Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

There seems to be a lot of talk about this idea of political tribalism lately. Critiques that groups are increasingly insular not just around politics but about race or religion or any number of identity markers, and that this isolation makes it impossible to have meaningful conversations about the big issues facing our country. We’ve witnessed groups rallying around their side in ways that can be ugly, discounting the thoughts of the ‘Other’ on the mere status of being other, but is that true of all of political tribalism? Is it a dangerous group in-thinking or can it look like positive, meaningful group organizing? Chris Hayes is torn about the ambiguous use of political tribalism as a critique of certain types of politics, so he brought in Amy Chua to work them out. Amy Chua has been studying prejudice for 20 years and has a new book out called “Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations”. In this episode, Chris Hayes and Amy Chua wrestle over these questions and discuss whether political tribalism is even inherently a bad thing to begin with. Visit NBCNews.com/WhyIsThisHappening for more.

The Trump administration is forcibly separating immigrant children from their parents, something they are hoping will deter immigrants from entering the country. It's sparked widespread outrage, protests and lawsuits, with the White House now attempting to distance itself from its own policy. How did we get here? Lee Gelernt has worked on immigrants right’s issues with the ACLU since 1992 and is now the lead lawyer suing the Trump administration to stop taking kids away from their parents. In this episode, Gelernt explains how immigration and national security became so conflated, how it connects to 9/11, and describes the trauma these families are going through. Read the full transcript at NBCNews.com/WhyIsThisHappening.

From the rise of fake news and the troll farms pumping it out to the harvesting of our Facebook data by groups like Cambridge Analytica, Chris Hayes knows the internet feels pretty crappy these days. In this episode, Hayes examines how something once seen as a miracle of human connection became a free-for-all frenzy to get your clicks, and marvels at the lengths companies will go to keep your eyes to your screens. These are the ideas Tim Wu has spent a career, and two books, exploring. So, when we ask what created the conditions for this environment and angst surrounding our experience with the internet, we turn to Tim.

Since his first day in office, Donald Trump has been testing the boundaries of the law on multiple fronts. From his open hostility towards the investigation into his campaign’s involvement with a foreign adversary, to his policy prescriptions by way of executive order, to the way Donald Trump runs his own White House, this President has challenged the rule of law like no other recent President. So, in the case of Donald Trump v. the Law – who’s winning? And what can we learn from what’s happened so far? In this episode Chris gets answers from Kate Shaw, a law professor from the Cardozo School of Law who has worked in both the White House, the Supreme Court, and who also happens to be his wife. It also happened to be her birthday on the day this was recorded, and yes, that came up. Read more at NBCNews.com/whyisthishappening

Is President Donald Trump a conservative? While other contemporary writers and thinkers may be quick to write the President off as an anomaly to the conservative movement, Corey Robin has another theory. He argues that if you trace conservatism back through the centuries to understand what the movement is really truly about, then Donald Trump makes perfect sense. Corey Robin, author of “The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump”, is the guy who can explain why this is happening. Read more at NBCNews.com/whyisthishappening

What is happening in the Middle East? Chris Hayes sorts through the bewildering number of individual conflicts and key players to get to the heart of what’s unfolding in the Middle East. And, at the heart of it, is one big potentially world-war-starting kind of fight that helps explains them all. To understand the details of that fight, Chris turns to one of the best foreign reporters writing today – Dexter Filkins. He has covered the area extensively, knows the Middle East inside and out, and can tell us why we could be standing on the precipice of something era-defining. Read more at NBCNews.com/whyisthishappening

Talking about the politics of identity, particularly in the age of Donald Trump, can feel like you’re walking through a minefield. Whether it’s the President’s immigration policy or two black men arrested in a Starbucks, Chris Hayes argues that all the political debates we’re having are wrapped up in personal politics. But when it comes to confronting those personal politics and examining the power struggles that they invoke, conversations tend to get tense and defensive. Author and Professor Brittney Cooper’s story is compelling and traumatic and illuminating and she uses these pieces to explore how the personal becomes political within her own life in her new book, “Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower”. If there’s anyone who can talk about the politics of identity, feminism, and how we can understand those ideas through the lens of Beyoncé, it is Brittney Cooper. Read more at NBCNews.com/whyisthishappening

This podcast will help answer the BIG questions that keep Chris up at night. In this tumultuous time, the things we see play out on cable news every day are driven by big ideas, themes, and huge arcs of history. So, every week a new expert will help us better understand why this is (all) happening. Read more at NBCNews.com/whyisthishappening