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Talkin‘ Politics & Religion Without Killin‘ Each Other: Daily Summaries Delivered
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Politics and Religion. We’re not supposed to talk about that, right? Wrong! We only say that nowadays because the loudest, most extreme voices have taken over the whole conversation. Well, we‘re taking some of that space back! If you’re dying for some dialogue instead of all the yelling; if you know it’s okay to have differences without having to hate each other; if you believe politics and religion are too important to let ”the screamers” drown out the rest of us and would love some engaging, provocative and fun conversations about this stuff, then ”Talkin‘ Politics & Religion Without Killin‘ Each Other” is for you!
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- 2 days ago1h 47m
Enemies, Then Friends || Barbara Bradley Hagerty on Ben Spencer, Justice, and Reconciliation
Barbara Bradley Hagerty has spent a career asking why people do the things they do. The hardest answer she found runs through a wrongful conviction, thirty-four years lost, and a friendship between two men who had every reason to stay enemies. A New York Times bestselling author and contributing writer for The Atlantic, Barb covered criminal justice and religion at NPR for nearly twenty years. This conversation runs from a kindergarten report card that called her whole life, to a cycling accident that took away her fear of death, to Ben Spencer and Jay Young, the wrongly imprisoned man and the victim's son, who somehow became friends. Calls to Action ✅ Leave a rating and review: lovethepodcast.com/politicsandreligion ✅ Subscribe on Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com ✅ Watch and subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion ✅ Share this episode with someone who reads the news and someone who's given up on it Key Takeaways Enemies, then friends. Ben Spencer chose to forgive and pray for the victim's family, and Jay Young chose to believe Ben might be innocent and show up for him. What made it possible was simple and hard: each stood in the other's shoes, then listened. Two sets of victims. Every exoneration wrecks two families, the prisoner who lost his years and the victim's family, often told for decades that the right man was locked up. Jay Young was twelve when his father was killed. The system isn't broken. People are. The prosecutors who fought Ben's release didn't make the original mistake. They just couldn't bring themselves to admit one had been made. Losing the fear of death. A car hit Barb at thirty-five miles an hour while she was cycling. She came out of it with the sense that life is precious and can't be about her anymore. About Our Guest Barbara Bradley Hagerty is a New York Times bestselling author and contributing writer for The Atlantic. She spent nearly twenty years at NPR covering criminal justice and religion, including as lead Justice Department correspondent during 9/11. Her books include Fingerprints of God, Life Reimagined, and Bringing Ben Home. Links and Resources Barbara Bradley Hagerty and Bringing Ben Home: barbarabradleyhagerty.com "The Other Victims of a Wrongful Conviction" in The Atlantic: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/07/wrongful-conviction-family/687394 Connect with us Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn: @coreysnathan Partners Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it. Stand in the other person's shoes, then listen to their story. Now go talk some politics and religion with gentleness and respect.
- 5 days ago43 min
Who's Got the Real TDS? || What We'll Abide
The essay ran in The Dispatch. Then a few hundred readers wrote back, and a few of them changed my mind. There is such a thing as Trump Derangement Syndrome. It just isn't what most people mean when they say it. This one goes behind the essay: the passages that got cut, the third man who never made it into the print version, and the comment section that turned out to be the best part of the whole thing. Calls to Action ✅ Leave a rating and review: lovethepodcast.com/politicsandreligion ✅ Subscribe on Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com ✅ Watch and subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion ✅ Share this episode with someone who reads the news and someone who's given up on it Links and Resources "Does Trump Derangement Syndrome Have a Cure?" - thedispatch.com/newsletter/dispatch-faith/maga-christianity-donald-trump The Dispatch - thedispatch.com Connect with Us Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, TikTok, X: @coreysnathan YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion Our Partners Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it. Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room. Yes, really.
- 1 weeks ago54 min
Carl Cannon, RealClearPolitics || "We Weren't Objective. So We Got Trump."
Carl Cannon came up in newsrooms where editors challenged you word by word, and nearly fifty years on he's still keeping score on who gets the quote right. His one rule, for reporting and for arguing in general: describe the other side so faithfully they'd claim it as their own. The Washington bureau chief of RealClearPolitics learned the trade from his father, Reagan biographer Lou Cannon, and came up the old way: small papers, police and courts, editors who challenged every word. This conversation runs from fake quotes and the reporters who hunt them, to the Yellowstone wolves as a lesson in fairness, to why doing your own thinking tends to leave you independent of both parties. Calls to Action ✅ Follow the show wherever you listen ✅ Leave a rating and review: lovethepodcast.com/politicsandreligion ✅ Subscribe on Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com ✅ Watch and subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion ✅ Share this episode with someone who reads the news and someone who's given up on it Key Takeaways The Carl Cannon Rule. Describe someone's position so faithfully they'd claim it as their own, or you're just knocking down straw men. Fair and accurate, not objective. The honest standard was never neutrality. It's doing the work, getting the quote right, and giving the other side its say. Why the wolves matter. He dropped the ranchers' case into a pro-wolf story, and both sides came away sure he was secretly with them. That's the job. Never needlessly make your own behavior the issue. His rule of life, and a fair test for anyone trying to argue in good faith. About Our Guest Carl Cannon is the Washington bureau chief of RealClearPolitics and executive editor of RealClear Media Group. The son of Reagan biographer Lou Cannon, he has covered national politics for nearly five decades at the Baltimore Sun, National Journal, and Knight Ridder, and is the author of several books. Links and Resources RealClearPolitics: realclearpolitics.co Connect with us Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn: @coreysnathan Partners Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it. Give the other side its say, and get the quote right. Now go talk some politics and religion with gentleness and respect.
- 1 weeks ago1h 32m
Yuval Levin: We Disagree Too Little || A Village Squarecast Special
Something a little different this week. This is a Village Squarecast episode, shared here in full, and you'll hear Corey host the top before turning it over to Liz Joyner, founder and president of The Village Square. Steve Seibert moderates. The guest is Dr. Yuval Levin, director of social, cultural, and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute, founder and editor of National Affairs, and author of American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation and Could Again. He has been on TP&R before. And we just loved hearing him with our good friends at the Village Square. The argument that makes this worth your ninety minutes: we don't disagree too much in this country. We disagree too little. We spend our days talking about each other instead of to each other, and the Constitution was built less to make us agree than to help us act together when we don't. In this conversation: ✅ Why the left and right at their best are both telling part of the truth, one a politics of formation, the other a politics of liberation ✅ Why unity was never meant to mean thinking alike ✅ How a system built to be slow and frustrating trades speed for legitimacy ✅ The case for growing the House by 150 members, and why it would only take a law ✅ Why term limits for Congress would hand the institution to lobbyists ✅ Martin Van Buren, party systems, and a tip of the cap to nobody's favorite president About the guest Yuval Levin serves as a senior editor at The New Atlantis and a contributing editor at National Review. He served on the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. He holds a master's and a PhD from the University of Chicago and is the author of seven books. More from The Village Square This conversation closes out UNUM: Democracy Reignited, The Village Square's series with Florida Humanities marking America at 250. Subscribe to Village Squarecast wherever you listen, and support their work at villagesquare.us/donate. Talkin' Politics & Religion Without Killin' Each Other Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Watch on YouTube. Leave a review at lovethepodcast.com/politicsandreligion. Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room. Yes, really.
- 2 weeks ago1h 19m
The Only Industry the Constitution Protects || Hugo Balta, The Fulcrum
The press is the only industry the Constitution protects. Hugo Balta thinks too many newsrooms forgot why, and he walked out to prove it. Hugo Balta spent three decades in newsrooms at NBC, MSNBC, Telemundo, CBS, ABC, and ESPN before leaving mainstream media for independent journalism. He now serves as executive editor of The Fulcrum and publisher of the Latino News Network, and he remains the only person in the history of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists to serve twice as its president. This conversation runs from a Paterson, NJ childhood as the son of Peruvian immigrants to why he rejects objectivity as a marketing tool, what a free press is actually for, and the morning he flew the flag upside down. Calls to Action ✅ Follow the show wherever you listen ✅ Leave a rating and review: lovethepodcast.com/politicsandreligion ✅ Subscribe on Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com ✅ Watch and subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion ✅ Share this episode with someone who works in or distrusts the media Key Takeaways Objectivity is a marketing tool. No journalist checks their identity at the newsroom door, and pretending otherwise is what audiences have stopped believing. The honest standard is fair and accurate, built on transparent methods and undisputed facts. The math flipped, so he left. Early in his career, journalism was 70 percent of the job and business pressure 30. A decade later that ratio inverted toward clicks and presidential tweets, and that was the moment he chose independence. Diagnosing a problem is only half the work. Solutions journalism holds that reporters owe readers more than a spotlight on what's broken. The turn toward what right looks like, backed by evidence and a few action items, is what separates informing from educating. Understand the motivation, not just the position. Most disagreements are about the path, not the destination. Asking what drives someone's stance humanizes them and opens the ground where real debate can happen. About Our Guest Hugo Balta is executive editor of The Fulcrum and publisher of the Latino News Network, which has grown under his leadership to ten local and national digital news sites. A three-decade veteran of network and public media, he is an accredited Solutions Journalism Network trainer and teaches at Columbia College Chicago. Links and Resources The Fulcrum: thefulcrum.us Latino News Network: latinonewsnetwork.com Hugo Balta on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/hugobalta Connect with Talkin' Politics & Religion Without Killin' Each Other Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn: @coreysnathan Partners Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it. Fair and accurate beats objective every time. Now go talk some politics and religion with gentleness and respect.
- 2 weeks ago1h 16m
Leaving the Church, Keeping the Prayer || Lauren Jackson, The New York Times
She left the church at twenty-five. She never stopped praying, and she still doesn't know who's listening. Lauren Jackson writes Believing, the New York Times newsletter about how people practice faith and doubt now, and she came to the beat by way of her own departure from the Mormon church she was raised in. Corey talks with her about what secularism can't replace, what AI is quietly taking from us, and the question she brings to every hard conversation. Calls to Action ✅ Subscribe to Lauren's newsletter, Believing, at The New York Times ✅ Follow her on Instagram: @laurenchristinejackson ✅ Enjoyed this one? Leave a quick review: lovethepodcast.com/politicsandreligion Key Takeaways Ask what if they're right. Before a hard conversation, Lauren puts that question to herself, then listens. Your position may not move, but you get closer to the humanity of the person across from you, and that turns out to matter more. Secularism won, and it still can't do everything. Religion delivers beliefs, belonging, and behaviors in one place, and nothing secular offers all three at once. The absence shows up as a hunger for community that people describe to her constantly. Belief is spiking. Attendance isn't. Gallup finds a sharp jump in young men under thirty who call religion very important, without the matching rise in showing up anywhere. Religion is increasingly a piece of a packaged identity rather than a practice. Resist the doctrine of efficiency. Father James Martin's phrase, and Lauren's working rule. We lose to machines on volume, so the only place left to win is quality, which requires the slowness that AI is designed to eliminate. She will always seek to humanize. Not condone, and not valorize. Understand what real, human motivations produce behavior we find contestable, which is harder to sit with than a verdict. We are the times. A friend gave her Augustine's line from the sacking of Rome, and it landed as an assignment. Despairing about the age is a way of pretending we are not participants in it. About Our Guest Lauren Jackson is deputy editorial director for newsletters at The New York Times and the host of Believing, a weekly newsletter about how people live religion and spirituality now. Links and Resources 📩 Believing at The New York Times - www.nytimes.com/newsletters/believing 📷 Instagram — @laurencristinejackson 📖 Letters and Papers from Prison — Dietrich Bonhoeffer Connect with Us Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, TikTok, X: @coreysnathan YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion Our Partners Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it. Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room. Yes, really.
- 3 weeks ago1h 16m
Lindsey Cormack || How to Raise a Citizen for a Government That Doesn't Suck
The founders weren't just the names in the history books. You count as one, and citizenship is something you practice. Lindsey Cormack studies how members of Congress actually talk to the people they represent, and she wrote the book on why civics belongs at home long before it reaches a classroom. Corey sits down with her on what it takes to raise a citizen, why disagreement is where the learning happens, and how a new podcast makes the case that government doesn't always have to suck. Calls to Action ✅ Grab Lindsey's book, How to Raise a Citizen (And Why It's Up to You to Do It): howtoraiseacitizen.com ✅ Follow her new podcast, Government That Doesn't Suck ✅ Enjoyed this one? Leave a quick review: lovethepodcast.com/politicsandreligion Key Takeaways Every American is a founder. Lindsey reframes citizenship as something you practice, not something performed on you. The question she puts to students of every age, "what kind of founder are you," turns civic life from a spectator sport into a personal responsibility. Two classes is not a civic education. Most Americans get one social studies class in middle school and one government class in high school, then nothing. That's too little, too late for a subject this size. Open with "what have you heard?" Since there's no shared set of facts anymore, that question sets the table without a fight. From there, "what do you think" and "what do you know" move things toward learning instead of scorekeeping. Winning is the wrong goal. The point of talking across difference is to learn why someone thinks the way they do, not to convert them. The pressure drops the moment you stop keeping score. Government doesn't always have to suck. Lindsey's new show with Greg Jackson studies the times American government got things right, on the logic that you can't repeat a success you never bothered to examine. Grounded optimism holds up better than either blind cheerleading or constant despair. About Our Guest Lindsey Cormack is an associate professor of political science at Stevens Institute of Technology, creator of the DC Inbox database of congressional e-newsletters, author of How to Raise a Citizen (And Why It's Up to You to Do It), and co-host of the podcast Government That Doesn't Suck. Links and Resources 📘 How to Raise a Citizen (And Why It's Up to You to Do It) 🎙️ Government That Doesn't Suck — podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/government-that-doesnt-suck/id1896938110 🗂️ DCinbox Insights on Substack — dcinboxinsights.substack.com 📸 Instagram — @howtoraiseacitizen 🦋 X and Bluesky — @DCInbox Connect with Us Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, TikTok, X: @coreysnathan YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion Our Partners Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it. Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room. Yes, really.
- 3 weeks ago16 min
All the Meeting Places || On Desecration and What Endures at America's 250th
Through Psalm 74 and the firebombing of a New Jersey synagogue in 1984, a bar mitzvah season becomes a reckoning with the places we call hallowed and what survives once they've been defiled. A solo reflection on desecration, spectacle, and the unglamorous work of redemption, from an old tavern's charred remains to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the year of America's 250th. ✅ If this one landed, leave a quick review so others looking for conversations like it can find them too: lovethepodcast.com/politicsandreligion ✅ Find Corey @coreysnathan across the socials, and join the conversation over on Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com Talkin' Politics & Religion Without Killin' Each Other is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can fix it together. The buckets and the steel wool. That's the work of redemption.
About Talkin‘ Politics & Religion Without Killin‘ Each Other
Politics and Religion. We’re not supposed to talk about that, right? Wrong! We only say that nowadays because the loudest, most extreme voices have taken over the whole conversation. Well, we‘re taking some of that space back! If you’re dying for some dialogue instead of all the yelling; if you know it’s okay to have differences without having to hate each other; if you believe politics and religion are too important to let ”the screamers” drown out the rest of us and would love some engaging, provocative and fun conversations about this stuff, then ”Talkin‘ Politics & Religion Without Killin‘ Each Other” is for you!
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