Recently, professors at elite colleges told Atlantic writer Rose Horowitch that their students don’t read whole books anymore. They blamed cell phones, standardized tests, and extracurriculars, and they mostly agreed that the shift began in high school. In this episode of Radio Atlantic, we make the case for reading books, one memory at a time.

We talk to Horowitch, and we hear from several Atlantic writers about the books they read in high school that stuck with them, and how their views of these books and the characters in them changed over time. 

Read Horowitch’s reporting here: “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books”

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As Donald Trump returns to the White House, his desire to recast January 6 as a day of “love and peace,” as he called it during his campaign, seems as strong as ever. Earlier this week, he told the NBC reporter Kristen Welker that he would “most likely” pardon Capitol rioters on day one.

This week’s Radio Atlantic shares the first episode of our series about January 6 published just before the 2024 election, called We Live Here Now. 

Hanna Rosin and co-host Lauren Ober enter a universe of alternative facts, speaking with J6 prisoners and their families, and following a J6 case on which Ober was a juror. Mostly, though, the series is about their neighbor, who they discovered one day is a crucial character in the retelling of January 6.

Subscribe to We Live Here Now wherever you get podcasts.

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | PocketCasts | YouTube

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Anti-vaccine sentiment is, more or less, as old as vaccines. When Cotton Mather promoted inoculations against smallpox in the 1720s, someone threw a firebomb through his window with a message attached: “Mather, you dog, Damn you, I’ll inoculate you with this.” Today's vaccines are as safe and effective as ever. So why, suddenly, is the anti-vax movement at the height of its power and influence?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nominee to be the next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, is “the king of the anti-vaxxers,” says Atlantic senior editor Daniel Engber. But RFK Jr. isn’t alone. An array of nominees across the fringe-science belief spectrum appears ready to take the reins in Trump’s new administration.

In this episode, we discuss this disorienting moment, when anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists may soon be in charge of the agencies that fund, recommend, and research vaccines, with Engber and Arthur Allen, author of Vaccines: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver. What levers could the anti-vaxxers in charge pull to disrupt vaccine distribution? How could they affect vaccine recommendations and research? And what happens if there is an outbreak? Ultimately, how fragile is the nation’s vaccine infrastructure?

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We warned you last month to “Throw Out Your Black Plastic Spatula.” In a recent study conducted about consumer products, researchers concluded kitchen utensils had some of the highest levels of flame retardants, which you do not want anywhere near your hot food. After the article was published, its author received reports, possibly exaggerated, of people in Burlington, Vermont, throwing their black plastic spatulas out en masse. You should too. 

That article was just the appetizer. This episode of Radio Atlantic is the entire meal, coming to you in time for Thanksgiving. We talk to its author, staff writer Zoë Schlanger, about every other plastic thing in your kitchen: cutting boards, nonstick pans, plastic wrap, slow cookers, sippy cups. Read it before you cook. And prepare to hassle your plastic-loving hosts. Politely. 

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With all the noise around Donald Trump’s nominees, it’s easy to lose sight of his administration’s bigger plan: placing people who are unfailingly loyal to Trump in key positions, so that the real power lies with the White House. The Atlantic staff writer Tom Nichols explains why Trump’s picks to oversee the military and intelligence community could be two of the most consequential—and dangerous.

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We hash out the “Democrats are too woke” theory with New York Rep. Ritchie Torres, who tweeted the day after the election: “The far left is a gift to Donald Trump.” Torres, who represents a district that is over 50 percent Latino, explains why he believes Democrats need to shift their position on immigration if they don’t want urban working class neighborhoods to keep shifting to the right. 

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In the last few months of his campaign, Trump was free and open with his dictatorial impulses, as he talked about punishing “enemies from within.” Now that he’s won, have we crossed the line into a different kind of country? 

Staff writers Anne Applebaum and McKay Coppins help us learn how to find the line. Does this resounding win mean the electorate gave Trump a mandate to act on all his impulses? Will he make good on his campaign threats? And how will we know? 

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One thing tomorrow’s election will test is Americans’ appetite for chaos, particularly the kind that Donald Trump has been exhibiting in the last few months of his campaign. After weeks of running a disciplined campaign, Trump’s advisers lost control of their candidate, the Atlantic staff writer Tim Alberta reported this week. Trump grew restless and bored and drifted off script in his campaign appearances. During a summer interview with the National Association of Black Journalists, for example, he mused aloud about Kamala Harris, “I don’t know. Is she Indian or is she Black?” From the perspective of his advisers, Trump’s string of offensive public statements needlessly alienated potential voters. Members of Trump’s campaign staff told Alberta that they became disillusioned about their ability to rein in their candidate and left the campaign.

Will this unleashed version of Trump affect the election outcome? In this week’s episode of Radio Atlantic, we talk with Alberta and another Atlantic staff writer, Mark Leibovich, about how candidate Trump transformed over the summer, how Kamala Harris’s campaign reacted, where each campaign stands now, and what it means for the election. Alberta and Leibovich also offer tips on how to manage your inner chaos while watching the election results.

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On the campaign trail, Donald Trump has mused, a few times, about throwing reporters in jail if they refuse to leak their sources and taking away broadcast licenses of networks he’s deemed unfriendly. 

These last couple of weeks, we’ve had clear signals that maybe his threats are having an impact when both The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times pulled their endorsements of Kamala Harris. 

We talk to Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, about navigating both pressures from owners and threats from the administration. And we discuss the urgent question of whether the media, pummeled and discredited for years by Trump, is ready for a second Trump administration.

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The way Donald Trump talks about January 6 has evolved over time. Directly after the insurrection, he condemned the rioters, although he added that they were “very special.” For the next few years, he played around with different themes, implying the protests were peaceful or that the people jailed for their actions that day were “political prisoners.” 

But these descriptions are mild compared to the outrageous ways he’s been talking about January 6 in these weeks leading up to the election. Recently, he described the day as “love and peace” and upped the metaphor from political prisoners to Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II. Why is he leaning so hard into the political revisionism? And what exactly should we be afraid of?

In this episode of Radio Atlantic, we talk to Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who has a unique view of that day. Raskin explains what January 6, 2025, might look like and what is historically unique about Trump’s claims. And I ask Raskin the question I’ve been wondering: When might it be appropriate to let January 6 go?

Listen to We Live Here Now, a new podcast series from The Atlantic hosted by Lauren Ober and Hanna Rosin: https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/we-live-here-now/

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Autocrats often dare their followers to believe absurd claims, as a kind of loyalty test, because “humor and fear can be quite close together sometimes,” says Peter Pomerantsev, a Soviet-born British journalist and co-host of Autocracy in America, an Atlantic podcast series.   

In this episode of Radio Atlantic, we talk to Pomerantsev and Atlantic staff writer and co-host Anne Applebaum about how to detect the signs of autocracy, because, as they say, if you can’t spot them, you won’t be able to root them out. We also analyze the events of the upcoming election through their eyes and talk about how large swaths of a population come to believe lies, what that means, and how it might be undone. 

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