The Realignment: Post-COVID America with Ross Douthat, Welcome to the Roaring '20s 2.0, and Our New Clubhouse Show
New episodes with Ross Douthat, Alex Kantrowitz, and an announcement about Clubhouse
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Welcome Back to the Realignment
This week we aired two episodes: New York Times conservative columnist Ross Douthat returned to the show to discuss the newly released and updated for the Coronavirus pandemic, and Alex Kantrowitz, Big Technology newsletter and podcast writer/host and friend of the pod, returned for his third appearance to announce our new show on Clubhouse: The News.
What Are We Up to on Clubhouse?
Last night, Saagar, Marshall, and Alex hosted Jane Coaston of The New York Times/The Argument podcast and Joe Weisenthal from Bloomberg/The Odd Lots podcast for an hour and 15 minutes at 8:00 PM EST, 5:00 PM PST.
We’ll be back next Thursday at the same time. If you missed yesterdays email, read our repost below about Clubhouse:
In case you aren’t aware of what Clubhouse is, The New York Times has a decent explainer here.
TLDR: Clubhouse is an audio and invitation-only social media app that came out last year during the early stages of the pandemic. Think of it as a live radio show. The cool thing’s that the audience can engage with the hosts/speakers throughout the conversation.
Right now, the app’s in beta-mode and requires an invite (and an iPhone) to join, so we unfortunately can’t bring everyone in right now. However, the app’s set to leave beta and expand to Android/the broader public in the coming months.
There’ve been some really interesting shows with Elon Musk, the CEO of Robinhood, and Joe Rogan lately. We’re trying to figure out how our convos around news and current events can work live. If you have any ideas, let us know.
In our dream world, rather than recording an episode on Gamestop and Robinhood in the afternoon and releasing it the next day, we can bring our awesome guests on the show live to help you all understand what’s going on.
We at The Realignment and Alex are really excited about Clubhouse’s prospects. So we’re launching a weekly show that’ll cover the news with interesting folks like Jane and Joe.
If you were able to make it, we’d love to hear your thoughts on the format and how we did? If you weren’t there, it’d be great to get your perspective as well.
We loved interacting with people, and think social audio’s the next big thing and a huge opportunity for folks who cover the news and events. For the Risers that subscribe, you’ll be happy to hear that Krystal’s joining us in the coming weeks on the show.
This Week’s Episodes
Episode 109: Alex Kantrowitz: Are We About to Enter the Roaring 20’s? + Join The Realignment & Big Technology Podcast on Clubhouse on 3/18
Episode 108: Ross Douthat: America Before and After the Pandemic
(Audio)
Check out Ross’s new substack to promote the book here.
A reminder, Ross and Alex both have books out, so definitely check out our Bookshop below to support them, the show, and local booksellers.
The Realignment’s Bookshop.org Storefront
As a reminder, we’ve created a Realignment podcast affiliate shop for guest books at bookshop.org. The shop features our guests’ books, including books from Michael Lind, Scott Galloway, Reeves Wiedeman, Ross Douthat, Matt Stoller, and Lisa Napoli.
We’ve built out four Bookshop lists:
1) Our list of the best books we read in 2020
2) All of the books we’ve read so far in 2021
3) Books written by Realignment podcast guests
4) Saagar’s books from his appearance on Lex Fridman’s podcast
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.
Let us know what you think about this, or any other week’s episodes. Please share The Realignment with anyone who’d enjoy the podcast.