Northern Ireland.) We also talked about how Meghan began her career at the tail end of the golden age of magazine journalism, and what it was like watching that world start to shift around 2012-13. Finally, in the spirit of the season, they talked about American exceptionalism, generosity of spirit, and Jenny's husband's 1987 trip to the US as part of the "Children of the Troubles" program — the trip that made him fall in love with this country.   Catch more of Jenny's cultural critiques directly on her YouTube channel: 👉 https://www.youtube.com/@SavingCultureFromItself   🎙️ About Our Guest Jenny Holland is an Irish-American, Gen X writer, critic, and former speechwriter who currently writes and hosts Saving Culture (from itself) on Substack and YouTube. A true media journeyman, her first gig in the news business was working as an assistant at The New York Times in the final years before the digital revolution—an experience she likens to being among the last people to board the lifeboats on the Titanic. Now living in Northern Ireland, she is a frequent contributor to Spiked and writes widely about culture, journalism, and the strange ideological shifts of the modern Western world.   🏡 Housekeeping & Links Join The Club: Become a paid subscriber to The Unspeakeasy on Substack to unlock monthly hangouts for Founding Members and gain access to exclusive live stream recordings. 👉 https://www.theunspeakablepodcast.com/ Unspeakeasy Retreats: Off-the-record, curated conversations in beautiful settings. Registration for this fall's Small Gathering for Big Ideas in New York's Hudson Valley is now open. 👉 https://tinyurl.com/573a9vnu Meghan's Writing Workshops: Featuring a coed summer Zoom course and a 3-night women's writing retreat in upstate NY this fall. Is one right for you? 👉 https://www.theunspeakablepodcast.com The Audiobook: Meghan's most recent book, The Catastrophe Hour, is out now. It's narrated by Meghan herself, in case you still haven't heard enough of her voice. 👉 https://tinyurl.com/ystzc5yz

  4. Jun 30

    Making Jungian Sense of the World, with Lisa Marchiano

    Meghan's guest this week is Lisa Marchiano—Jungian analyst, author, and co-host of the popular podcast This Jungian Life. She's long been intrigued by Carl Jung's ideas but also found them somewhat elusive. So she asked Lisa to help me understand why Jung resonates so deeply with so many people and why his work feels especially relevant today. They discuss archetypes, the shadow, synchronicity, Jung's break with Freud, and how Jungian psychology can help us make sense of political polarization, ideology, loneliness, and our search for meaning in an increasingly fractured culture. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can continue it in person! Lisa will join us this October at The Unspeakeasy's second annual Small Gathering for Big Ideas in Kingston, New York (October 19–21), alongside John McWhorter. Learn more at theunspeakeasy.com/retreats.   Guest Bio: Lisa Marchiano is an award-winning author, certified Jungian analyst, and co-host of the popular depth psychology podcast This Jungian Life, which has garnered more than 10 million downloads. The author of several acclaimed books that draw on the healing wisdom of fairy tales, Lisa holds degrees from Brown University, Columbia University, and New York University, trained at the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts, and lectures and leads workshops internationally on Jungian psychology and personal growth.

  5. Jun 17

    Judy Blume Got It Right: Mark Oppenheimer on his new biography of the legendary author

    Mark Oppenheimer spent decades thinking about Judy Blume before finally writing her biography — and the result is a book that is a serious inquiry into Blume's books, her personal story, and social and cultural dynamics of the 80-plus years in which she has lived. In this conversation, we talk about what it meant to be a boy who loved Judy Blume, why realist fiction for young people has largely given way to fantasy, and how Blume's work stirred up controversy even though she never courted it herself. Paying subscribers to The Unspeakeasy on Subtack can hear an extra long version of this conversation. Go to https://www.theunspeakablepodcast.com/subscribe to join or upgrade your subscription.  Guest bio: Mark Oppenheimer is a journalist, academic, and the author of several books including Squirrel Hill, about the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting. His new biography, Judy Blume: A Life, is out now.

  6. May 27

    Los Angeles Mayor's Race: Is Adam Miller the Grownup That Got Away?

    Adam Miller is one of more than a dozen candidates running for mayor of Los Angeles, but unlike some of his rivals, he comes from the worlds of tech and nonprofit management rather than politics. Miller founded the e-learning company Cornerstone and the homelessness prevention nonprofit Better Angels, and says he entered the race because he believes the city's failures — especially around homelessness — are fundamentally operational. In this conversation, Miller explains why encampments persist outside housing facilities, why affordable housing costs have spiraled, why shelters can sit half-empty, and why the city still lacks basic real-time data on homelessness. He also addresses the strange dynamics of a campaign unfolding in an attention economy where reality star Spencer Pratt has emerged as a serious contender. Miller argues that while he and Pratt often identify the same problems, he has the management experience to actually implement solutions. Guest Bio: Adam Miller, a tech entrepreneur and chief executive of the nonprofit Better Angels, is running for mayor of Los Angeles.

  7. May 21

    How Straight Women Became Uncool

    Writer and cultural critic Phoebe Maltz Bovy joins Meghan to discuss her new book, The Last Straight Woman, an exploration of how heterosexual women became suspect — if not pitifully uncool — in progressive culture. They talk about everything from Tumblr-era feminism and the post-#MeToo recalibration of gender politics to the television series Sex and the City and Girls, "photogenic feminism," bachelorette parties at gay bars, late-in-life lesbians, hookup culture, and why admitting you're a "boring straight woman" may now qualify as a radical act. We also revisit the "lesbian chic" era of the 1990s (my personal heyday), the discourse around the viral New Yorker short story Cat Person, the appeal (and limits) of sexual fluidity narratives, and the cultural overlap between straight female culture and gay male sensibilities. Bonus: They switched gears in the last 15 minutes and did a Deep Dive™ into the subject of buying secondhand clothing from online marketplaces such as Poshmark. This portion is available to paying subscribers. To upgrade your subscription, go to https://www.theunspeakablepodcast.com/subscribe. Guest Bio: Phoebe Maltz Bovy is a Toronto-based cultural critic and the author. She is co-host, with Kat Rosenfield, of the Feminine Chaos podcast, Opinion Editor at The Canadian Jewish News, and host of the Canadian Jewish News podcast, The Jewish Angle. She contributes regularly to The Globe and Mail and is the author of The Perils of "Privilege" (St. Martins, 2017). She also runs a Substack called Close-Reading the Reruns with Phoebe Maltz Bovy.

  8. May 5

    Can Spencer Pratt Save Los Angeles?

    Meghan's guest is Spencer Pratt, candidate for Los Angeles mayor. Yes, that Spencer Pratt — the producer-crafted villain from The Hills who later blew a fortune on moldavite crystals and Birkin bags before settling into a quieter life raising a family in Pacific Palisades. That house burned down in the Palisades Fire in January 2025, and what followed was a political awakening that has put him in second place in the June 2 primary. Meghan sat down with him at his burned lot to talk about the fires, the homelessness crisis, the billions in homeless services funding that a federal audit couldn't account for, animal abuse on Skid Row, and why he thinks an outsider with no political debts is the only person who can fix a city that's been broken for decades. This version includes a short introduction. For the full ten-minute introduction with additional context, find the Substack version at theunspeakablepodcast.com.

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About

Author, essayist and journalist Meghan Daum has spent decades giving voice—and bringing nuance, humor and surprising perspectives—to things that lots of people are thinking but are afraid to say out loud. Now, she brings her observations to the realm of conversation. In candid, free-ranging interviews, Meghan talks with artists, entertainers, journalists, scientists, scholars, and anyone else who's willing to do the "unspeakable" and question prevailing cultural and moral assumptions.

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