What happened in this episode?
Ezra Klein interviews Ross Douthat ahead of Douthat’s departure from The New York Times to become a correspondent for 60 Minutes. The conversation ranges over the early-2000s blogging era, how online debate differed from today’s social-media incentives, and how that shift changed the “currency” of attention from cross-linking and argument to audience affirmation and dunking.
Douthat reflects on his long-running role as a conservative writing for mostly liberal audiences, arguing that persuasion requires engaging opponents’ strongest self-understanding rather than caricature. He revisits the “Grand New Party” diagnosis he made with Reihan Salam about the Republican Party’s working-class shift, saying Trump fulfilled elements of populist realignment via different emphases—tariffs and “bring back your jobs” rhetoric—while also creating what Douthat describes as an unsustainable entitlement posture that squeezed out family-policy ambitions.
On culture and religion, Douthat sketches what he calls a transition from a Bush-era religious right to a “post-religious right”, including conflicts between Christian ethics and a more amoral, dominance-focused politics. He also argues parts of the post-Christian left are reassessing the role of religion and moral language after the “woke” period.
Discussing his move, Douthat says he wants to do more interviewing as a way to understand a “weirder” world where he feels less certain about who is right in any given dispute. He also turns to uncertainty-driven beats—UAPs and AI—saying some Silicon Valley figures now think in three-year timelines because they expect a near-term “singularity”, a claim he remains sceptical of but expects will be tested soon.
