Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast MSNBC

While mental illness and substance abuse can be contributing factors for homelessness, lack of affordable housing is actually the number one culprit, according to California YIMBY (YIMBY stands for Yes In My Back Yard), a pro-housing community advocacy movement. Amid opposition from groups like Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY), what can be done to reverse this growing shortage? Ned Resnikoff, a veteran journalist and former policy manager, recently joined California YIMBY as policy director. Based in Berkeley, he focuses on expanding YIMBY’s long-range advocacy goals and operations. Resnikoff joins WITHpod to discuss the homelessness crisis in California and beyond, the interconnectedness between housing and climate change, why he says equitably and sustainably expanding access to affordable homes is key, and more.

More incidents of road rage. People are now smoking on the subway. Early 2021 saw the highest number of “unruly passenger” incidents in airline history, according to the FAA. It seems people are acting stranger than ever. But what’s behind all of this? Olga Khazan, a staff writer at The Atlantic, wrote about this very topic. She joins WITHpod to discuss the role that the pandemic has played in increased disruptive behavior, why mental health issues aren’t the only factor to blame, and more.

Trigger warning: This episode contains mentions of sexual and physical abuse.
For nearly the past year, Canadian journalist Connie Walker has been working on an investigation into her father's experience at St. Michael's Indian Residential School in Canada. The story is told as part of “Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s,” a series available exclusively on Spotify. Her investigation began when she heard a story about her late father who was a police officer in the 70s. He pulled over a car that was swerving, and when he got to the window, he recognized the driver as a priest who he believed had abused him at residential school. He pulled the priest out of the car and beat him up on the side of the road. Over the years, thousands of students have come forward about their experiences at residential schools. Walker joins WITHpod to discuss the process of telling this deeply personal story of intergenerational trauma, her motivation for bringing issues affecting indigenous people to light and how this dark part of Canada’s past hasn’t been completely reconciled. The Canadian government has apologized and set aside millions in reparations, along with a new child education and welfare system in response to abuse.

“Identity politics” polarizes discourse about virtually every aspect of contemporary political life. But what exactly is it, and what role does “elite capture” play in how it has come to be understood? Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò is a philosopher, assistant professor at Georgetown University and author of several books, including “Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)” and “Reconsidering Reparations,” both of which were published in 2022. He joins WITHpod to discuss the origins of identity politics, the problems with what he calls deference politics, and how elites have co-opted the language of social justice to their own ends.

There are more guns than cars in the United States. And studies show that gun sales go up following mass shootings. We had a different episode planned for this week, but given the marked rise in gun violence, we pivoted. This week’s guest spent 30 years as a leader at one of America’s most popular gun companies. Ryan Busse is a former firearms executive at Kimber America and is author of “Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America,” in which he talks about how America’s multibillion-dollar gun industry has profited from and fueled cultural divisions. Busse joins WITHpod to discuss how we got to this point, why he chose to leave the industry, what he observed behind closed doors at NRA meetings, how political division fuels extremism and what the failure to enact stricter legislation means for the future of our democracy.

Freedom House’s annual Freedom in the World survey notes that liberalism has rapidly declined each year for the last 16 years. And its precipitous downturn is more evident now than ever amid waning respect for individual rights, increased growth of autocracies and most recently in the seismic Russian invasion of Ukraine. Decades ago, political scientist and professor Francis Fukuyama was one of the preeminent scholars to predict the marked impending fall of liberal societies. He serves as a senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and is a bestselling author of numerous books, including one published in March 2022 aptly titled, “Liberalism and Its Discontents.” He joins WITHpod to discuss why liberalism doesn’t always live up to its own principles, challenges from the right and the left and why our democracy will be under continued threat without a revitalized approach to its core tenets.