Imagine you, you in a nice comfy seat with your hands behind your head,

taking in the views, instead of taking on the road, maybe even taking a nap.

That's the bliss of getting where you need to go without worrying about driving.

A single word sums it up. Latin X strives to be a gender-neutral adjective for a racial identity.

The X replaces the O or A that would, in the original Spanish, make it grammatically masculine

or feminine. Only 4% of American Hispanics say they use it, yet in 2018, the New York Times launched

a column dedicated to Latin X communities. The word is found in think tank reports and,

since Joe Biden became president, it started creeping into White House press releases and at least

one of his own speeches. A term once championed by esoteric academics has gone mainstream,

and it's not the only example of the advance of left-wing identity politics into mainstream

institutions, companies and academia. How did a set of previously radical ideas about identity

and social justice leap from campus to large parts of American life? This is checks and balance.

I'm John Prado, the economist's US editor. Each week we take one big theme shaping American

politics and explore it in depth. Today, how is workness changing America?

American liberalism with its notions of individual over group identity,

universal rights of trust in democracy and above all a vigorous open debate is under threat.

The most obvious danger is from the Trumpian right with its denigration of the rule of law.

The attack from the progressive left is harder to grasp, but it's a potent one.

A new style of politics has emerged from America's universities, and this progressive

revolution is changing the way that many Americans view the world. In this episode, we'll hear from

a best-selling author on unconscious racism, tried to learn some lessons from the panic of a political

correctness three decades ago, and speak to an entrepreneur who believes corporate workness in

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