Time To Say Goodbye

Hello! Today we talk briefly about the Gilded Age (Jay is watching TV again) and what to make of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s statements about Gaza, America First, and foreign interventions. Is she trying to pull together the horseshoe? And will she actually succeed? Enjoy! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.sub...

Hello, Today, we have on Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees international and a longtime humanitarian and emergency operator. He has served in senior appointments in two U.S. administrations. He was the director of USAID’s Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance in the Obama administration and also worked in the Biden administration. Jeremy has been sounding the alarm about the famine in...

Hello! Today, we talk about what the hell ICE is wearing out in the streets of American cities, “operator cosplay” which is the phenomenon of yahoos dressing up like they’re in special forces, and we talk a whole lot about ICE’s policy of wearing masks in public. We also continue our long search for the pod’s Joe House and bring on Kang’s college roommate, a veteran Green Beret who explains what I...

Hello! Today we talk about how the Epstein story and Schrodinger’s client list has fractured the right and whether this might finally be the thing that ol’ Donny Trump can’t wriggle out of. And we talk about climate change and the floods on the east coast as Tyler puts back on his environmental studies professor hat. Enjoy! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscri...

Hello! Today, we talk a bit more about Zohran and go through our best and worst case scenarios for his reign in New York City. How will he deal with intensive media scrutiny? Will his immense political talent carry him through inevitable crises? And how will his victory change the Democratic party on the whole? Enjoy! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers o...

Hello! Today, we have on Leigh Claire LaBerge, a professor at CUNY and the author of Fake Work: How I Began to Suspect Capitalism is a Joke , a funny and touching look back at what it was like to be young, naive, and have your whole life in front of you in 1999. We talk about the late 90s, the need for a bit of humor on the left, and start off with a few Zohran takes. Enjoy! This is a public episo...

Hello! Today, we welcome a guest from across the aisle to talk about what might be happening with the anti-war, anti-interventionist right in the face of Trump’s strikes against Iran. Sohrab Ahmari is the American editor of Unherd and the author of two books and one of the main intellectual forces shaping the ideas of a new right wing. A really great conversation with some interesting insights int...

Hello! Today, we talk about the protests in LA, give a short timeline of what’s been happening and talk about all the silly discourse about how “the protesters” should “do x” as if every person at a protest is receiving a newsletter about message control or whatever. We also talk about the very weird situation at Ohio State which just basically gave its campus over to OpenAI and had some administr...

Hello! Today, we talk about Elon being full out of government and think back on all our favorite moments, discuss the funniest conspiracy theories/rumors about his time in Washington and think a bit more about the influence of Big Tech in Washington. Enjoy! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/sub...

Hello! Today, we have on Alex Thompson, co-author of the new book “ Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, It’s Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again ” and all the reasons Joe Biden decided to run for President in 2024, what happened on that debate stage, how a small group of aides working for Joe and Jill Biden kept everyone in line, or, more commonly, walled off from the President,...

Hello! Today we have on repeat guest Karen Hao to talk about her new blockbuster book “ Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI .” It’s an amazing, deeply reported book that somehow encapsulates the history of AI, Silicon Valley, and OpenAI while also making a needed and clear argument about how we should think about this technology. Truly like if “Barbarians at the Gate” met “T...

Hello! Today we take a break from Trump to bring back one of our favorite guests, Andrew Boryga, the novelist behind the brilliant book Victim , and the author of a funny and incisive substack . We talk about the latest compain-fest in the literary world about white millennial men and how they’re supposedly shut out of the fruits of culture like the NYPL Young Lions Award or whatever. Then we talk...

Hello! Today we have on Bridget Read, the author of a great new book called “Little Bosses Everywhere: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America.” ( Out today !) We talk about the history of the MLM (multi-level marketing) from its alleged origins with the Yankee peddler and the frontier and the more insidious real story of eugenicists, scammers, and quackery. A lot of questions you might have about p...

Hello! Today we’re talking about a new essay in the New Yorker that asks how we might think about knowledge, learning, and the meaning of life in a world where Chat GPT replaces a lot of our core knowledge functions. To discuss this piece and its implications (and to argue back on it) we brought on Zena Hitz , a philosopher, a tutor at St. John’s College, and a founder of the Catherine Project . W...

Hello! Today we’re talking Pope and the odds for each of the contenders. If you want a quick way to catch up with who the choices might be and what they represent politically, please tune in! Who is the continuation candidate? Who is the lib? And who is the arch right winger who only talks like an Elon Musk reply guy? And we talk a bit about the Trump coalition and whether or not it might be feeli...

Hello! This week we have on Zephyr Teachout, Professor at Law at Fordham University and columnist at the Nation , for a long talk about protectionism, neoliberalism, and how to capture the spirit of the country. Can liberals just sell free market capitalism and off-shoring to an angry public? Or will there have to be seem change in messaging that will allow the left to define the future of work in...

Hello! Today we talk about what the supporters of the tariffs might actually be thinking and why we might take the latest Trump gambit a little more seriously as a lasting movement/idea. What is it about the vision of a manufacturing/factory town America that seems like its so appealing to a portion of the population and how does nativism and “anti globalism” fit into the vision? Are we about to s...

Hello! Today we have on Saikat Chakrabarti, the former chief of staff for AOC and one of the formers leaders of the Justice Democrats. Saikat is currently running for Congress against Nancy Pelosi. We talk about the possibilities of a Democratic Tea Party, how progressives need to think about actually doing stuff, and a lot about housing. This was a great episode and one that I think should inform...

We talk about SignalGate, Trump’s clown show problem, and a little bit about Richard Linklater’s “Waking Life” and why the Alex Jones from 25 years ago might have been ahead of his time. What does “combative centrism” mean? Does anyone actually care? All these topics and more discussed in this here episode. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get acces...

Hello! This week we talk about the growing tea party vibes around the Democratic party, Schumer’s shame, the anti-establishment energy that’s emanating from the Blue MAGA base, and the new attempts to rebrand old ideas into new ones. Will anyone in the Democratic establishment survive the next decade? Or is it all over but the crying? Also we talk about Columbia University and the cowardice of eli...

Hello! Today we talk with the authors of “ In Covid’s Wake: How our Politics Failed Us ” by Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee. We talk about what we got wrong during the pandemic, how to battle groupthink, especially when it comes to science, and why so many people were willing to accept one version of public health without proper debate or questioning. This was an informative and thought-provoking e...

Hello! Today we talk about the big WWE showdown at the White House between Zelensky and the tag team of Trump and JD Vance, where our alarm meters are for “wait maybe Trump actually is going to do all the stuff he said he’s going to do,” and we talk about the Democratic plan to “play dead” and wait for the perfect moment to form like Voltron and come to save the day with their big glowing sword an...

Hello! Today we talk about Elon’s gambit to get everyone to respond to a work email on a weekend, the Eagles will they/won’t they trip to the White House, the Trump administration’s vague crackdown, and we talk for a long time for some reason about leap years and how they’re weird. ENJOY! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes...

Hello! Today, Jay talks to long-time TTSG community member Kyle Paoletta about his new book, American Oasis: Finding the Future in the Cities of the Southwest . We talk about British travel writing, the building of Albuquerque and Phoenix, climate change, Las Vegas and how the future of American cities might be found in the history of hundreds of years of people trying to live in the American dese...

Hello! Very excited to see so many new subscribers to the podcast over the past two weeks. As a reminder, we are a fully listener supported show so if you could help us keep the lights on over here with a paid subscription, we would greatly appreciate it. Our goal is to always at least provide one show a week for free, which TTSG has been doing now for almost five years. This week, we take a page...