In the Meanwhile

In this week's episode of In The Meanwhile, we do that uncomfortable, but necessary, thing where the abstractions of war fall away, and the human cost steps all the way into the room. Nora and Marcus sit down with Gina Baskin, fresh out of the military and bringing a level of clarity that cuts clean through the usual talking points. She unpacks what war actually asks of the people sent to fight it...

This week, Nora and Marcus sit down with Iranian American democracy advocate Nilu Jenks for a deeply personal conversation about war, diaspora grief, authoritarianism, and the deadly lie of "liberation" through violence. Drawing from her family's lived experience in Iran and her work for more representative democracy here in the U.S., Jenks brings clarity, grief, and fierce moral vision to a momen...

This week,  Nora and Marcus sit down with author and activist Ijeoma Oluo for a searching conversation about movement work, harm, belonging, and the radical choice to stay. Together, they explore the personal cost of speaking truth, the wounds movements can inflict on their own, and what it means to build the world we long for now—not after revolution, but through the way we live, love, and strugg...

It's been another "37-day week" in America, and In The Meanwhile is doing what it does best: refusing to let the chaos set the agenda. Nora and Marcus open on the latest Washington-fueled disaster (a brand-new war with Iran, because apparently weekends are illegal now), then pivot to the scandal the powerful would love you to forget: the Epstein files, and one name still floating above the consequ...

This week on In The Meanwhile, Marcus and Nora do what America refuses to do: pay attention. They skim the State of the Union so you don't have to, drag the idea of replacing epidemiology with astrology, and ask a very basic question: should our Surgeon General believe in vaccines or just vibes? Then it gets real. While Black History Month goes conspicuously unmentioned in a country built on Black...

We're back with a question that sounds obvious until you say it out loud: if you're picking a North Star… why is "more prisons" anywhere on the map?  This week, Nora and Marcus wade through the usual dystopian fog and land in L.A., where a blockbuster social media trial is screaming in 4K: "Yes. The harm. Is the business model." Not a glitch. Silicon Valley said, "Move fast and break things," and...

This week on In The Meanwhile, Nora and Marcus start with civic sunshine(yes, the Seattle Seahawks are Super Bowl champions), and end in the deep waters of power, protest, and historical memory. From Ernest Jones' "spirit-forward" parade speech to a congressional hearing that felt like defiant incompetence colliding with diabolical intent, they unpack the Bondi–Epstein fallout, elite impunity, spa...

Nora and Marcus are back in Seattle after Marcus's whirlwind reporting trip to Minneapolis, and what he saw there stayed with him. From vigils and memorial sites honoring Alex Pretti and Renee Good, to organizers building "community protection" in real time (warming stations, escorts, carpools, and mutual aid), Marcus reflects on how grief travels across time and distance, and how solidarity can,...

This week on In The Meanwhile, Nora and Marcus do what every emotionally stable person does in a collapsing empire: eat dessert first and deal with the vegetables later. They speed-run the Trump administration's latest clown car pileup: featuring the extremely cursed timeline where even the NRA and Senate Republicans are like, "Hey man… maybe chill?" — before zooming out to a much bigger target on...

This week on In The Meanwhile, Nora and Marcus open with global chaos: tantrum diplomacy, Greenland confusion, and peace-as-a-timeshare, before turning to something far more urgent and close to home: the accelerating cruelty of ICE. Joined by Angelina Godoy, founding director of the UW Center for Human Rights, they unpack how immigration enforcement has slid toward secret-police tactics, how Washi...

This week on In The Meanwhile, Nora and Marcus stare into the news-cycle roulette wheel, where every slot reads "are you kidding me?" and land on America's default coping mechanism: militarism. Press freedom under attack. ICE acting like it's Fallujah. The President threatening war like it's a vibes-based policy choice. Totally normal stuff.   They're joined by Michael McPhearson, a U.S. Army vete...

When politics feels less like a news cycle and more like a full-body stress test, we hit pause and ask the real question: how do we actually defend democracy, right now, with real people? This week, Nora and Marcus sit down with Hannah Fried, CEO and co-founder of All Voting Is Local, for a conversation that's sharp, human, and refreshingly free of abstract hand-wringing. Fried breaks down how ele...

We're dropping this mini-episode as new details emerge around the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent. Nora and Marcus cut through the fog, the spin, and the both-sides media haze to talk plainly about what the video shows, what federal officials are claiming, and why those two things are in direct conflict. They unpack how language is being weaponized to justify lethal force, why...

2025 is finally over! In this week's episode, Nora and Marcus take stock of a year that felt like two cursed decades duct-taped together, and ask the real question: what do we keep? Enter Alex Gallo-Brown, a labor organizer, poet, and the campaign manager behind Seattle's very real, very satisfying David-beats-Goliath mayoral upset. Together, they dig into how a scrappy, people-powered campaign to...

Holiday breather this week, but no skipping the brain food. We're re-airing Marcus's live Town Hall Seattle conversation with historian Heather Cox Richardson, and somehow it's more relevant now than when it was recorded.  Richardson (Democracy Awakening, Letters from an American) zooms out past the personality-of-the-week politics to ask the big, slightly terrifying questions: How do democracies...

This week, Nora and Marcus sit down with Renée Hopkins, CEO of the Alliance for Gun Responsibility, to talk about a grim reality we're supposed to pretend is normal: gun violence that's killing kids every day while politicians offer therapeutic platitudes and zero legislation.  But here's the twist—Hopkins and her team have actually made progress on this issue. While the rest of the country cycles...

This week, Marcus and Nora wade through the Trump awards circus, billionaire media custody battles, and the administration's petty racism before calling on Dr. Ralina Joseph, author of Racial Exhaustion: How to Move Through Racism in the Wake of DEI. Together, they dig into what "racial exhaustion" really is, why the DEI backlash hits so hard, and why everyone wants to tap out of race conversation...

This week, Nora and Marcus trade Thanksgiving horror stories (ER visits, bad Netflix, and weaponized pie) before calling in anthropologist Anand Pandian to ask: why does America live like it's in a permanent bunker, emotionally and architecturally? Drawing from his new book, Something Between Us, they dig into gated communities, monster trucks, white nationalist rallies, COVID denial, and the meta...

It's a special thanksgiving mini-episode! Marcus and Nora sit down to talk about sustaining gratitude, forgiveness, and connection through hard times. Marcus reads a heartfelt tribute to his brother D'Marcus, who died unexpectedly in the fall of 2022. It's a powerful reminder of why showing people we love them and expressing our gratitude for them is necessary, especially in times of turmoil. In a...

This week Nora and Marcus start where all great late-stage-capitalism horror stories begin: Trump's "golden age of affordability," $10 lattes, and a Starbucks bear cup that looks like it escaped from Dollar Tree on work release. From there, they dive into the Epstein files, congressional clownery, and the ongoing revelation that the powerful are exactly as gross as we always suspected. Then histor...

In our 25th episode, Marcus and Nora do what any self-respecting pair of exhausted optimists would do: celebrate by looking back at all the chaos we somehow survived together. They revisit the best, wildest, and most unexpectedly therapeutic moments from In the Meanwhile: the mutual-aid revelations, the metanarrative nerd-outs, the Gaza truth-telling, the working-class rage, the billionaire clowne...

Nora and Marcus are back—running on caffeine, civic duty, and sheer willpower—joined once again by Charles Douglas III of Common Power. Together, they break down the chaos that is election week: why Seattle's slow counts might actually be a good sign, what the polls keep getting it spectacularly wrong, and how to turn that fleeting campaign adrenaline into real, lasting community power. They dive...

It's that time again, when democracy throws on a sequined gown, downs a few too many shots of optimism, and texts us at 2 a.m. like, "Hey stranger… you up to vote?" This week, Nora and Marcus are joined by Charles Douglas III of Common Power to talk about what happens beyond Election Day: the gritty, essential, and deeply human work of keeping people fed, fired up, and politically awake once the c...

What happens when you combine nude bicyclists, dancing frogs, and 7 million patriots saying "hell no"? Joyous resistance. Though MAGA would prefer we forget it, protest is as American as apple pie - from the Boston Tea Party to the summer of 2020. This week, Marcus and Nora are joined by Nadine Bloch - activist artist, puppetista, movement facilitator, and nonviolent organizer - to debrief No King...

Chicago is not a war zone. It's a community under siege, refusing to flinch. This week, Nora and Marcus talk with Chicago Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez about what happens when federal power turns local neighborhoods into testing grounds for fear, and how people fight back with tamale deliveries, neighborhood networks, and unapologetic solidarity. It's a raw, unfiltered look at what resistance actual...