In the Meanwhile

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...

When the news starts looking like a haunted carnival (panic at 6, Prozac at 11), who are we supposed to trust? This week, Nora and Marcus grab the scalpel and dig into our media's open wounds with writer/editor Maggie Mertens and journalist/therapist Sarah Stuteville. They talk billionaire capture of news, the gutting of public media, and "toxic empathy"—which, to be honest, is just what people sa...

This week on In The Meanwhile, Nora and Marcus debrief a joy-sparking night with Stacey Abrams before wading into America's latest authoritarian cosplay. They're then joined by Kashana Cauley—TV writer, comedian, and author of The Payback, a razor-sharp novel about debt, policing, and survival told with humor as cutting as it is honest. She talks about why gallows humor is both a shield and a call...

This week on In The Meanwhile, Nora and Marcus tear into the clown-car chaos of American public health: vaccine policy whiplash, Trump's acetaminophen-ass-head-of-men moment, and RFK Jr. running HHS like a crystal-healing Etsy shop. Then they call in Yale epidemiologist and longtime AIDS activist Gregg Gonsalves, who's been in the trenches since ACT UP. He reminds us: public health has always been...

Whelp, here's the episode where we finally ask: democracy or dystopia, which one needs fewer bunkers? Marcus and Nora open on a week so wild it made "Make America Boring Again" sound visionary, then dive in with Douglas Rushkoff (creator of Team Human , and author of Survival of the Richest ). We unpack why tech billionaires keep fantasizing about escape hatches, Hawaii compounds, New Zealand bunk...

This week on In The Meanwhile, Nora and Marcus speak with the one and only Tricia Rose: cultural critic, Brown professor, and professional breaker of lazy narratives. We get into "metaracism" (aka the system isn't broken, it's working as intended), why stories move policy more than charts, and her interactive project Way Outta No Way that makes systemic racism visible without putting you to sleep....

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, Nora and Marcus take listeners on a wild ride through America's collapsing systems, plus the unlikely origin story of this very podcast: part DIY zine, part serendipity, part awkward poetry class with an ex, and a Town Hall conversation that revealed GoFundMe has effectively become our national healthcare system… just with nicer branding. Along the way, they dig into Nora's groundbreaki...

This week on In The Meanwhile, Nora and Marcus chat it up with Dr. Daudi Abe about America's hottest commodity: ignorance, which is now streaming in a classroom near you! From states rebranding slavery as "involuntary relocation with benefits" to classrooms streaming PragerU like it's the Disney Channel, we dive into how the powerful weaponize misinformation to keep us confused, divided, and buyin...

The broligarchy isn't just cringe, it's deeply dangerous. This week on In The Meanwhile, Nora and Marcus sit down with Dan McQuillan, author of Resisting AI, to unpack how artificial intelligence isn't changing the game—it's rigging it in favor of authoritarianism. McQuillan breaks down how Silicon Valley has found its perfect dance partner in far-right movements, and offers a crucial blueprint fo...

This week on In The Meanwhile, Nora and Marcus catch up with Seattle's most unexpected threat to billionaire brunch politics, Katie Wilson. She's a longtime organizer, transit rider, and Americano-splitter who went from dragging mayors in public comment to becoming the mayoral frontrunner herself. Her game plan? No hedge fund sugar daddies, no donor call lists, just a Google form, a ground game, a...