The Realignment: Marshall's Best 2020 Reads and Last Episodes of 2020
The Realignment interviews Alex Kantrowitz, Richard Hanania, and Jennifer Harris, Marshall's 2020 book list, listener mail, and more
Where to listen:
YouTube (videos will be back in 2021).
Welcome Back to The Realignment
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This week, we aired three episodes: Alex Kantrowitz, who runs the Big Technology Substack and podcast; Richard Hanania, who recently founded the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology; and Jennifer Harris, Director of the Hewlett Foundation’s Economy and Society Initiative.
Episode 83: Alex Kantrowitz on Breaking Up Big Tech, Stock Market Bubbles, and Which Companies Will Win Post-COVID
Alex’s new book: Always Day One: How the Tech Titans Plan to Stay on Top Forever
Episode 84: Season Finale: Richard Hanania on the Working-Class Realignment Myth
Richard’s National Review piece: The Working-Class Party Myth, and What Really Motivates Voters
Episode 85: Reboot: Jennifer Harris Wants to Replace Neoliberalism
Information on the Hewlett Foundation’s Economy and Society Initiative
2020 Book List Part Two: Marshall
The Years That Matter Most: How College Makes or Breaks Us
Even though Paul Tough wrote this before COVID-19, the book has only taken on more importance, since it perfectly illustrates and critiques the higher education system before the pandemic disrupted all aspects of the system. One of the major post-COVID (*knocks on wood*) debates will be the degree to which we’ll seek to return industries to the previous status quo. Even a cursory reading of this book demonstrates that we can’t, and shouldn’t want to, go back when it comes to college.
Dictatorland: The Men Who Stole Africa
Dictatorland was my favorite “random” read during the COVID quarantine. Check this out if you’re looking for an interesting dive into history you aren’t going to encounter elsewhere. It’s fair to assume most of us aren’t particularly informed about post-colonial Africa. My favorite fact from the book is that Eritrea (one of the most isolated countries in the world) has even *less* press freedom than North Korea.
Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age + How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy + Up All Night: Ted Turner, CNN, and the Birth of 24-Hour News
You all have probably noticed that we’ve spent more time covering the future of media/journalism on the show. These three books, particularly Lisa’s, who we recorded an awesome episode with, illustrates the tie between seemingly wonky technological disruptions (the launch of commercial satellites and the Mp3 format in the 1990s), a legacy industry’s inability to keep up, and the way we consume entertainment and information. Definitely check these out if you’re interested in how newsletters and podcasts will transform media in the 2020s.
Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork + Dot.Con: How America Lost Its Mind and Money in the Internet Era + Post Corona: From Crisis to Opportunity
If you listened to my episode with Reeves Wiedeman, the story of Adam Neumann’s rise and fall at WeWork is not only incredibly interesting, but deeply important in that it catalogues a specific (and fleeting) moment in post Financial Crisis American capitalism during the 2010s. Anyone with a Robinhood account or interest in the murky opportunities and perils ahead in the 2020s should read Dot.Con and Post Corona (be sure to check out our episode with Scott Galloway).
The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite + History Has Begun: The Birth of a New America + One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger + The Decadent Society: How We Became Victims of Our Own Success
Last but not least, these books all helped Saagar and I focus on the deeper trends underlying and fueling American politics and the world during the Trump administration and COVID-19. It’s depressing to look back at all of the terrible, terrible Trump books, which were nothing more than empty calories. These books, and our episodes with Michael, Bruno, Matt, and Ross helped us take a step back and better understand our moment, whether we agreed with every idea or not.
The Realignment’s Bookshop.org Storefront
As a reminder, we’ve created a Realignment podcast affiliate shop for books by our guests at bookshop.org. The shop currently features the books of 10 of our guests including Michael Lind, Scott Galloway, Reeves Wiedeman, Ross Douthat, Matt Stoller, and Lisa Napoli. We’ll soon have all of our previous guests’ books uploaded to the shop.
If you purchase a book using our link, we get a 10% commission, a local bookseller gets supported, and you get an awesome book! Watch this space for new uploads and future lists by topic.
Listener Mail
Adding the Realignment Qs section was one of our favorite things about relaunching the podcast in July. We take a question an episode, along with the monthly Q&A shows. Still, there usually isn’t enough space to respond to everything, so we’re going to use this space to feature questions and feedback. As on the show, you can reach us at realignmentpod@gmail.com.
This week’s question/comment focuses on A) the use of profanity on the show (be nice if you disagree; we really appreciate editorial/performance suggestions) and the antitrust discussion during our episode with Alex Kantrowitz.
Patrick writes:
Could you guys please tone down on the f-bombs and other profanities? I've noticed a big difference in swearing on the show from last year (Hudson) to this year (Lincoln). To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan - the medium is not just the message, the coarseness is the message. One of the things I really like about your show is you bring people of different stripes on and have an open dialogue about complex policy issues. There are plenty of TV/Movie/Podcasts/Social Media where one can be inundated with streams of incessant profanity. I just find that dropped an f-bomb or another vulgarity into a discussion about immigration policy or Section 230 reform really detracts from the discussion. One definite trend I've noticed over the past 10 years is the increasing vulgarity everywhere. It just adds to the coarseness of our culture when I think we all need to have more open minds and open hearts and try to be a lot less coarse in our discourse. I'm not super old (I'm GenX). I know that this is more common with Zoomers and Millenials (and even many GenX). I skip the "Explicit" rated shows. I'd love to hear all of the shows but the swearing gets in the way of the message for me (and I think many others).
OK - different topics! Both issues came from the show with Alex Kantrowitz; he was very smart and even-handed in his analysis but I noticed when these issues came up that they've also come up on other shows:
Most of your guests are highly educated who live in a bubble of elite educated friends/colleagues who have no idea that ~70% of American adults don't have college educations. You guys were talking about the effects of job displacements from technology/automation and how job/industry loss wipes out towns/families/communities and Alex did not understand the issue at all. His response about how his former Cornell school of Education professors said that "kids in the future need to think outside the box, think abstractly, etc" was a non-answer for the majority of Americans. 10% of American parents are obsessed with getting their kids into elite colleges. another 20% are happy their kids went to college and the other 70% are happy if their kids turn out to be productive plumbers, cellphone store managers, Costco employees, etc. Elites in this country do not understand what happens to communities and families when working class jobs disappear. I know you guys don't like to do pushbacks on the show and I think that makes for a more engaging long-form discussion. However, maybe there's a show you can do with someone like Michael Lind (who seems to be your only guest who understands that 70% of American adults don't have college degrees). Perhaps the show could talk about employment opportunities for non-college graduates and how we should think about government policies/ industrial/business policies to address the importance of making sure we have LOTS of jobs for unskilled workers in America so they can have families and thrive. This issue ties into China trade policy and unskilled labor immigration policy. Trump brought those issues to the national stage but did so in a very hamfisted way. For example, elite Democrats and elite Republicans can't address why it's OK for wealthy business owners to save millions on labor costs by paying unskilled illegal immigrant labor rather than unskilled American labor. Or why it's OK for Tim Cook to pull in $100 million in compensation while Apple pays "slave" labor wages to millions of Chinese rather than "only" take home $10 million and spread the wealth to unskilled American labor (btw- don't let analysts off the hook when discussing the supply chain issue; we let China build a complete supply chain and businesses gave them millions of unskilled labor jobs; we CAN bring those jobs home if we truly value working class jobs).
Most elite analysts don't understand anti-trust. Not just on your show; part of the problem is how libertarian economists successfully reframed all of anti-trust policy to focus on one question -- whether or not the consumer is harmed. Not to beat up on Alex, because I thought he was much better than Scott Galloway (I think a lot of the heat you received on Scott was not because he was a left but just how politically biased many of his statements were...). But Alex only talked about anti-trust in terms of impact on the consumer and for example, if Google is broken up then the product might suffer. I know one of you tried to bring up that anti-trust exists if there isn't a competitive marketplace, but I think it would be great to have a non-libertarian guest on who can speak about anti-trust more holistically. (maybe someone who is a Professor or Lawyer or member of Congress specializing in anti-trust of Big Tech or Sen.Hawley??) One of the things many guests on your show have made the mistake on antitrust topics is simplifying the argument to just look at producer vs. consumer. In antitrust, you also need to look at impacts upon small business owners and workers. For example, it is good for consumers when Amazon increases the efficiency of ordering lots of products. It is also good for consumers when Wal-Mart sells lots of products at very cheap prices. However, Amazon and Wal-Mart both have a history of putting lots of small business owners and their workers out of business by either undercutting the small businesses on price or forcing small companies to ship factory jobs to China in order to keep selling products on Amazon or Wal-Mart.
See You in 2021
The show’s on hiatus until early January. We’ve put out more than 85 episodes, so if you are new to the show, definitely go and check out our back catalogue. If you have any suggestions for new topics/guests/episodes, leave a comment below. Happy holidays and stay safe!
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