Do journalists ever regret the way they cover events? This week, veteran YouTube journalist and political commentator Ana Kasparian discusses her journey from the progressive left to finding herself politically unaligned, the regrets she still harbors, and the complexities of navigating controversial issues with nuance. She also discusses her thoughts on the election and on Biden's mental decline, the appeal of Trump, and how cultural shifts within the Democratic party affected the election.

Meghan and Ana also discuss motherhood (or in their cases, non-motherhood) and new discourse surrounding the trad movement, pro-natalism and the dark side of the pressure campaign to get people to have more children.

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Ana Kasparian is a political journalist and media personality with nearly two decades of experience in news and analysis. Beginning her career as an assistant producer at CBS Radio in Los Angeles, she later became Executive Producer and co-host of The Young Turks. She now writes a Substack newsletter chronicling her political realignment journey and exploring key political and cultural issues.

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What purpose does “wokeness” really serve? Is it a way of thinking that helps lift up marginalized groups? Or is it a convenient way for elites to pay lip service to social justice while maintaining the status quo that benefits them? This week, I’m joined by sociologist Musa al-Gharbi to discuss his new book We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions Of A New Elite. In addition to distilling his ideas about wokeness as “cover for elites,” we talk about Musa’s love for French theorists, the value of his community college education, and the culture shock he experienced when arriving at Columbia University. We also explore whether women are overrepresented in elite workplaces and how this might affect perceptions of gender inequality and male dominance.

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Musa al-Gharbi is a sociologist and assistant professor in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University. His research primarily focuses on the political economy of knowledge production and the “social life” of scholarly and journalistic outputs. He is a columnist for The Guardian, and his writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic, among other publications. al-Gharbi’s first book, We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite, was published by Princeton University Press in October 2024.

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Until 2018, sports betting was almost a sport unto itself. To place a bet, you had to call your bookie, go to the race track, or make a trip to Las Vegas. But in 2018, the Supreme Court put an end to a longtime federal ban on sports betting, and it is now legal in most states and accessible on smartphones.

For years, we’ve been hearing alarm bells about the addictive qualities of online pornography, which many experts believe has dulled the senses and hindered the relationship prospects of generations of young men. But according to Alex Grodd, founder of The Disagreement, a media and education company that puts out a podcast of the same name, sports betting in its current incarnation poses an even greater threat. In this conversation, Alex describes how compulsive betting and predatory marketing is leading to financial ruin for countless users, many of whom he spoke with for a recent episode of The Disagreement. He also talks about how this connects with the “masculinity crisis” as well as the overall drop in attention span for just about everyone.

Listen to The Disagreement here.

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Alex Grodd is the founder and CEO of The Disagreement and hosts its podcast. Prior to starting The Disagreement, Alex founded and ran BetterLesson, an edtech company that provides professional development tools to teachers. Alex forged his love for disagreement by facilitating debates among students during his days as a middle school teacher at public schools in Atlanta and Boston.

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Journalist Ben Ryan returns to the podcast to reflect on the role of the trans debate in the recent election as well as discuss the impact of the Cass Review on pediatric gender medicine and on journalists covering the issue.  He also talks about various aspects of gender transition treatments, explains what is known about rates of surgeries among minors and to what extent medical care for trans adults could be affected by Trump administration policies. Finally, he and Meghan discuss the TERF Wars, aka infighting within the “gender critical community.” Is using preferred pronouns a harmless courtesy? Or does it imply acquiescence to the slippery slope of reality denial?

Ben’s May 2024 interview can be found here.

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Benjamin Ryan is an independent journalist who focuses on health care and science. He contributes to several major publications, including The New York Times, The Guardian, and NBC News. He has a particular interest in public health, medicine, and psychology, and has spent years reporting on HIV.

His work has received multiple awards from NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists, including the Excellence in HIV/AIDS Coverage Award. Benjamin is a cancer survivor and enjoys reading, theatre, movies, biking, cooking, and photography in his spare time.

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Playwright and performer Sandra Tsing Loh returns to the podcast (after four years!) to discuss her surprise hit play Madwomen of the West, which featured a superstar cast including Caroline Aaron, Marilu Henner, Melanie Mayron, and JoBeth Williams. After the Los Angeles theater establishment deemed the show too woman-centric, Sandra mounted an independent production, which she eventually took to New York and London. She now has a new one-woman show — a 70-minute "You’ll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again”-style rant — about the “journey” of that production called I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It.

I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It will be performed for just two nights at the Odyssey Theater in Los Angeles. November 16 and November 23. Info and tickets here.

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Sandra Tsing Loh is the author of several books, including "The Madwoman in the Volvo: My Year of Raging Hormones," which was selected as one of the New York Times' 100 Most Notable Books. Her previous book, "Mother on Fire," was inspired by her hit solo show about Los Angeles public education.

Her off-Broadway solo shows include "Aliens in America" and "Bad Sex With Bud Kemp." Her comic memoirs include The New York Times New and Noteworthy "Madwoman and the Roomba"; The New York Times 100 Notable Books "Madwoman in the Volvo"; "Mother on Fire"; "A Year in Van Nuys"; and "Depth Takes a Holiday." The Los Angeles Times named her 1998 novel "If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home By Now" a 100 Best Fiction Book. An Atlantic contributing editor, Loh has been heard on NPR's Morning Edition, PRI's Marketplace and This American Life. She currently hosts the LAist/NPR daily radio science minute “The Loh Down on Science.”

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For this first post-election episode, Meghan welcomes back author Lionel Shriver, who is arguably America’s (and the U.K.’s) most controversial woman of letters. They talk about the over/under on the end of democracy, whether J.D. Vance is following a Trump-mandated script, how trans issues replaced abortion rights as a priority for many female voters, and whether Kamala Harris is secretly relieved that she doesn’t have to be President of the United States. They also discuss why writers must oppose Israel to remain in good standing in the literary world and how they feel about the current pronatalism movement with respect to their own reproductive choices.

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Lionel Shriver is a columnist for The Spectator and the author, most recently, of Mania, a novel. Her fiction includes The Mandibles, Property, So Much For That, the New York Times bestseller The Post-Birthday World, and the international bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin. Her journalism has appeared in The Guardian, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harper's, and the London Times, and she currently writes a regular column for The Spectator in the UK. A longtime American expat in the U.K, she now lives in Portugal.

Hundreds Of Authors Pledge To Boycott Israeli Institutions: https://bit.ly/40EBf2r

Lionel Shriver contributed an essay to Meghan’s 2015 anthology “Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers On The Decision Not To Have Kids”: https://amzn.to/40MHC3F

Lionel’s previous interviews on The Unspeakable: https://bit.ly/3O66FHu and https://bit.ly/3YOgNcC

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In this premium episode, writer, editor, and friend of the pod Leigh Stein returns to talk about the state of book publishing, including the importance of promotion via digital platforms like YouTube and TikTok. Leigh may be the Jane Goodall of BookTok. She has spent countless hours in the wild, studying the platform’s users and creators for insights into its addictive magic. As a book coach who helps authors sell their manuscripts to publishers and then (hopefully) sell lots of copies, she understands the changing landscape of publishing and sees endless potential and opportunity. Where many authors and editors feel only fear and dread, Leigh feels joy. Recently, she helped literary agent turned novelist Betsy Lerner become an unlikely TikTok star.

Want in on more of Leigh’s secrets? On November 14, The Unspeakeasy is offering a one-time webinar with Leigh called How To Get A Book Deal The Easy Way. It’s open to everyone (not just ladies) and may change your life. And it’s only $150! Visit the course page in The Unspeakeasy for more details and to sign up.

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Leigh Stein is a writer exploring the impact of the internet on our identities, relationships, and politics. She has written five books, including the satirical novel Self Care (Penguin, 2020) and the poetry collection What to Miss When (Soft Skull Press, 2021). Her non-fiction work has been featured in publications such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Allure, ELLE, Poets & Writers, BuzzFeed, The Cut, Salon, and Slate.

Leigh founded Out of the Binders/BinderCon, a feminist literary nonprofit organization that supported women and gender variant writers. BinderCon events in NYC and LA welcomed nearly 2,000 writers to hear speakers such as Lisa Kudrow, Anna Quindlen, Claudia Rankine, Jill Abramson, Elif Batuman, Effie Brown, Leslie Jamison, Suki Kim, and Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. Leigh also moderated a Facebook community of 40,000 writers. She is no longer on Facebook.

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This week, journalist and legendary feminist activist Julie Bindel talks about her new podcast series, Julie in Genderland, which explores the complexities surrounding gender identity, particularly from the perspective of parents of children who’ve become caught up in gender ideology. Julie discusses the role of social services and educators in shaping children's understanding of gender, the intersection of class and gender issues, and the parallels with social justice movements around the sex trade and surrogacy. She also reflects on her reporting of grooming gangs in the UK, linking it to broader issues of misogyny and systemic failures in protecting vulnerable girls.

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Julie Bindel is a British journalist, broadcaster, author and a feminist campaigner against male violence towards women and girls. Her latest book, Lesbians: Where Are We Now? will be published by Swift Press in Spring 2025 and her new podcast, Julie In Genderland, premiered in September 2024.

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Stephanie Lepp is a video artist and producer whose work focuses on bringing together different viewpoints to arrive at a perspective that goes beyond “common ground” and emerges as a true integration, or synthesis. She was on the podcast in July 2022 to talk about a project called Deep Reckonings. In it, she considered the cases of public figures who’d responded to personal controversy in less-than-ideal ways and reimagined responses that would have conveyed genuine learning.

Now she’s back with a new video series, Faces of X, which illustrates an argument using a single performer to act out the three parts of the thesis, antithesis, synthesis schematic. Those performers include Buck Angel, Liv Boeree, Magatte Wade, and herself.

In this conversation, I talk with Stephanie about why it’s so hard to check your confirmation bias (even — and maybe even especially — when you pride yourself on being able to do so), the difference between synthesis and “both sidesism,” and why she’s optimistic about the future of public discourse about complicated issues.

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Stephanie Lepp is the founder of Synthesis Media, a production studio devoted to integrating perspectives into a bigger picture. In 2022, she debuted Reckonings, a narrative podcast that explores how we change our hearts and minds, and Deep Reckonings, a series of explicitly-marked deepfake videos that imagine morally courageous versions of our public figures. Her new project is Faces of X.

Watch Deep Reckonings.

Watch Faces of X.

Listen to Stephanie Lepp’s previous interview on The Unspeakable.

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To doomers and nihilists, the whole world is a joke — and it’s not even funny. Writer Neal Pollack may be a natural skeptic, but he thinks that’s nonsense and he returns to the podcast to talk about better living through laughter (and not in a “live, love, laugh” kind of way). He discusses his various careers — professional writer, professional poker player, three-time Jeopardy champion — his thoughts on COVID-19 lockdowns, the culture of Austin, and his recent battle with sofa dermatitis.

Most importantly, he talks about his upcoming course for The Unspeakeasy School of Thought, Writing Humor in Humorless Times. Unlike most writing workshops, which limit students to the arduous activity of writing, Neal will also be available to teach students how to be funny on Twitter/X, TikTok, at dinner parties, or even while muttering to themselves while walking down the street.

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Neal Pollack is the author of 12 semi-bestselling works of fiction and nonfiction, including the memoirs Alternadad, Stretch, and Pothead, the novels Jewball, Keep Mars Weird, Edge of Safety, and Never Mind the Pollacks, and the cult short-fiction classic The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature. His “Greatest Living American Writer” satire pieces have appeared in McSweeney’s, Salon, The Federalist, The Spectator, and the Jewish Daily Forward/. He is a three-time Jeopardy! champion, a certified yoga instructor, a semi-professional poker player, a Generation X legend, and the editor-in-chief of Book and Film Globe.

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If you have a pet, you’ve probably wondered lately what in the world has happened to veterinary medicine. Why is it so expensive? Why is it so hard to get an appointment? And why, despite all of that, do domestic animals seem to have more health problems than ever?

In this conversation, financial reporter Helaine Olen, a longtime dog owner and author of the April 2024 Atlantic article Why Your Vet Bill Is So High, explains how a combination of advancing technologies, private equity, and let's face it, people being really, really attached to their pets have made it costlier and more complicated than ever to own a pet.

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Helaine Olen is Managing Editor at the American Economic Liberties Project and a contributing columnist for MSNBC.com. She is the author of Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry and a co-author of The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated. A former columnist for The Washington Post opinion page and Slate, her work has also appeared in numerous other publications, including The Atlantic, where Why is Your Vet Bill So High appeared.

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