Year-End Special: Don’t Despair
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 23 December 2021
⏱️ 29 minutes
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Summary
The year 2021 has seemed like a cavalcade of disasters, from the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th through the resurgence of COVID-19. Calamities are catnip for the media, but the year has shown some signs of promise. This week, four New Yorker writers discuss the political stories that give them hope. Jane Mayer explores the Biden Administration’s accomplishments, and why they might be undervalued. John Cassidy makes a case for a strong economy in 2022. Bill McKibben explains how the excitement over increasingly inexpensive renewable energy crosses party lines. And Evan Osnos, examining how pessimism can skew political reporting, offers a way for combating toxic political polarization.
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| 1:12.6 | This is the political scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and guests about |
| 1:17.7 | politics. It's Thursday, December 23rd. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of The New Yorker. |
| 1:25.4 | We released our first episode of 2021 on January 7th. Our subjects were the |
| 1:32.0 | results of the two Senate races in Georgia and the riot at the U.S. Capitol. In the year since, |
| 1:39.1 | we've covered the ongoing peddling of lives about the 2020 election results, the struggle for racial justice, |
| 1:46.0 | the many consequences of intense political polarization, Biden's imperiled domestic agenda, |
| 1:52.0 | the chaotic end to the war in Afghanistan, the worsening effects of climate change, and the all-consuming coronavirus pandemic. |
| 2:06.2 | Today, you'll be happy to hear on our last episode this year, we're doing something different. |
| 2:09.9 | We're focusing on whatever good news we can find. |
| 2:14.6 | I'm joined right now by Evan Osnows, who writes about politics in Washington. |
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