Lean Out with Tara Henley

Canada is embroiled in a number of high-profile political scandals, and it’s a dispiriting moment for the country. This week, we’re taking a break from the news cycle, and instead contemplating the contributions of a famed Canadian — the late philosopher Marshall McLuhan — who, my guest on today’s program says, understood our time better than many currently living through it. Benjamin Carlson is an American writer, and media strategist, and the author of the Substack newsletter, Carlson Letter. His latest essay, on Marshall McLuhan, is part of a series at The Free Press titled “The Prophets.” You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

It’s not unusual for well-heeled people to try to imagine what it might be like to grow up without money. But my guest on today’s program says it is uncommon for them to try to imagine what it might be like to grow up without a family. And his new book chronicles exactly that life — his childhood in foster care — but also, his journey from a working-class town in California to the military, Yale University and beyond.Rob Henderson is the American writer who coined the term “luxury beliefs.” His debut book is Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

We hear a lot of grim predictions about the future of local news, both in the United States and in Canada. But my guests on today’s program are feeling optimistic. For their new book, the pair did a deep dive into innovative local and regional news startups across America, and they say these startups are changing the media landscape, one outlet at a time. Ellen Clegg spent more than three decades at The Boston Globe. She’s co-founder of a non-profit local news outlet in Massachusetts, Brookline.News. Dan Kennedy is a journalism professor at Northeastern University and a media commentator. Their podcast is What Works: The Future of Local News. And together, they are the authors of What Works in Community News: Media Startups, News Deserts, and the Future of the Fourth Estate. You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

On the Lean Out podcast, we’ve talked a lot about plummeting birth rates in the West, about high rates of unhappiness among modern women, about the loneliness epidemic in our society, and about the crisis unfolding among men, with large numbers of suicides and overdoses. Our guest on the program today says there’s a factor we should consider with each of these issues — and that is low marriage rates. And he thinks it’s time to have a conversation about the state of our unions.  Brad Wilcox is a professor of sociology and director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. He’s also the author of Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization. You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

What does it take to speak out against orthodoxies in an age of outrage? This is something that our guest on today’s program has spent years contemplating, interviewing people from all walks of life who have managed to stick to their principles in the face of an online mobbing, and not back down.Katherine Brodsky is a Canadian writer and commentator, and the author of No Apologies: How to Find and Free Your Voice in the Age of Outrage — Lessons for the Silenced Majority.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

Canada has, once again, made international headlines. The Federal Court has ruled the government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act, in response to the trucker protests, was illegal. My guest on today’s program argued during the crisis that the government had done something that it had no constitutional power to do — and he joins me on the program today to talk through this historic court decision.  Ryan Alford is a constitutional law expert, a law professor at Lakehead University, and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

For decades now in Canada, there has been a bipartisan, pro-immigration consensus. But in recent weeks, we have watched that consensus fall apart. Our guest on today’s program has been covering this development in his columns for The Globe and Mail. He argues that it was the Liberal government that broke the consensus — and it must be the Liberals who restore it. Tony Keller is a veteran Canadian journalist and a columnist for The Globe and Mail. (This podcast was recorded before Immigration Minister Marc Miller’s announcement  that the federal government will cap international student visas. You can read Tony’s latest column on that development here.)You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

In Ontario, where Tara lives, schools were closed for 135 days during the pandemic. Both there and in the United States, there was very little critical media coverage on this unprecedented public policy. But our guest on today’s program was reporting on those left behind by school closures from the very beginning. Now, he’s covering an element of the aftermath that’s not getting much attention — the crisis in absenteeism.Alec MacGillis is an author and an award-winning investigative journalist. He’s a reporter at ProPublica, and his latest piece, published both there and at The New Yorker, is “Has School Become Optional?”You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

2024 is an election year for the United States. And one of the stories so far is the political realignment that we’re continuing to witness — with the working class moving to the right. This is something that is also happening here in Canada. My guests on today’s program have written an entire book about the phenomenon, and what it might mean for the future of politics.John B. Judis is editor-at-large at Talking Points Memo, a former senior writer at The National Journal, and a former senior editor at The New Republic. Ruy Teixeira is a contributing columnist at The Washington Post, a cofounder and politics editor of The Liberal Patriot newsletter on Substack, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Their new book is Where have all the Democrats gone? The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

The Lean Out podcast kicked off two years ago this week, aiming to push back on mainstream media conformity, to reaffirm old school journalistic values like viewpoint diversity and curiosity and respect — and, in some small way, to help widen the Overton window of ideas considered acceptable for discussion and debate. Happily, this approach seems to be resonating with a lot of you. We’re pleased to say that we now have listeners in 150 countries and close to 5,000 cities worldwide.For our anniversary episode today, we're delighted to be joined by a journalist we admire, whose work we have looked to as an example for our times.Michael Powell is a staff writer at The Atlantic and a former reporter at The New York Times, where he covered free speech, college campuses, and identity politics.  He’s also the author of Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Season on the Navajo Nation.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com