Ezra Klein Returns (on political polarization)
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Umbrella
4.6 • 69.9K Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2026
⏱️ 129 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ezra Klein (Abundance, The Ezra Klein Show, Why We’re Polarized) is a political commentator, journalist, podcast host and New York Times columnist. Ezra joins Armchair Expert to discuss becoming a father, getting serious about longevity and strength training, and why self-improvement became politically coded. Ezra and Dax talk about how attention became the most valuable currency in politics, why there’s no liberal Joe Rogan, and how cancellation can backfire into shadow influence. Ezra explains why democracy requires moral imagination, how telling people you hate them pushes them away, and why the desire to become a better person shouldn’t belong to one political side.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome, welcome to armchair expert, experts on expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hi. And today we have a returning guest. Yes. He was last year, weeks before shutdown. Yeah, lots changed. Six years ago. Ezra Klein, he is a political commentator and a journalist. He co-founded Vox and is currently a New York Times podcast host and op ed columnist. Ding, ding, ding. That's why he's here. |
| 0:24.2 | I read, journalist. He co-founded Vox and is currently a New York Times podcast host and op-ed columnist. |
| 0:22.8 | Ding, ding, ding. That's why he's here. I read an op-eddie wrote that I really, really liked |
| 0:27.5 | that we're going to discuss at length. His books include abundance, which is gaining a lot of political |
| 0:32.9 | traction. Oh, it's also been on so many big lists, Phil Gates's list, Obama's list, just man, oh man. |
| 0:39.8 | And then why we're polarized, which was how we met him the first time. And of course, |
| 0:44.2 | listen to his podcast. It is extremely well informed and beautifully executed the Ezra Klein show. |
| 0:50.6 | Please enjoy Ezra Klein. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. I feel like Spring |
| 0:56.4 | always does this thing where you realize you've been thinking about something for a long time, |
| 1:00.6 | and suddenly it feels like, okay, maybe I actually do something with it. Totally. It's less |
| 1:05.8 | pressure, but more like readiness. Yeah, like you've been sitting on an idea or a project or even |
| 1:10.5 | just a perspective you care |
| 1:11.9 | about. And now you're like, maybe this deserves to exist somewhere outside of my own head. |
| 1:16.0 | In May being Mental Health Awareness Month, there's already this broader conversation |
| 1:19.6 | happening. People are more open, more curious, more willing to engage. |
| 1:23.2 | Which is where something like Squarespace comes in. It makes that jump from idea to actual thing feel |
| 1:28.9 | way less overwhelming. You can build a site that looks good, works well, and actually reflects |
| 1:34.1 | what you're trying to put out there. And it's not just hypothetical. Wabiwob literally used |
| 1:38.5 | Squarespace to build our site. Yeah. And Wabiwob is not trying to spend 40 hours figuring out |
| 1:43.3 | web design. |
| 1:45.0 | It just worked. |
| 1:46.1 | Which is kind of the point. |
... |
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