Alua Arthur (Death Doula) joins host Ron Steslow to discuss the importance of embracing mortality, talking about death, and her new book, Briefly Perfectly Human: Making an Authentic Life and Getting Real About the End.
The Epstein files were supposed to bring clarity—what happened, who knew, and who was protected. Instead, the slow drip of disclosures, redactions, and missing records has deepened a broader crisis: collapsing trust in institutions in the U.S. and beyond. Guest Host Hagar Chemali and Mike Madrid (Author of The Latino Century) unpack what the files reveal (and what they still don’t), why the rollout feels like a coverup even to Trump’s base, and why the fallout is landing harder overseas than at home.
In part two of this series, Ron talks to Rebecca Roiphe (Joseph Solomon Distinguished Professor of Law at New York Law School) about critical legal studies, the attacks on our understanding of what the law is and how it should function from across the political spectrum. They focus on how the chilling actions of the Trump Administration stem from a belief that law is merely an instrument of power, and why that belief is corrosive—to the everyday practice of law and to liberal democracy itself.
What if the “next big thing” out of Silicon Valley isn’t an app—it’s a political project engineered to bypass democracy? In this episode, Guest Host Mike Madrid sits down with Gil Durán (journalist and author of “The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and The War on Democracy”) who’s been tracking an increasingly explicit ideology emerging from venture capital and tech power circles that treats democratic governance as a constraint to be engineered around. Gil explains how what started as odd local political behavior in San Francisco and San Jose led him to a deeper story: a network of ideas, money, and influence reaching all the way to international politics. He argues the threat isn’t a classic “tanks in the streets” coup. It’s a quieter capture: narrative control, unlimited spending, regulatory rollback, and a worldview that positions billionaires as the rightful architects of a post-national, post-democratic future. Along the way, he breaks down the intellectual roots of the “network state” movement, why J.D. Vance matters in this story, and how tech-funded “moderation” in deep-blue places can function as a parallel political brand—Democratic in label, Republican in policy, and billionaire-aligned in practice.
In this two-part episode, Ron talks to Rebecca Roiphe (Joseph Solomon Distinguished Professor of Law at New York Law School) about critical legal studies, the attacks on our understanding of what the law is and how it should function from across the political spectrum.
Americans largely agree on two immigration goals: securing the border and deporting people here illegally who have committed violent crimes. But inside the United States, enforcement has become a political flashpoint. Guest Host Susan Del Percio is joined by Jeh Johnson (Former Secretary of Homeland Security) to discuss why border crossings can fall quickly based on deterrence and perception and why interior enforcement works very differently.
Are there tendencies within Christian tradition that put some versions of the faith in tension with core principles of democracy? What is “Authoritarian Reactionary Christianity?” How can a pluralistic society guard against the rise of political figures—including Donald Trump—aiming to weaponize this phenomenon? In this two-part conversation, we dive into these provocative questions with the Rev. Prof. David Gushee (Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University) and discuss his book Defending Democracy From Its Christian Enemies.
Guest Host Lucy Caldwell and Dmitri Mehlhorn (Founder, The Atoll Society) have a conversation about political risk, institutional blind spots, and what scenario-based thinking reveals that conventional analysis often misses.
Are there tendencies within Christian tradition that put some versions of the faith in tension with core principles of democracy? What is “Authoritarian Reactionary Christianity?” How can a pluralistic society guard against the rise of political figures—including Donald Trump—aiming to weaponize this phenomenon? In this two-part conversation, Ron Steslow and Rev. Prof. David Gushee (Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University) discuss these provocative questions and more as they dive into David’s book, Defending Democracy From Its Christian Enemies.
As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, Guest Host Mike Madrid and Susan Del Percio (MS NOW political analyst and crisis communications expert) grapple with a central question: when Americans say “this isn’t who we are,” are we describing an aspiration—or denying a reality?
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