Aloha Namaste and welcome to Impolitic with John Hyalman, a puck and odyssey joint.

It is now almost exactly two months since we taped the episode you're about to hear with noted journalist and author James Trubb about his new book, The Cradle of Citizenship, How Schools Can Help Save Our Democracy.

As it happens when we taped the interview, exactly two months ago, the book had already been out for two months.

The book was published in January.

Now, you are almost certainly going to say that we're late. Late with the episode, late getting

to this book, if it's important. And you're right. We're late. I would point out a couple of things.

One, we've been a little busy around here trying to keep up with

the Trump 2.0 fire hose of news in the calendar year 2026, which has included, as you may

well be aware, a war overseas in Iran that's still ongoing and a whole bunch of other stuff that has made it

hard to focus on even very important perennial longstanding issues such as the state of

American education. And that is the other excuse that we have for taking this long to get this episode up, which is that this really is a perennial issue.

I mean, they're for basically all of our lives here on planet Earth.

We've all been worried, fretting, sometimes in panic over the state of American education, especially at the K-12 level, which is where

Jim Trowb has decided to focus.

And because of the fact that this is an evergreen issue of great concern and great

importance, but one that's with us all the time.

And because of all the news we've been facing, it took us a little while.

Okay.

That's my maya culpah for today.

Now, the fact that it's taken us this long to get this episode up does not

suggest in any way that this is not an incredibly important book about an incredibly important

issue. And indeed, those are the kinds of issues that Jim Traub has covered throughout his career

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