Year Zero with Wesley Yang

"…it’s just as easily going to encroach on any other categorization that we've ever recognized in law as needed to help particular groups with defined characteristics - people with disabilities, people of certain ages - need different things in law. Race, color and national origin - every single category that we've ever identified and distinguished among people for the purpose of providing accommodation or special legal attention to what they might need, in order to have opportunities equal to people without their characteristics. All of that is in jeopardy if the law throws out references and reference points to objective or measurable qualities in favor of each individual person's self declaration about themselves."In today’s episode of CURRENT EVENTS IN YEAR ZERO I talk with Candice Jackson, former Acting Assistant Secretary of Education, about Title IX, gender ideology, and the integrity of civil rights law.Listen on Substack or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts: Apple | Spotify | Google | RSS. Become a paid subscriber to receive transcripts of all audio content across platforms. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wesleyyang.substack.com/subscribe

“So the basic claim is that, okay, there may have been this need, contingently, one time, for the court to act; but if you create a super weapon, it's something that whoever gets control of it, will find a tempting, non-democratic way of getting their policy done. That's what the Lochner era had been about. That's what the liberals used it for, instead of taking civil rights, gender equality to the country, and saying, ultimately, this is something on which we have to find a way to convince our fellow citizens, they relied on the super weapon. And of course, as you would predict, the Empire struck back. And really since the 1970s, the Supreme Court is a story in this last phase of the conservatives struggling and succeeding in getting control of that super weapon.”Today’s podcast once again interrupts the retrospective gaze at the online culture war of the ROAD TO YEAR ZERO series and the pedagogical approach of the SYLLABUS and soon to be launched REMEDIAL READING series to catch up with current events, as we periodically will when current events both become pressing and can benefit from a longer run perspective.This week I spoke with Samuel Moyn, professor of history and law at Yale University, and author of the book Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War, about the recent Dobbs decision and what he regards as the misguided reliance on the Supreme Court as an instrument of progressive change. And finally, a reminder to become a paid subscriber and get a head start on the reading for the next episode of the Syllabus Series: Samuel Huntington, American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Harvard University Press, 1983), chs. 1-3. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wesleyyang.substack.com/subscribe

This is an abridged, 20-minute excerpt of the interview with Boston College professor of political science Shep Melnick posted for paid subscribers only. Become a paid subscriber to hear the rest of this episode and maintain access to a growing archive of independent study sessions.This is the third episode in the Syllabus series, wherein I do a deep dive into a subject with an academic expert.R. Shep Melnick, Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr. Professor of American Politics at Boston College and co-chair of the Harvard Program on Constitutional Government, has put together a syllabus of readings that we will be working through on the subscriber-only Syllabus podcast series. Every 3-4 weeks we’ll do another reading together.This week, we’re discussing Hugh Heclo’s essay “The Sixties’ False Dawn: Awakenings, Movements, and Postmodern Policymaking,” Journal of Policy History, vol. 8, 1996.Become a paid subscriber and get a head start on our next reading: Samuel Huntington, American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Harvard University Press, 1983), chs. 1-3. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wesleyyang.substack.com/subscribe

Early adopters of the Yang Extended Universe as it moves into the audio realm are familiar with my scripted podcast, that you can listen to here on Substack, but I also have another weekly show, Conversations in Year Zero, conducted on the app Callin, in which I get to interact with my audience. I’ve noticed in the past few sessions that the size of those participating has begun to grow, and I hope to have it continue to grow as time passes. The Callin show is a venue for unscripted and spontaneous conversation, often with an interviewee but sometimes with just me. So today’s episode of the Year Zero podcast includes some highlights from the first 18 episodes of my Callin show —we discuss the new religion of the American elite, Tumblr true believers, and the future of free speech with some interesting people. Thank you to everyone who’s participated in the show so far, and I look forward to new listeners enriching future episodes with your own participation.You can listen to other Conversations in Year Zero on Callin, or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts: Apple  |  Spotify  | GoogleBecome a paid subscriber to my Substack to receive transcripts of all audio content across platforms. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wesleyyang.substack.com/subscribe

In today’s episode of The Road to Year Zero we pick up right where we left off in our conversation with Jonathan Chait. At the time of our interview, Chait was working on a piece exploring the current state of the culture, since, as he put it “a wave of illiberal norms around the discussion of race and gender began to hit an expanding array of progressive institutions” seven or eight years ago, and arguing that we had hit yet another inflection point in the year 2022.In the prior episode, The Road to Year Zero #3: Chait v. The Internet, we published excerpts of the interview that focused on his 2015 piece, and the sudden and spontaneous responses generated against him at the time, and have been waiting to post the second part of the interview until his new piece was published. Now that his article is out, we're going to continue the interview right where we left off in the last episode. We'll discuss whether rumors of a vibe shift are real, the weakness of wokeness, why you see so many editorials in the New York Times lamenting cancel culture, and why Chait believes this is going to be a self-ending phenomenon. Listen on Substack or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts: Apple | Spotify | Google | RSS. Become a paid subscriber to my Substack to receive transcripts of all audio content across platforms. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wesleyyang.substack.com/subscribe

"I think it's different because it's fundamentally a sort of liberal Civil War, in which both parties, that is to say, pro-choice activists and pro-life activists, really think of themselves in an actually remarkably similar way. Both sides think of themselves as human rights Crusaders, who are charged with expanding the frontiers of human freedom, human equality. And so they really think of themselves in some senses, children of the declaration, in that grand liberal heritage and tradition that extends back to abolitionists, that extends back to civil rights activists.""I think there's something sort of utopian about the pro-life point of view, as well. Right. I mean, I think it asks too much of us in some ways. And that it, in a weird kind of way, it demands a kind of rationalism, that I think is too heavy of a lift. It demands that we, for purely philosophical reasons, really, believe that the tadpole has the same moral status as the, you know, the neonate. And even for folks who can get there philosophically, it's a hard stretch to get there sentimentally, and so we tend to, so I think it's, it's a crusade that I think total victory for them is, in some ways, contrary to our own nature.""And we know this, lots of pro-choice thinkers think it was bad law. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in her way, thought it was bad law. She described the decision as breathtaking. And I think I'm really sympathetic to all of that. I mean, that was a decision that created this, you know, sweeping right to abortion really through all nine months of pregnancy. And, and it really did, I mean, hate to use this word because it gets used incorrectly. But I do think it did sort of disenfranchise a lot of Americans - disenfranchise in the sense that suddenly, you know, in the morning of January 22, 1973, you had lots of Americans who woke up and discovered that they couldn't really vote on this issue anymore." — Jon A. Shields, Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna CollegeToday’s podcast interrupts the retrospective gaze at the online culture war of the ROAD TO YEAR ZERO series and the pedagogical approach of the SYLLABUS and soon to be launched REMEDIAL READING series to catch up with current events, as we periodically will when current events both become pressing and can benefit from a longer run perspective Today we’ll be talking with Jon A. Shields about his NYT op-ed on the national compromise on abortion perceptible in the polling data, and about the broader future of the Christian Right at the moment of its triumph. Listen on Substack or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts: Apple | Spotify | Google | RSS. Become a paid subscriber to receive transcripts of all audio content across platforms. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wesleyyang.substack.com/subscribe

This is an abridged, 30-minute excerpt of the interview with Boston College professor of political science Shep Melnick posted yesterday for paid subscribers only. It is the second episode of the subscriber-only Syllabus series. Become a paid subscriber to hear the rest of this episode and maintain access to a growing archive of independent study sessions.This is the second episode in the Syllabus series, wherein I do a deep dive into a subject with an academic expert.R. Shep Melnick, Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr. Professor of American Politics at Boston College and co-chair of the Harvard Program on Constitutional Government, has put together a syllabus of readings that we will working through on the subscriber-only Syllabus podcast series. Every 3-4 weeks we’ll do another reading together.This episode we discuss Robert A. Kagan’s essay “Adversarial Legalism and American Government.”Other readings mentioned in this episode: Lloyd A. Free and Hadley Cantril’s 1967 book The Political Beliefs of Americans: A Study of Public OpinionJonathan Rauch’s Jul/Aug 2016 article in The Atlantic, "How American Politics Went Insane" Daniel P. Moynihan's Iron Law of Emulation theory in "Imperial Government." Commentary, Jun. 1978Jamal Greene’s 2021 book How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession with Rights Is Tearing America ApartNext episode we will be reading Hugh Heclo, “The Sixties’ False Dawn: Awakenings, Movements, and Postmodern Policymaking,” Journal of Policy History, vol. 8, 1996.A full transcript of our conversation is available for paid subscribers. Listen on Substack or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts: Apple | Spotify | Google | RSS. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wesleyyang.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s episode of the Road to Year Zero Podcast looks back at the publication of Jonathan Chait’s February 2015 New York Magazine cover story, NOT A VERY P.C. THING TO SAY, which both registered the recrudescence of political correctness and summoned up a response illustrative of a new balance of forces within media and affiliated institutions. I talk with Chait about that curious inflection point in the culture wars which was at once striking in its blessed innocence and prophetic of the world to come. Discussed: Nicholas Christakis’s Struggle Session; the bien pensants respond to the Charlie Hebdo Massacre; the rise to ascendancy of Ta-Nehisi Coates A full transcript of our conversation is available for paid subscribers. Listen on Substack or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts: Apple | Spotify | Google | RSS. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wesleyyang.substack.com/subscribe

This is an abridged, 20-minute excerpt of the original, one hour and twenty-five minute interview with Boston College professor of political science Shep Melnick posted yesterday for paid subscribers only. It is the first episode of the subscriber-only Syllabus series. Become a paid subscriber to hear the rest of this episode and maintain access to a growing archive of independent study sessions. This is the inaugural episode of the Syllabus series, wherein I do a deep dive into a subject with a distinguished academic who provides me with a syllabus and does an independent study with me that will be posted at Year Zero for paid subscribers. Each episode will begin with a short lecture on the assigned reading, followed by a discussion in which I act as surrogate for the audience.Here I am talking to Boston College law professor Shep Melnick about his book, The Transformation of Title IX, which is a kind of Rosetta Stone of the legal and administrative regime that serves as the font from which Successor Ideology flows. It is one of the most important single works for those seeking an understanding of the intellectual history of the Road to Year Zero.Next episode we’ll be reading Robert A. Kagan’s essay “Adversarial Legalism and American Government.”A full transcript of our conversation is available for paid subscribers. Listen on Substack or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts: Apple | Spotify | Google | RSS. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wesleyyang.substack.com/subscribe

Still evoking the mood and atmospherics of the early days of the ideological succession. A reflection on the following piece, and a dramatic recitation, by me of my own work: https://harpers.org/archive/2016/03/we-out-here/ Listen on Substack or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts: Apple | Spotify | Google | RSS.A full transcript is available for those paid subscribers reluctant to take in information through their ears. All the original music on these episodes consists of music written and recorded by me. This one has my singing voice on it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wesleyyang.substack.com/subscribe