Half the Answer

Trent and Caitlin talk to their old friend Clay Jackson, a former litigator and current licensed attorney in Texas. They discuss his plans to embrace a life in his new home on the range, recent developments in immigration rights, and the death penalty in the US. They discuss the history and justifications for the practice, highlight the stories of some Texas men who are wrongfully convicted, and a...

Caitlin and Trent talk with Maureen Kosse, a linguist from Colorado who researches the semiotics of alt-right and far-right discourse. We talk about how everything is cuck—the right-wing cannot get over their insecurities about masculinity, sexual control of women, and people of color, and their visceral horror of people who are different from themselves—and how we’re all paying for it now in the...

Trent and Caitlin talk to Layla al-Sheikh, who provides the history and context of the establishment of the Israeli state on Palestinian land, the many displacements and violent ethnic cleansings of the last century in that region, and the evolving relationships of the surrounding nations with the United States. Resources: Theodore Herzl https://britannica.com/biography/Theodor-Herzl Nakba https:/...

Trent and Caitlin talk to…each other??? Caitlin presents the reasoning behind her recent Liberal Currents essay on the rhetorical strategies used by pundits and politicians when they don’t want to appear unsympathetic to trans people but won’t commit to supporting the full range of human and civil rights for this group. They discuss other current political issues and whether they have any of these...

Caitlin and Trent join Associate Professor Victor Ray to talk about DEI. What is meant by DEI depends on who is using it and what they’re trying to get done. Victor explains the history of DEI as a set of legal standards that insulated companies from accusations of discrimination, designed from the start to avoid upsetting the exact people who are now trying to purge the upper levels of every inst...

Trent and Caitlin talk to Liberal Currents author Vikas Valiveti about the current state of scientific consensus on how trans girls and women compete in sports. What are the correct ways to measure athleticism? When does it actually matter? How should we think about fairness and the right to participate? And what’s the incorrect framing that leads people astray when they are thinking about this qu...

Caitlin and Trent talk to Clay Jackson, a litigator from Dallas, Texas. Clay describes the disconcerting experience of having secret police show up to his door the same day he gave boilerplate know-your-rights information to some neighbors who were concerned about being targeted by ICE. They discuss the rapidly escalating war on immigrants being waged by the Trump administration, the ways ICE and...

Trent and Caitlin speak with cognitive scientist, linguist, and AI researcher Hagen Blix about his book, co-authored with Ingeborg Glimmer, called “Why We Fear AI: On the Interpretation of Nightmares.” What do those selling AI-branded products have to gain from telling everybody that AI could take over the world? What do regular people think about its use in our industries and lives? What does it...

Trent and Caitlin talk with journalist Evan Urquhart about the ways trans rights get discussed in mainstream media, including the notion that supporting trans people’s full participation in society and protecting their right to bodily autonomy represents a viewpoint that is out of touch, too extreme, or endangers the rights of others. References: https://www.assignedmedia.org Did the Harris campai...

Trent and Caitlin talk with Dr. Aris Clemons, an Assistant Professor in Linguistics, about the various slanders and misapprehensions that plague her field of study. We discuss language ideologies, the illusion of objectivity, the futility of being “apolitical” in a political institution, ethnography and lived experience, “other ways of knowing,” and other concepts that get weaponized in attacks on...

Trent and Caitlin talk with Adam Gurri, founder and editor-in-chief of Liberal Currents, about his take that the most accurate way to view the Trump presidency is as an example of “personalism.” What is personalism? What are other examples of personalist systems? What can a nation do once a personalist leader has begun his work? What is the manliest thing you can possibly put in your coffee? All t...

Caitlin and Trent ask Alan Elrod, President and CEO of the Pulaski Institution, about what nationalism is and what kinds of nationalism are at play today. We discuss how white nationalist and Christian nationalist proponents justify it, and how U.S. progressives can participate in a national identity that celebrates pluralism and multiculturalism. And we let Alan indulge in a little American excep...

Trent and Caitlin ask podcaster and philosopher Toby Buckle about the claim that heroic masculinity will save us. Do all men want to be heroes? Is someone stopping them? Does asking boys and men to be considerate squash their inherent manly essence? The hosts and their expert guest dig into these questions and more as they try to unravel the tangled web woven by the seemingly simple adjective-noun...

Caitlin and Trent speak with Polite Conversations host Eiynah about the ways Islamophobia disguises itself as rational, genuine liberal-minded concern, and the hateful roots that hide beneath. References Polite Conversations: https://open.spotify.com/show/25FhI3g0wZMjWT19aIxcOn?si=x6hs5ldDQAWYmlHFLcgTJw Matthew Sears discussion on orientalism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyCuaPkbA4M Mondon and...

Trent and Caitlin ask clinical psychologist Dr. Melissa Fisher Paoni about problem technology use among children and teens, how to help them stay safe without crossing the line into over-surveillance or excessive restriction, and why one-size-fits-all policies are often insufficient. References Dr. Paoni’s articles: https://www.illinoistimes.com/special-issues/not-all-screen-time-is-created-equall...

Centrist pundits, conservative think-tank guys and far-right propagandists say the movement to target libraries with new laws and book challenges is about making sure patrons have access to all viewpoints and kids aren't exposed to obscene materials. But what does the situation really look like on the ground? Caitlin and Trent talk to Katie Talhelm, a Public Library Manager in Texas and intell...

Caitlin and Trent speak with Bradford Vivian, a Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Pennsylvania State University, about campus misinformation. How do op-eds and other polemics use hyperbole, metaphor and innuendo to create a false impression that college campuses are overrun with radical left wing revolutionaries, communist professors, mentally weak and coddled students, and zombie ho...

Caitlin and Trent, a linguist and an historian, introduce Half the Answer, a new podcast from Liberal Currents. The headlines and pundits ask their questions and present their framing of the topics of the day, but are there better questions we could be asking? Caitlin and Trent will interview experts who have eyes on the situation, searching for anything we’re missing, and hopefully picking up som...