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Reaping the Whirlwind

Slate News

Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.56K Ratings

🗓️ 7 January 2021

⏱️ 64 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Emily, John and David discuss the invasion of the U.S. Capitol and Democrats’ historic win in Georgia.

Here are some notes and references from this week’s show: 

Yuval Levin for the National Review: “Failures of Leadership in a Populist Age

Anne Applebaum for the Atlantic: “History Will Judge the Complicit

Emily Bazelon for the New York Times Magazine: “The Pandemic Election

Emily Bazelon for Slate in 2013: “Voting Rights 2.0

Steven Lance for Atavist: “The Secret Formula: Could Shrunken Heads From the Amazon Hold the Key to Curing Cancer? One Man Thought So—and Spent a Lifetime Trying to Prove It.” 

A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812,by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich 


Here are this week’s cocktail chatters: 

John: Agence France-Presse, “Exceptionally Well-Preserved Snack Bar Unearthed in Pompeii

David: David Segal for the New York Times: “It’s Mother vs. Son in Britain’s Priciest Divorce War” 

Emily: Tweet by Kyle Machulis @qDo of the most important competitive dog dancing video

Listener chatter from Cyrus Farivar @cfarivar: Jason Kottke for Kottke.org: “The Last Documented Widow of a Civil War Veteran Has Died at the Age of 101


Slate Plus members get a bonus segment on the Gabfest each week, and access to special bonus episodes throughout the year. Sign up now to listen and support our show.

For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment David, Emily, and John consider in what time period they would first go to see a doctor, given what we know now about the history of medicine.


You can tweet suggestions, links, and questions to @SlateGabfest. Tweet us your cocktail chatter using #cocktailchatter. (Messages may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)


The email address for the Political Gabfest is gabfest@slate.com. (Email may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

Podcast production by Jocelyn Frank.

Research and show notes by Bridgette Dunlap.

Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ at slate.com/podcastfaqs for easy instructions. Members subscribed via Apple Podcasts get automatic access—no setup required.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gap Fest for January 7th, 2021, the Reek the World Wind Edition.

0:14.6

I am David Plotz of Citycast. I'm in Washington, D.C., under curfew, although I guess it's lifted for the day, but I'll be back

0:21.4

under it again tonight. I'm joined by Emily Bazelon of the New York Times Magazine and Yale

0:26.1

University Law School from New Haven. Hello, Emily. Happy New Year. And by John Dickerson

0:33.0

of CBS's 60 Minutes from New York, I think. Yes, I'm in New York.

0:38.6

Hello, John.

0:39.1

Happy New Year.

0:39.6

Happy New Year.

0:40.9

Well, I, you know, there's a lot, obviously a lot to talk about today.

0:44.9

The mob.

0:46.1

No, I can't imagine why you would feel that way.

0:48.6

The mob of insurrectionists attempted a coup, egged on by a president.

0:58.4

The Democrats took control the Senate. The pandemic is raging. Worse than ever. It was one of the worst days in American political history, American

1:02.2

history really yesterday. And we are going to assess the damage. Plus, of course, we'll have

1:07.7

cocktail chatter. There's a tweet from Damon Linker that I think captures some of what I feel about yesterday.

1:17.1

Linker wrote, the danger of Trump's incapacity to accept his loss has never been that he would

1:21.5

succeed in staying in power after losing the election.

1:24.0

It was that he would tear the country apart trying to turn the fantasy into reality.

1:28.6

And that is, of course, Emily, what has happened.

1:30.9

There was everybody was saying yesterday, oh, I never thought I would see this happen, never

1:34.5

thought this would happen.

1:35.8

But, of course, we should have known because all steps that we've taken down this terrible

...

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