Lean Out with Tara Henley

Lean Out is now on our annual summer hiatus. But we while we’re away, we wanted to bring you some popular encore episodes from our archives, including today’s show — from May of 2024. Enjoy, and we’ll see you in September! 2020 was a turbulent year in American politics, and in the America media. The editor of The New York Times has conceded that the paper went “too far” during that time and said t...

The summer of 2020 was one of the most explosive periods of recent memory — with pandemic lockdowns, the death of George Floyd, nationwide protests and riots, and workplace purges and online mobbings. And yet, so much of what went on has now been forgotten. In his new book, my guest on the program today encourages us to take a good, hard look at the insanity of those months, and how they shaped th...

In the United States right now, we are witnessing the decline of what has often been called the woke left — and a backlash from an increasingly woke right that is now seeking to impose its own beliefs on society in similar ways. My guest on the program today has been an outspoken critic of illiberalism, wherever it originates on the political spectrum, and he believes that defending liberal values...

One of the themes of the Lean Out podcast is the ongoing tensions between men and women. This past week saw a shot fired on that front: a piece published in The New York Times Magazine, titled “ The Trouble With Wanting Men .” For this special joint episode, podcaster Meghan Daum and I unpack this essay with a Gen Z guest. Meghan Daum is an American author and essayist, and the host of the Unspeak...

The working poor in Canada are often largely invisible. The struggle to make ends meet in an explosively expensive era tends to be a private matter. But my guest on the show today has taken the step to make her own battle public, with a new cover story for Maclean’s that’s sparking discussion across the country. Jeni Gunn is a gig worker in Victoria, B.C. Her new essay for Maclean’s is “ Confessio...

In recent weeks and months, a number of you have reached out to me about the debate on gender medicine for minors — and a lack of media coverage about it, particularly in this country. This is a topic that we covered on my other podcast, Full Press. And The Hub has been kind enough to let me bring you the free version of that episode today, where you can hear my entire conversation on gender medic...

In recent years, I’ve read a lot of memoirs from women of my generation who feel stuck in specific ways: single, childless, consumed by work, and disillusioned with hook-up culture. My guest on today’s program is the author of the first memoir I have read about breaking free from that pattern — and the story of how it happened is as moving as it is surprising. Beth Kaplan is a Canadian writer, and...

With the excesses of 2020 now being examined in mainstream outlets like The New York Times, we are witnessing a moment of introspection on the American left. To unpack this development, this week on the program, I’m joined by a writer who has studied the history of the left. And in today’s conversation, we wrestle with our own complicated — and at times conflicted — relationships to these politics...

It’s common knowledge these days that the left has lost the working class. But there is little curiosity about how, and why, and what that means for our politics. My guest on today’s program has written a deeply researched book on the subject — and she has some ideas on where the left should go from here. Joan C. Williams is a Distinguished Professor of Law (Emerita) and Founding Director of the E...

Three and a half years ago, during the pandemic era, I launched Lean Out to explore some basic questions about illiberalism in our response to the crisis — and in our culture, our politics, and our newsrooms. Today, for our 200th episode of the show, I’m thrilled to be joined by two academics who have written a deeply researched book that provides some answers. Stephen Macedo is the Laurance S. Ro...

In polarized times, our tolerance for different perspectives decreases. Groupthink becomes common, and we can often find ourselves either censored, or self-censoring. My guest on the program today has done a deep dive into this topic, and she has some thoughts on how we can begin to speak up — while still seeing our ideological opponents as human. Jenara Nerenberg is an American author, and the fo...

Tonight, in London, England, a group of writers and thinkers will gather to debate a key cultural question: “ Is woke dead ?” And tomorrow, the inaugural conference of a new centre for social science kicks off. Academics will gather to talk through the intellectual origins of this movement and its politics, psychology, and driving interests, to establish it as a field of study, and to delve into o...

As I put the finishing touches on my next book, on declining trust in the media, I wanted to bring you a few encore interviews that have helped shaped my thinking on the media — including today’s episode. Since the election win for Donald Trump, we are seeing a renewed sense of scorn for Republican voters in parts of the mainstream media. The Guardian’s Rebecca Solnit, for example, writes in her c...

As I put the finishing touches on my next book, on declining trust in the media, I wanted to bring you a few encore interviews that have helped shaped my thinking on the media — including today’s episode. The period often referred to as The Great Awokening is winding down now, and we’re starting to get a better understanding of what happened. My guest on today’s program argues that we have seen th...

In this turbulent era, for many of us there is a moment in every day when anxiety steals over us. We pause, and in that rare period of stillness, the fears surface — but sometimes, if we’re lucky, so too do the reflections and the insights. My guest on today’s program has called this interlude “the catastrophe hour,” and she’s just published a book of essays that beautifully captures it. Meghan Da...

Now that the dust has settled on the Canadian federal election, we can pause for a moment and assess where we are at as a country. What lessons can we take from the election results? My guest on today’s program has been polling Canadians for decades — and he says that we are now a divided nation. Darrell Bricker is the CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs . He’s also the author of six bestselling books, in...

One of the most polarizing policies of the pandemic era was the extended school closures. Critics have now been validated, with The New York Times reportin g that “a growing body of research shows that pandemic school closures came at a steep cost to students” — while doing little to stop the spread of the virus. My guest on the program today is a journalist who’s just published a deep dive invest...

Last week, at the English-language election debate, the leaders’ press scrums were cancelled after tensions between media outlets erupted into shouting in the press room, and other confrontations . This incident is a distressing example of how polarized our press has become. But of course, we are not the first country to grapple with this dynamic. My guest on the program today lived through politi...

As election day nears, Lean Out continues to highlight the issues that we feel have not received enough attention in this news cycle. My guest on the program today is a physician who serves on death review committee with Ontario’s Office of the Chief Coroner. In today’s emotional interview, we take a close look at medical assistance in dying, or MAiD — and her concerns about how it’s playing out i...

We are in the final week of the Canadian federal election. And while Trump’s trade policy has received much coverage this election season, our housing crisis has been less of a priority for the legacy press. We at Lean Out happen to think this is the most important issue in the country — and so, on today’s program, our guest is here to answer every question you’ve ever had on the crisis, and how w...

For some time now, writers and thinkers outside this country have been asking me: What happened to Canada? My guest on the program today has asked this question himself, in a new book that takes a deep dive into our decline — and arrives just in time for the federal election. Tristin Hopper is a columnist and reporter for The National Post, based in Victoria, B.C. His new book is Don’t Be Canada:...

As we navigate a period rife with political tensions on both sides of the Canada/U.S. border, I wanted to bring you all an incredible story that celebrates the human spirit and affirms our common humanity. My guest on the program today was an eight-month-old baby when her parents smuggled her out of communist Vietnam, crossing the South China Sea to begin a new life. Decades later, she reports for...

Throughout the Canadian federal election, we’re taking weekly breaks to think and talk about other things. On today’s program, in light of ongoing debates in American pop culture, we’ll be discussing the phenomenon of heteropessimism with a Toronto culture critic who is quite literally writing the book on it. Phoebe Maltz Bovy is a Toronto-based journalist, author, and podcaster. She’s co-host of...

Women’s fertility is a third rail in Canadian politics. We all learned this again last week, when Pierre Poilievre made a comment about biological clocks that sparked outrage. If you followed the controversy in the mainstream media only, you might not know that a number of women were glad to see Poilievre raise the issue of fertility — including my guest on today’s show. Melanie Paradis the presid...

During the 2025 Canadian election season, we’ll be pausing from time to time to take a breather and to think about other issues — often interesting new books. My guest on today’s program is a blues musician, a scholar, and a heterodox thinker. He joins us for a conversation about his deeply personal new book on interracial family life in the south. Adam Gussow is a professional harmonica player an...