418 | Bethany McLean: How COVID Exposed a Hollowed-Out and Sickly America

The Realignment

Saager Enjeti, Technology, Policy, News, Marshall Kosloff, International Relations, Politics, News Commentary, Public Policy, U.s. Politics, National Security, Economics

4.8 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2023

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Bethany McLean, co-author of The Big Fail: and co-host of the Capitalisn't podcast, joins The Realignment. Marshall and Bethany discuss how her exploration of COVID America fits into the story of her previous exposés, The Smartest Guys in the Room and All the Devils Are Here, the impact of snarled supply chains, school closures, and poorly evaluated mask mandates, and why she believes capitalism has jumped the rails in the 21st century.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Marshall here. Welcome back to The Realignment.
0:08.2	Today's guest, Bethany McLean, is one of my favorite investigative reporters. She co-authored
0:13.5	the smartest guys in the room, the amazing rise, and Scanda was followed. And Ron, the definitive
0:18.4	story of one of the biggest corporate collapses in American history. And all the devils are here,
0:23.7	the hidden history of the financial crisis. Now, with her co-authored Joe Nocera,
0:29.2	she's turned her attention to COVID, the defining issue of the 2020s. The new book is The Big
0:34.5	Fail, what the pandemic reveals about who America protects and who leads behind. I know that some of
0:41.3	you may be thinking, geez, another COVID book, another delving into a topic we as a society have
0:48.1	created a side to run from. The relevance of this book and the frame that Bethany McLean provides
0:54.6	is that she's using COVID as a lens and means of analyzing American society. She and Joe argue
1:02.1	that America has a deep sickness at its core that if you look across the issues and areas of
1:08.9	preparedness from hospitals to schools and other parts of our society, COVID revealed a deep
1:16.3	inability to handle the challenges we're going to continue to face as a country is we're thinking
1:21.1	about this book and how it's revealed various aspects of American society that are said to be
1:25.1	challenged. We don't understand that the themes that she covers will no doubt play out in the latter
1:31.0	half of this decade. I should also note that she hosts a great podcast at the University of Chicago
1:35.7	called Capitalism. It is actually perfectly within the realignment's interest in post neoliberal
1:41.6	economics and other issues. So I don't recommend you check out that as well. A lot of the guests
1:45.9	you all enjoyed on the show have also appeared there as well. Huge thank you to the foundation
1:51.4	for American innovation for supporting the work of this podcast. I hope you all have a great weekend.
1:57.0	Bethany McLean welcome to the realignment. Thank you for having me on.
2:02.5	So this book the big fail is clearly about more than just COVID. It's why I'm so interested
	...

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