The Ezra Klein Show Vox

Donald Trump has built his presidency on top of racial dog whistles, xenophobic rhetoric, and anti-immigrant policies. A core belief among liberals was that this strategy would help Trump with whites but almost certainly hurt him with Latinos, and people of color more broadly. Then the opposite happened: In 2020, Trump gained considerable support among voters of color, particularly Latinos, relative to the 2016 election.
What happened?
Ian Haney López is a legal scholar at UC Berkeley and the author of Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class. In 2017, he partnered with the leftist think tank Demos and various polling groups to better understand the effectiveness of racial dog whistles and how Democrats could combat them. The results were sobering, even to the experts who commissioned the polls. As Haney López documented in his 2019 book Merge Left: Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections, and Saving America, 60 percent of Latinos and 54 percent of African Americans have found Trumpian dog-whistle messages convincing, right in step with the 61 percent of whites who did.
This conversation is about the complicated reality of racial politics in America. It’s about the fact that the electorate isn’t divided into racists and non-racists — most voters, including Trump supporters, toggle back and forth between racially reactionary and racially egalitarian views — and a more robust theory of how race operates in American politics that follows. And it’s about the kinds of race- and class-conscious messages that Haney López’s research suggests work best with voters of all backgrounds.

Book recommendations:
Racial Realignment:The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932–1965 by Eric Schickler
The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantú
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah 


Credits:
Producer/Audio engineer - Jeff Geld
Researcher - Roge Karma

Please consider making a contribution to Vox to support this show: bit.ly/givepodcasts Your support will help us keep having ambitious conversations about big ideas.

New to the show? Want to check out Ezra’s favorite episodes? Check out the Ezra Klein Show beginner’s guide (http://bit.ly/EKSbeginhere)

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I’ve been fascinated by the sharp change in how the tech platforms — particularly the big social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, and to some degree, YouTube — are acting since the 2020 election. It’s become routine to see President Donald Trump’s posts tagged as misinformation or worse. Facebook is limiting the reach of hyper-viral stories it can’t verify, Twitter is trying to guard against becoming a dumping ground for foreign actors trying to launder stolen secrets, and conservatives are abandoning both platforms en masse, hoping to find more congenial terrain on newcomers like Parler. 

So is Big Tech finally doing its job, and taking some responsibility for its role in our democracy? Are they overreaching, and becoming the biased censors so many feared? Are they simply so big that anything they do is in some way the wrong choice, and antitrust is the only solution?

Casey Newton has spent the past decade covering Silicon Valley for The Verge, CNET, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Today, he writes Platformer, a daily blog and newsletter focused primarily on the relationship between the big tech platforms and democracy. He’s my go-to for questions like these, and so I went to him. We discuss: 


The lessons the platforms learned the hard way in 2016 

What Facebook and Twitter got right -- and wrong -- this election cycle

The dissonance between Facebook and Twitter’s progressive employees and broader user base 

The problem of trying to be neutral when both sides really aren’t the same

Whether Facebook and Twitter handled the Hunter Biden New York Post story correctly

Whether major tech platforms are biased against conservatives

Why YouTube has been so much less aggressive than Facebook and Twitter on moderation

The recent rise of Parler, the Twitter alternative that conservatives are flocking to by the hundreds of thousands 

What Biden administration’s tech agenda could look like 

The Section 230 provision at the heart of the debate over content moderation 

How the big tech CEOs differ from each other ideologically 

The problems that antitrust enforcement against tech platforms will solve -- and the problems it won’t solve 


And much more

Book recommendations:
Facebook: The Inside Story by Steven Levy
No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram by Sarah Frier
Caste by Isabel Wilkerson 

Credits:
Producer/Audio engineer - Jeff Geld
Researcher - Roge Karma

Please consider making a contribution to Vox to support this show: bit.ly/givepodcasts Your support will help us keep having ambitious conversations about big ideas.

New to the show? Want to check out Ezra’s favorite episodes? Check out the Ezra Klein Show beginner’s guide (http://bit.ly/EKSbeginhere)

Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.com
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If the past week — and past four years — have proven anything, it’s that we are not as different as we believed. No longer is the question, "Can it happen here?" It’s happening already. As this podcast goes to air, the current president of the United States is attempting what — if it occurred in any other country — we would call an anti-democratic coup.
This coup attempt will probably not work. But the fact that it is being carried out farcically, erratically, ineffectively does not mean it is not happening, or that it will not have consequences.
The most alarming aspect of all this is not Donald Trump’s anti-democratic antics; it’s the speed at which Republican elites have consolidated support around him. Some politicians, like Lindsey Graham, have wholeheartedly endorsed Trump's claims. On Monday, Graham said that Trump should not concede the election and that "Republicans win because of our ideas and we lose elections because [Democrats] cheat." Others — including Mike Pence, Marco Rubio, and Josh Hawley — have signaled solidarity with the president, while not quite endorsing his conspiracies. The message is clear: When faced with the choice of loyalty to Trump and the legitimacy of the democratic process, Republicans are more than willing to throw democracy under the bus.
Anne Applebaum is a staff writer for the Atlantic, a senior fellow of international affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and most recently the author of Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism. In it, Applebaum, once comfortable in center-right elite circles, grapples with why so many of her contemporaries across the globe — including right here in America — have abandoned liberal democracy in favor of strongman cults and autocratic regimes. We discuss: 

How the media would be covering Trump’s actions — and the GOP’s enabling of him — if this were taking place in a foreign country 

How the last four years have shattered the belief in the idea that America is uniquely resistant to the lure of authoritarianism

Why most politicians under increasingly autocratic regimes choose to collaborate with the regime, and why a select few choose to dissent 

The “apocalyptic pessimism” and “cultural despair” that undergirds the worldview of Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters 

How Lindsey Graham went from outspoken Trump critic to one of Trump’s most vocal supporters in the US Senate 

Why the Republican Party ultimately took the path of Sarah Palin and Donald Trump, not John McCain and Mitt Romney

Why what ultimately separates Never Trumpers from Trump enablers is a steadfast commitment to American democracy

What we can expect to happen if and when a much more competent, capable demagogue emerges in Trump’s place

Whether the Biden administration can lower the temperature of American politics from its fever pitch 

The one thing that gives me a glimmer of hope about the Biden presidency 

 
References:
"Trump is attempting a coup in plain sight" by Ezra Klein, Vox
"History Will Judge the Complicit" by Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic
“Laura Ingraham’s Descent Into Despair” by Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic
My EK Show conversation with Marilynne Robinson

Book recommendations:
Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner 
All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren 
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson 



Credits:
Producer/Audio engineer - Jeff Geld
Researcher - Roge Karma

Please consider making a contribution to Vox to support this show: bit.ly/givepodcasts Your support will help us keep having ambitious conversations about big ideas.

New to the show? Want to check out Ezra’s favorite episodes? Check out the Ezra Klein Show beginner’s guide (http://bit.ly/EKSbeginhere)

Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.com
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Joe Biden will be the 46th president of the United States. And — counting the votes of people, not just land — it won’t be close. If current trends hold, Biden will see a larger popular vote margin than Hillary Clinton in 2016, Barack Obama in 2012, or George W. Bush in 2004. 

Commentary over the past few days has focused on the man he beat, and the incompetent coup being attempted in plain sight. But I want to focus on Biden, who is one of the more misunderstood figures in American politics — including, at times, by me. 

Biden has been in national politics for almost five decades. And so, people tend to understand the era of Joe Biden they encountered first — the centrist Senate dealmaker, or the overconfident foreign policy hand, or the meme-able vice president, or the grieving, grave father. But Biden, more so than most politicians, changes. And it’s how he changes, and why, that’s key to understanding his campaign, and his likely presidency. 

Evan Osnos is a staff writer at the New Yorker and the author of Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now, a sharp biography of the next president. Osnos and I discuss: 


The mystery of Joe Biden’s first political campaign

Why the Joe Biden who entered the Senate in 1980 is such a radically different person than the Joe Biden who ran for president in 2020 

What the Senate taught Biden

Biden’s ideological flexibility, and the theory of politics that drives it

The differences between Biden’s three presidential campaigns -- and what they reveal about how he’s grown

The way Biden views disagreement, and why that’s so central to his understanding of politics 

How Biden’s relationship with Barack Obama changed his approach to governance

The similarities — and differences — between how Obama and Biden think about politics 

Why Biden is “the perfect weathervane for where the center of the Democratic party is.” 

Biden’s relationship with Mitch McConnell

How Biden thinks about foreign policy

Why Biden has become more skeptical about the use of American military might in the last decade 


And much more.

Book recommendations:
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
The Field of Blood by Joanne B. Freeman
The Ideas That Made America by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen 

Credits:
Producer/Audio engineer - Jeff Geld
Researcher - Roge Karma

Please consider making a contribution to Vox to support this show: bit.ly/givepodcasts Your support will help us keep having ambitious conversations about big ideas.

New to the show? Want to check out Ezra’s favorite episodes? Check out the Ezra Klein Show beginner’s guide (http://bit.ly/EKSbeginhere)

Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is not the post-election breakdown I expected to have today, but it's definitely the one that I needed.
Chris Hayes is the host of the MSNBC primetime show, “All In," and the podcast "Why is this Happening? With Chris Hayes." He's also one of the most insightful political analysts I know. We discuss the purpose of polling, the problems of polling-driven coverage, the epistemic fog of the results, the strategy behind Trump's inroads with Latino voters, how Democrats might have won the presidency but lost democracy, what happens if Trump refuses to accept the election results, and much more.
More than anything else, this conversation has helped me make sense of everything that's happened in the last 24 hours. I think it will do the same for you.

References:
"How Democrats Lost the Cuban Vote and Jeopardized Their Future in Florida." by Noah Lanard, Mother Jones
Chris's podcast on "Understanding the 'Latino Vote' with Chuck Rocha"

Credits:
Producer/Audio engineer - Jeff Geld
Researcher - Roge Karma

Please consider making a contribution to Vox to support this show: bit.ly/givepodcasts Your support will help us keep having ambitious conversations about big ideas.

New to the show? Want to check out Ezra’s favorite episodes? Check out the Ezra Klein Show beginner’s guide (http://bit.ly/EKSbeginhere)

Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re one day away from the election, though who-knows-how-many days from finding out who won it. But there’s more at stake than whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden will be our next president. 

There is a fight behind the fight, a battle that will decide all the others. America is not a democracy, and Republicans want to keep it that way. America is not a democracy, and Democrats — at least some Democrats — want to make it more of one. 

Democracy has, in particular, become Stacey Abrams’ animating mission. In 2018, Abrams lost the George gubernatorial race by a razor-thin margin amidst rampant voter suppression. Since then, as the founder of Fair Fight, she’s turned her attention to the deeper fight, the one that sets the rules under which elections like her plays out. In her recent book, Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America, Abrams makes the case that the fight over democracy is the central question of our politics right now with more power and clarity than any other politician I’ve heard. 

In my view, Abrams is right. And so she’s exactly the person to hear from on the eve of the election. We discuss the GOP’s turn against “rank democracy,” the role of demographic change, how Republicans have cemented minority rule across America political institutions, why we potentially face a “doom loop of democracy,” the changing face of voter suppression in the 21st century, what a system that actually wanted people to vote would look like, why democracy and economic equality are inextricably linked, and much more.

One thing to note in this conversation: You won't hear Trump's name all that much. It's the Republican Party, not just Trump, that has turned against democracy, and that is implementing the turn against democracy. And it's the Democratic Party, not just Joe Biden, that will have to decide whether democracy is worth protecting, and achieving. Democracy is on the ballot in 2020 and beyond, but it's not just on the presidential voting line.

References:
"The fight is for democracy." Ezra Klein, Vox
The Dictator's Learning Curve by William Dobson
My previous EK Show conversation with Abrams

Book recommendations:
Ida by Paula Giddings 
Charged by Emily Bazelon 
The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead 
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