316 episodes

A feed from the Slate podcast network featuring episodes with enlightening conversations, opposing views, and plenty of healthy disputes. You'll get a curated selection of episodes from programs like What Next, The Waves, and the Political Gabfest, with deep discussions that go beyond point-counterpoint and shed light on the issues that matter most.

Slate Debates Slate Podcasts

    • Society & Culture
    • 4.6 • 2.8K Ratings

Listen on Apple Podcasts
Requires subscription and macOS 11.4 or higher

A feed from the Slate podcast network featuring episodes with enlightening conversations, opposing views, and plenty of healthy disputes. You'll get a curated selection of episodes from programs like What Next, The Waves, and the Political Gabfest, with deep discussions that go beyond point-counterpoint and shed light on the issues that matter most.

Listen on Apple Podcasts
Requires subscription and macOS 11.4 or higher

    Anti-Vaxers Aren’t Just Extremists

    Anti-Vaxers Aren’t Just Extremists

    On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: getting the jab.

    Vaccine hesitancy is not a new phenomenon in the United States, but it is a growing one… particularly in conservative Evangelical circles. 

    At the same time, there’s a lot for all of us to dislike, and distrust, about the American healthcare system. So, for those of us who have a hard time working up any sympathy for the vaccine-skeptical crowd, it’s worth asking: what if this is a symptom of the problems we’re all experiencing?

    Johanna Richlin of the University of Maine joins us.

    If you have thoughts you want to share, or an idea for a topic we should tackle, you can email the show: hearmeout@slate.com

    Podcast production by Maura Currie.

    You can skip all the ads in Hear Me Out by joining Slate Plus! Sign up now at slate.com/hearmeoutplus for just $15 a month for your first three months.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    • 35 min
    You Probably Don’t Need Therapy Forever

    You Probably Don’t Need Therapy Forever

    On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: talk it out.

    Talking about therapy isn’t taboo anymore — and that’s great, because everyone deserves help when they need it. The question is… do you really need it?

    Dr. Richard Friedman of Weill Cornell Medicine wrote a piece for The Atlantic last month, headlined ”Plenty of People Could Quit Therapy Right Now.” So why is that the case… and what are the consequences of getting therapy when you don’t need it? 

    Dr. Friedman joins us to discuss.

    If you have thoughts you want to share, or an idea for a topic we should tackle, you can email the show: hearmeout@slate.com

    Podcast production by Maura Currie.

    You can skip all the ads in Hear Me Out by joining Slate Plus! Sign up now at slate.com/hearmeoutplus for just $15 a month for your first three months.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    • 44 min
    Purity Is Poisoning the Progressive Movement

    Purity Is Poisoning the Progressive Movement

    On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: the purity test.

    Purity, in political science, doesn’t have anything to do with morality. It has to do with whether your policy aligns with your principles. 

    From “Bernie Bros” to the uncommitted vote against Biden, we’ve seen progressives protect ideological purity… and punish stances that don’t align. An all-or-nothing stance on issues like universal healthcare and student loan forgiveness might sound appealing to voters. But does it doom progress, practically, if an increment isn’t good enough?

    Shaniqua McClendon, VP of Politics for Crooked Media, joins us to argue against progressive purity politics.

    If you have thoughts you want to share, or an idea for a topic we should tackle, you can email the show: hearmeout@slate.com

    Podcast production by Maura Currie.

    You can skip all the ads in Hear Me Out by joining Slate Plus! Sign up now at slate.com/hearmeoutplus for just $15 a month for your first three months.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    • 37 min
    The House Should Elect The President

    The House Should Elect The President

    On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… Parliamentary America?

    It’s Super Tuesday, and the process by which we elect a president is on full display (warts and all). Americans on both sides of the aisle agree that the electoral college has to go. But what should replace it? 

    Maxwell Stearns, author of Parliamentary America: The Least Radical Means of Radically Repairing Our Broken Democracy (out 3/5/2024), presents his case for restructuring American government to look more like a parliamentary system — and, in the process, to take presidential elections out of the hands of voters and conventions and into the hands of elected coalitions.


    If you have thoughts you want to share, or an idea for a topic we should tackle, you can email the show: hearmeout@slate.com

    Podcast production by Maura Currie.

    You can skip all the ads in Hear Me Out by joining Slate Plus! Sign up now at slate.com/hearmeoutplus for just $15 a month for your first three months.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    • 44 min
    Horse Race Journalism Is Good, Actually

    Horse Race Journalism Is Good, Actually

    On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… are journalists killing democracy?

    Mainstream news outlets are starting to move away from horse race election coverage and toward policy substance. Though it’s a slow change, it’s heralded by much of the news industry as a good one. But what if the horse race was never really the problem? 

    Journalist and writer Chris Cillizza joins us to defend the horse race.


    If you have thoughts you want to share, or an idea for a topic we should tackle, you can email the show: hearmeout@slate.com

    Podcast production by Maura Currie.

    You can skip all the ads in Hear Me Out by joining Slate Plus! Sign up now at slate.com/hearmeoutplus for just $15 a month for your first three months.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    • 44 min
    Un-Cancel Woodrow Wilson

    Un-Cancel Woodrow Wilson

    On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… making (fourteen) points. 

    A piece in this month’s issue of the Atlantic argues that it’s time to re-evaluate the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. President Wilson was indisputably a productive president — but he’s now reviled by the left as a racist and the right as a tyrant. Is there room to meet somewhere in the middle?

    David Frum of the Atlantic joins us to argue that, yes: it’s time to un-cancel Woodrow Wilson. 

    If you have thoughts you want to share, or an idea for a topic we should tackle, you can email the show: hearmeout@slate.com

    Podcast production by Maura Currie.

    You can skip all the ads in Hear Me Out by joining Slate Plus! Sign up now at slate.com/hearmeoutplus for just $15 a month for your first three months.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    • 44 min

Customer Reviews

4.6 out of 5
2.8K Ratings

2.8K Ratings

Tulip.be ,

Podcast on mental health

Waow ! This was an outstanding exchange. Not sure it is about agreeing or disagreeing but embracing the fact that the human mind is unique and that we are creatures of nuance and contradictions that need to be handled so that we can move forward. In the US, we like black & white solutions and placing people and their issues into boxes. It comes as reassuring but real life and real people - whether psychotic or not - are always evolving shades of grey.

Elbowpatched ,

This podcast is awful!

I don’t even know where to begin, but Celeste Headlee is such an absurd arguer. Almost all of my positions are very liberal, and I come into every debate on Celeste’s side, but she argues them so poorly and with terrible tactics like cutting off the guests for an ad breaks but only after she gets the last word in, making blatantly false claims, and throwing in unrelated tangents that the guests don’t have a chance to defend. I almost always sympathize much more with the guests by the end of the show. I usually still don't agree with their opinions, but I feel like they at least made an honest effort. Celeste makes such poor and unfair arguments. I think most of the topics are still very important to debate, but not with her as the host. However, I think I get even angrier at the topics she has that should not even be in this feed. Are cruises cool? Christmas should be tacky? These are 100% debates of people’s preferences with no larger policy or society implications. Instead they just makes me hate her more. This is not a good approach to having real debates where people learn from each other. This is just another example of a self important liberal blowhard giving those of us with a sincere desire to understand different opinions a bad name.

Bilas Peles ,

Great content, too much bunched up together though

I have a deep interest in languages and have been enjoying John McWorters’ podcast Lexicon Valley on Booksmart Studio so was happy to find his earlier linguistic musings here as well as the archive of equally linguistically interesting older (2012 to around 2017) episodes of Lexicon Valley by a couple of other linguists.

My gripe is that Slate has thrown these non-political linguistic podcasts together with later commentaries about US partisan issues. Why not separate them into different feeds? People interested in linguistics may or, especially if non-Amrricans, may not be interested in American political issues. And people interested in contemporary American issues may not be particularly interested in linguistics and language issues. Moreover, the title with “debate” is incorrect. The two linguists are not debating each other. They are discussing certain questions— and usually seem to agree with each other. No debates.

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