Ad Hoc

If American democracy is a house, the floors are creaky and the roof is close to caving in. But it doesn’t have to be this way.  Matthew and Jack sit down with Danielle Allen, who wants the United States to undergo a “democracy renovation” so that the house that the founders built responds to the needs of the present day. Allen, a political philosopher and scholar of public policy at Harvard,...

Are the Democrats doomed in 2024? Or will the US get a rerun of 2020? In this episode, Jack and Jaden sit down with Jonathan Martin, Politico’s politics bureau chief and senior political columnist, for a discussion about what the future holds for Trump, Biden, America’s political parties, and journalism. Jonathan dons his campaign hat and outlines what Biden must do to defeat Trump in 2024 (h...

Matthew and Jack sit down in Lowell House with Bo Seo, a two-time world champion debater and the author of  Good Arguments: How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard.  Bo is a legend in the debating community. In high school, he led team Australia to victory at the World Schools Debating Championship, and in university, he and his teammate Fanele won the World University Debating Cham...

Years after Justice Harry Blackmun authored the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, his daughter revealed that Blackmun had sought extensive counsel in his family. Evidence also suggests that members of Congress can be swayed by their children. Is this wrong? Should the influence of personal relationships in politics be condemned? Or do those influences play an important, necessary role? Jaden&nbs...

How do the arts shape our political culture and civic life? Professor Adatto, multiple-award-winning Harvard lecturer and author of Picture Perfect: Life in the Age of the Photo Op, sits down with Matthew for a wide-ranging discussion of art and how it affects the way we view political candidates, fight wars, and relate to one another as human beings. How do politicians present themselves before t...

How does Matthew Yglesias see the world, and what does he think about the Biden administration’s messaging, education polarization, and the right way to talk about crime? The author of the popular Substack newsletter Slow Boring and co-founder of Vox sits down with Matthew and Jack to talk about a range of policy issues, to explain how he sees politics differently than when he was a 21-year old Ha...

College admissions are in turmoil. The Supreme Court’s dismantling of race-based affirmative action has ignited a broader discussion about who gets into America’s most selective colleges. Legacy preferences, a long-standing practice in the Ivy League and beyond, have come under fire in a recent investigation. And a groundbreaking paper by a group of economists paints class as a particularly influe...

The Fairness Doctrine—a 20th-century policy of the Federal Communications Commission—required radio and TV broadcasters to present balanced coverage on controversial issues. Since its repeal in 1987, the landscape of news media has drastically changed. Our access to a diverse range of news sources is greater than at any point in history, and yet the allegiance of viewers to their preferred talk sh...

Clarence Thomas and his growing list of ethics scandals have led to calls for Congress to rein in the autonomy of Supreme Court justices. How was the court allowed to stray so far from the ethical path? And what does its intransigence say about its role in American society? Jack delves into America's most untouchable branch of government.

In 1971, Richard Nixon declared a “War on Drugs,” kicking off a nationwide campaign criminalizing drug use and drug users. But today, more than 50 years later, weed is legal in almost half the country, the opioid epidemic has fundamentally changed the way we view addiction, and the War on Drugs is widely viewed as a glaring policy failure. Meanwhile, several countries across the world have legaliz...

Last November, Jack, Jaden, and Matthew sat down to chat with Harvard history professor and award-winning author Jill Lepore. On the day after the midterm elections, they discussed political polarization, the Supreme Court's rightward turn, and Lepore's new study of constitutional paralysis, the Amend Project. Listen to find out if the Constitution will change anytime soon and if Professor Lepore...

As artificial intelligence permeates our lives, it demands answers to political and ethical questions. Does Chat GPT doom education? Does AI belong in policing? In sentencing? In cars? Do we have the political will and know-how to effectively regulate AI? What the heck is Artificial General Intelligence, and how might it transform our world?  *Note*: Jack incorrectly called out Chuck Grassley...

Jaden, Matthew, and Jack discuss politics in sports. Was it a mistake to let Qatar host the FIFA World Cup? Did Wimbledon make the right call in banning the participation of Russians, including star players Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev? Does activism belong in sports, and can it succeed? Are sports a force for unity and social progress, or division and conflict?