On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Moira Donegan on Joe Biden’s need to embrace pro-choice politics.
Demonstrators in front of the Supreme Court Building as the justices hear arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
In a scandalous rejection of holiday spirit, Jo and Charlotte reflect on the dark, elegant pleasures of Gabrielle Wittkopf’s The Necrophiliac alongside contemporary novel conventions as deployed in Rebecca Novack’s Murder Bimbo. The hosts are then joined by dear friend Clio Chang, who outlines the timeless, charming, annoying allure of Cheryl Strayed’s hit memoir Wild (2012).
Also discussed in this episode: Charlotte Roche’s Wetlands, Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, and Lillian Fishman’s Acts of Service.
Clio Chang is a staff writer at Curbed who can do three pullups.
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Charlotte Shane’s most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or read online for free. Her social media handle is @charoshane.
Jo Livingstone is a writer who teaches at Pratt Institute.
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Abortion will be one of the top issues in the 2024 presidential race and will also be crucial for control of the Senate and House of Representatives. The good news for Democrats is that the public is four-square pro-choice. The battle over abortion has energized Democratic voters and helped the party consistently outperform for the last two years. The bad news for Democrats is that Joe Biden is, at best, a reluctant warrior on the issue.
Writing in The Guardian, Moira Donegan looked at Biden’s history on reproductive freedom and his continued preference for a nonconfrontational approach to the issue.
I spoke to Moira about this and we had a wide-ranging conversation on how the politics of abortion have changed and about the dangers of having a party leader who doesn’t voice the passion of the base. A columnist for the Guardian, Moira is a frequent guest of the podcast. As always, she brings a fierce clarity to the topic on hand.
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
Norman Podhoretz, one of the founding fathers of neoconservatism, died on December 16 at
age 95. His legacy is a complex one, since in recent decades neoconservatism has been
supplanted in many ways by American First conservatism. But many aspects of Podhoretz’s
influence still play a shaping role on right. I take up Podhoretz’s career with David Klion (who
wrote an obituary for the pundit for The Nation) and the historian Ronnie Grinberg, who had
discussed Podhoretz in her book Write Like a Man.
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Jeet HeerTwitterJeet Heer is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation and host of the weekly Nation podcast, The Time of Monsters. He also pens the monthly column “Morbid Symptoms.” The author of In Love with Art: Francoise Mouly’s Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman (2013) and Sweet Lechery: Reviews, Essays and Profiles (2014), Heer has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The American Prospect, The Guardian, The New Republic, and The Boston Globe.