Radio Atlantic

We’re in the coldest season. We’re in the shopping season. We’re in the season of hygge. All the cues point to buying yourself a new cozy sweater. Don’t do it, until you hear what Atlantic staff writer Amanda Mull has to say about the cratering quality of knitwear. For years I’ve wondered why my sweaters pilled so quickly, or why they suffocated me, or smelled like tires. And then I read Mull’s recent story, “Your Sweaters Are Garbage.” It turns out that international trade agreements, greedy entrepreneurs, and my own lack of willpower have conspired to erode my satisfaction.

In this episode, Hanna talks with Amanda Mull—who writes the Atlantic column “Material World”—about why so many consumer goods have declined in quality over the last two decades. As always, Mull illuminates the stories the fashion world works hard to obscure, about the quality of fabrics, the nature of working conditions, and about how to subvert a system that wants you to keep buying more. “I have but one human body,” she says. “I can only wear so many sweaters.”

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We hash out the “Democrats are too woke” theory with New York Rep. Ritchie Torres, who tweeted the day after the election: “The far left is a gift to Donald Trump.” Torres, who represents a district that is over 50 percent Latino, explains why he believes Democrats need to shift their position on immigration if they don’t want urban working class neighborhoods to keep shifting to the right.

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With all the noise around Donald Trump’s nominees, it’s easy to lose sight of his administration’s bigger plan: placing people who are unfailingly loyal to Trump in key positions, so that the real power lies with the White House. The Atlantic staff writer Tom Nichols explains why Trump’s picks to oversee the military and intelligence community could be two of the most consequential—and dangerous.

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In this week’s episode of Radio Atlantic, Adrienne LaFrance, the executive editor of The Atlantic, names and explains the political ideology of the unelected leaders of Silicon Valley. They are “leading an antidemocratic, illiberal movement” she calls: techno-authoritarianism.

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As Donald Trump returns to the White House, his desire to recast January 6 as a day of “love and peace,” as he called it during his campaign, seems as strong as ever. Earlier this week, he told the NBC reporter Kristen Welker that he would “most likely” pardon Capitol rioters on day one.

This week’s Radio Atlantic shares the first episode of our series about January 6 published just before the 2024 election, called We Live Here Now.

Hanna Rosin and co-host Lauren Ober enter a universe of alternative facts, speaking with J6 prisoners and their families, and following a J6 case on which Ober was a juror. Mostly, though, the series is about their neighbor, who they discovered one day is a crucial character in the retelling of January 6.

Subscribe to We Live Here Now wherever you get podcasts.

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