Hey, it's Mary, and it's the day after New Year's. So to be honest, I'm not really here.

Frankly, I'm taking a kid to the dentist. That means no interview today, but you are a

Slate Plus member. You deserve a treat. And I thought you might actually like to know what I get up to

when I'm not in your podcast feed.

A few weeks back, a playwright reached out to me about this event he was putting on at Symphony Space.

That's in Upper Manhattan.

Like a lot of New Yorkers, I'm a sucker for the theater.

I was a little intrigued.

The idea was to read through a bunch of one-act plays about this political moment.

Afterwards, a couple of people like me would give speeches, there'd be a song.

It was called Resistance Theater.

I really did not know what I was going to say that night, but what came out of my mouth ended up being exactly the kind of message I thought you might

want to hear going into the new year.

2026 is going to require a lot of all of us, and I want you to know where I stand.

Okay, here we go.

Hi, everyone.

My name is Mary Harris.

I host Slate's Daily News Podcast, What Next? Which I have been doing for an astonishing almost eight years. That means a couple Trump administrations, a Joe Biden administration in between. Oh, man. And it's easy to get tired.

But that's not why we're here.

I have to say when I was reached out to do this, my first reaction was no, not at all.

And I think that's because, like a lot of American journalists, I've been trained to be neutral and see the value of neutrality.

I've always known that's almost impossible because I'm a person who's thinking in the world.

...