"If you believe everything you see on social media, then the recent conversation between New York Times podcaster Ezra Klein and author Ta-Nehisi Coates was shocking and appalling. The podcast episode, which stretched on for more than an hour, set the internet ablaze. Readers left hundreds of comments on the Times website; commenting was eventually closed. Thousands of listeners registered their outrage on X and Bluesky and Substack and their own podcasts and the pages of various progressive publications."
"If you listened to the Klein-Coates conversation and your brain hasn't been broken by the outrage algorithm, you might be more than a little confused by the backlash. The discussion was sprawling and at times tense, but felt important and useful: two smart men who share a single desired outcome-a free, fair nation-but have very different ideas about how to get there, hashing it out in public."
A lengthy podcast episode featuring two prominent commentators provoked intense online backlash, with many accusing one participant of moral opportunism and a willingness to accommodate white supremacy. Thousands of listeners posted outrage across X, Bluesky, Substack, podcasts, and progressive outlets, and Times comments were eventually closed. Others defended the encounter as important, productive, and necessary. The central dilemma concerned how the broader left and the Democratic Party should respond to severe unpopularity, authoritarian threats, and right-wing encroachments on rights. Major disagreements focused on whether and where Democrats should compromise on rights and equality to win elections and on differing views of individual roles.
Read at Slate Magazine
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