Dad, Did We Just Break America?

The Ribotsky Institute
  • 5.0 (5)
  • Politics

What started out as dinner table conversation; part debate, part disbelief, turned into an ongoing attempt to make sense of the moment we're living in. "Dad, Did We Just Break America?" brings together two people from different generations trying to untangle how we got here - politically, culturally, and generationally, and what it says about where we might be headed. Because we can't be the only ones asking the question.

  1. 1d ago

    Who Really is Ilhan Omar?

    Washington has never suffered from a shortage of political scandals. But federal agents raiding the home of a sitting member of Congress is hardly business as usual. On October 12, Homeland Security investigators searched Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's Washington, D.C., residence as part of a federal criminal investigation into her immigration history. For years, questions surrounding Omar's identity, citizenship, and personal history have fueled controversy. Allegations involving her marriages have been debated, investigated, and dismissed as conspiracy theories. More recently, extraordinary figures in her family's financial disclosures have raised an entirely different set of questions. What's remarkable is how much of this controversy revolves around things that should have straightforward answers. When was she born? Under what circumstances did she become a citizen? How did her husband's businesses come to be valued in the tens of millions of dollars? And how does someone respond to being asked whether she married her own brother with “not to my knowledge”? Now, federal investigators are examining immigration records dating back decades, and the questions that have followed Omar for years have acquired a significance far beyond political debate. The question is no longer just what investigators might uncover about Ilhan Omar. It's how someone could rise to one of the highest offices in the country with so much of her history still in question—and how many people may have known more than they were willing to admit.

  2. Oct 22

    Europe’s on Fire. Apparently, It’s Just a Protest.

    Apparently, setting buildings on fire, smashing storefronts, and looting luxury boutiques is just another form of political expression. This week on Dad, Did We Just Break America?, Skylar and Corey turn their attention to the unrest unfolding across Europe, where the line between peaceful protest and outright criminality seems to be getting increasingly difficult to distinguish. From violent demonstrations to the destruction of historic cities, they question what's driving the chaos, who's responsible, and why so much of it is being explained away. But the conversation goes beyond the protests themselves. Skylar and Corey tackle the uncomfortable questions surrounding immigration, religious extremism, cultural identity, and whether Europe's leaders have the courage to defend their countries' history and values. Drawing on the lessons of two world wars and the rise of Nazi Germany, they examine the danger of ignoring ideological threats, the consequences of political indifference, and why history's warnings are so often recognized only in hindsight. And while the chaos may be unfolding across the Atlantic, they argue that Americans would be foolish to assume it can't happen here. Because oceans don't stop ideologies, and the consequences of looking the other way rarely stay confined to one continent. Europe's on fire. Apparently, it's just a protest.

  3. Oct 15

    Kelly Clarkson and The Great Brooklyn Bird Dispute

    This week, Skylar and Corey tackle one of the more pressing controversies facing America: Kelly Clarkson's inability to purchase a mechanical bird from a Brooklyn magic shop. What should have been a forgettable shopping experience turned into a national spectacle after Clarkson publicly accused a Brooklyn magic shop of treating her poorly when she tried to purchase Molly, a singing and dancing mechanical bird that wasn't for sale. What followed included competing public statements, surveillance footage, accusations of dishonesty, and reported death threats—all over a bird attached to a wall. The sheer absurdity would be funny if the consequences weren't so troubling. But beneath the ridiculousness of a celebrity feuding with a small business over a mechanical bird is a serious conversation about the power of fame, the entitlement that can accompany it, and the consequences of turning a personal grievance into a public crusade. Is every unpleasant interaction worthy of public outrage? Why are millions of people so willing to take up arms over a celebrity's hurt feelings? And when a social media complaint results in threats against ordinary people, where does responsibility begin—and end? And perhaps that's the most troubling part: somewhere along the way, we've become a society where a celebrity not getting her way in a magic shop can provoke more outrage than the people threatening a small business over it.

  4. Oct 8

    OCTOBER 7: THE DAY THAT NEVER ENDED

    Three years after October 7, 2023, Skylar and Corey look back on a day that never truly ended, and a world neither of them sees quite the same way. What began with horror and disbelief became something neither could have anticipated. For Corey, the days following the massacre brought back memories of September 11, but also an extraordinary sense of unity as Jews across the world came together for people they had never met. For Skylar, who was a college student at the time, the horror of October 7 was followed by another kind of heartbreak: watching classmates, friends, and strangers celebrate and justify atrocities they had witnessed with their own eyes. Before there was even time to grieve, protests erupted, centuries-old blood libels found new life, and antisemitism became increasingly brazen; especially on college campuses, where Jewish students were expected to return to classrooms alongside people who had made their contempt for them unmistakably clear. For Skylar and Corey, October 7 also exposed the limits of what even a parent can protect their child from. The certainty that a father can somehow make everything better gave way to the painful reality that some things are beyond his power to fix. And with that came a fear far greater than anything Corey felt for himself: what it means to be a parent in a world where the horrors of Jewish history no longer feel safely confined to the past. Three years later, the anger has not disappeared. Neither have the questions. How do you reconcile the world you believed you lived in with the one you've come to know? How do you mourn when the people around you refuse to acknowledge what you're mourning? And how do you go back to ordinary life when your understanding of the world, and your place in it, has changed so profoundly? Because three years later, there is still grief. There is still anger. There are lives that will never be the same. But there is also pride, faith, hope, and the unbreakable resolve of a people who have spent centuries refusing to disappear.

  5. Oct 1

    Nothing is What it Seems: Truth, Facts, & An "Altercation" at 35,000 feet

    How did we get to a point where the world seems more willing to condemn the people fighting terrorism than the people responsible for it? There was something almost surreal about watching the United Nations General Assembly this year. The president of Iran stood before the world representing a regime that brutally represses its own people, funds and arms terrorists, threatens Israel’s existence, and then portrayed Iran as the victim. He denied targeting civilians. The room listened. Benjamin Netanyahu took the same podium. Delegates walked out. The problem is not disagreement. The problem is what happens when facts become optional. At some point, “context” stops being a way to understand what happened and becomes a way to explain away what is directly in front of us. The United Nations was created in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust, after six million Jews were systematically massacred, while the world catastrophically failed to protect them. It was supposed to represent a promise that the world would never allow something like that to happen again... to anyone. More than eighty years later, the world that once failed to protect the Jews has somehow found itself walking out on them. There is an ugliness to that irony that should be impossible to miss. And perhaps an even uglier question underneath it: when did refusing to call something what it is become a virtue? A co-pilot stabbed his captain at 35,000 feet and attempted to hijack a commercial flight bound for Tel Aviv. Israeli passengers fought their way into the cockpit and stopped him. The headlines called it an “altercation.” A “brawl.” A “fight.” A “struggle.” Words so absurdly small for what happened that they almost tell a story of their own. At some point, the question isn’t whether we need more context. It’s why we have become so reluctant to call evil by its name.

  6. Sep 24

    Welcome to New York: Feel Safe Yet?

    New York City is having one of its safest years on record—or at least, that’s what the numbers say. Murders are at historic lows. Shootings are down. Major crime is falling. And yet, another stabbing, assault, or seemingly random act of violence seems to make the news almost every day. So, what exactly are the numbers measuring? This week, we talk about the New York we actually live in; and why it feels so far removed from the one described in the statistics. We get into what’s changed, why police seem increasingly unable to do the job we expect them to do, and a criminal justice system that often seems more concerned with what happens to the accused than what happens to everyone around them. At the center of the conversation is a harder question: how do we protect the constitutional rights of the accused without losing sight of the rights of everyone around them? Due process matters. So does being able to walk to the deli at 10:30 at night without wondering whether you’ll make it home. The statistics may say New York is safer. We’re not convinced.

  7. Sep 17

    MACKLEMORE “SAME LOVE,” SELECTIVE HATE?

    Macklemore has never been shy about mixing music and politics. But after bringing his pro-Palestinian activism to the stage during Ed Sheeran’s stadium tour, the fallout quickly became bigger than the performance itself. What happened at MetLife ignited a much larger fight over Macklemore’s activism, accusations of antisemitism, and where political expression ends and something more troubling begins. Soon, venues were refusing to host him, Macklemore was off the remaining U.S. dates, and other artists were walking away in solidarity. This week, we look beyond the headlines, and ask: Where is the line between political activism and antisemitism? Is removing an artist from a stage censorship, or a consequence of what they choose to say on it? And for an artist who once built one of his biggest songs around a message of tolerance and “Same Love,” does that same standard extend to everyone?

  8. Sep 11

    9/11: Never Forget. But Did We?

    Twenty-five years after September 11, America remembers a day that changed the country forever. But as the generation that lived through it gets older, a new one is growing up with no memory of the attacks—and, in too many cases, without a clear understanding of what actually happened. In this episode, we talk about the growing disconnect between 9/11 as lived history and 9/11 as it is taught today: who carried out the attacks, why the truth matters, what gets lost when history is softened or rewritten, and why nearly 3,000 murdered Americans cannot become a footnote in someone else’s narrative. Corey remembers the fear, grief, and unity that followed September 11—and how close his own life came to intersecting with that morning. Skylar, born after the attacks, explains why remembering a day she never witnessed still feels like a responsibility. September 11 showed America the very worst of humanity — and some of the very best of itself. Twenty-five years later, the obligation is simple: remember the dead, honor the people who ran toward danger, and tell the next generation the truth about what happened. Never forget. Photo credit: “Tribute in Light” by Anthony Quintano, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0). Cropped and edited.

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

What started out as dinner table conversation; part debate, part disbelief, turned into an ongoing attempt to make sense of the moment we're living in. "Dad, Did We Just Break America?" brings together two people from different generations trying to untangle how we got here - politically, culturally, and generationally, and what it says about where we might be headed. Because we can't be the only ones asking the question.

Information

  • Creator
    The Ribotsky Institute
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    45
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Ribotsky Institute
  • Show Website
    Dad, Did We Just Break America?