The Experiment

Host Julia Longoria is back with a new season of More Perfect, from WNYC Studios.

We’re taught the Supreme Court was designed to be above the fray of politics. But at a time when partisanship seeps into every pore of American life, are the nine justices living up to that promise? More Perfect is a guide to the current moment on the Court. The show brings the highest court of the land down to earth, telling the human dramas at the Court that shape so many aspects of American life — from our religious freedom to our artistic expression, from our reproductive choices to our voice in democracy.

In the season trailer, Julia returns to the place where she first fell in love with SCOTUS: high school.

Subscribe to the podcast here.

Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project by Justia and the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.

Support for More Perfect is provided in part by The Smart Family Fund.

Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and Twitter @moreperfect.

It’s easy to forget that the United States started as an experiment: a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, with liberty and justice for all. That was the idea. On this weekly show, we check in on how that experiment is going.

The Experiment: stories from an unfinished country. From The Atlantic and WNYC Studios.

Be part of The Experiment. Use the hashtag #TheExperimentPodcast, or write to us at [email protected]. Listen and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts

Music by Ob (“Ghyll” and “Mog”), Parish Council (“Socks Before Trousers” and “Durdle Door”), and water feature (“richard iii (duke of gloucester)”). Additional audio from C-SPAN, Senator Chris Murphy, Lawrence University, the House Judiciary Committee, Washington Post reporter Rebecca Tan, and the City of Lake Worth Beach.

Hate crimes in the United States have reached their highest levels in more than a decade, prompting bipartisan support for legislation to combat them and increased resources for law enforcement. But the recent COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act has spurred resistance from an unexpected source: activist groups that represent the people these laws are meant to protect.

This week on The Experiment, our correspondent, Tracie Hunte, investigates the 150-year history of legislating against racist violence in the U.S. and asks: Have we been policing hate all wrong?

This episode’s guests include Jami Floyd, WNYC’s senior editor for race and justice; Saida Grundy, an assistant professor of sociology and African American studies at Boston University; Jason Wu, a co-chair of the LGBTQ advocacy group GAPIMNY; Jeannine Bell, a professor of law at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law; and Sunayana Dumala, the founder of Forever Welcome.

As The Experiment podcast keeps growing, we’re looking for new ways to tell stories and better serve our listeners. We invite you to visit theatlantic.com/experimentsurvey to share your thoughts with The Atlantic and WNYC Studios.

Further reading: “Calling the Atlanta Shootings a Hate Crime Isn’t Nearly Enough”

A transcript of this episode is available.

Be part of The Experiment. Use the hashtag #TheExperimentPodcast, or write to us at [email protected].

Editing by Katherine Wells, Emily Botein, and Jami Floyd. Special thanks to Kai Wright. Fact-check by William Brennan. Sound design by David Herman and Hannis Brown.

Music by Arabian Prince in a UK World (“The Feeling of Being on a Diet”), Keyboard (“Ojima”), Water Feature (“In a Semicircle or a Half-Moon”), and Nelson Bandela (“311 Howard Ave 25 5740”), provided by Tasty Morsels and Nelson Nance. Additional music by Joe Plourde and Hannis Brown. Additional audio from PBS, the Obama White House, CBS News, NPR, and CNN.

Dating shows often push contestants to extreme measures in pursuit of love. Reality-show producers will impose fake deadlines, physical obstacles, and manufactured drama to create the juiciest spectacle. But on TLC’s 90 Day Fiancé, a high-stakes and wildly popular reality show, the producers didn’t need to dream up a deadline: It’s a requirement of the rigorous U.S. visa-application process.

The show follows real-life couples pursuing a K-1 visa—the “fiancé visa”—which allows a U.S. citizen’s foreign partner to enter the U.S. legally, but only for 90 days, the deadline by which they must get married. The show documents the complications of those emotionally charged 90 days, when two people from different countries, cultures, and sometimes races have to decide whether their relationship is real.

“From the very moment that the federal government became involved in immigration, you see the influence of biases of race as it’s intersecting with class and sexuality,” says Felicity Amaya Schaeffer, a professor of feminist studies and critical race studies at UC Santa Cruz.

Be part of The Experiment. Use the hashtag #TheExperimentPodcast, or write to us at [email protected].

This episode was produced by Tracie Hunte and Gabrielle Berbey, with editing by Katherine Wells, Julia Longoria, and Emily Botein. Fact-check by William Brennan. Sound design by David Herman.

Music by Column (“Quiet Song,” “「The Art of Fun」 (Raj),” and “Sensuela”), water feature (“a horse”), Laundry (“Films”), r mccarthy (“Contemplation at Lon Lon”), Parish Council (“Walled Garden 1”), and infinite bisous (“(Terminally) Lovesick”), provided by Tasty Morsels and Nelson Nance. Additional music from APM (“Ordinary Fantasy,” “Yaas Queen,” “Your Fault,” “Ballroom Big Band,” “Brasillia,” “Sinking Feeling,” “Boogie Woogie,” “Duplicity (a),” “Oh My,” “You Got It Baby,” “Getaway,” “Into the Mist,” and “Freewheeling”). Additional audio from TLC, TLC U.K., and C-SPAN.

A transcript of this episode is presented below:

(Playfully plucky marimba-and-horn music plays.)

Tracie Hunte: So, to begin, I am going to send you a link. It’s a little bit long—it’s like seven minutes or so—’cause this is your first time watching 90 Day Fiancé, anything having to do with 90 Day Fiancé, right?

Julia Longoria: That’s correct.

Hunte: Okay, okay.

Longoria: I’m just curious, like, why are you interested in this? Like, why should someone care?

Hunte: (Insistently.) Watch the clip, Julia! (Laughs, and Longoria joins in.)

(Music shifts into long, sustained notes to build drama.)

Longoria: We start today with correspondent Tracie Hunte guiding me into the unknown: the world of reality TV.

(A dramatic but upbeat musical flourish plays, like the intro to a theme song, before moving back to the plucky, quirky music.)

Hunte: Okay. So, Julia, 90 Day Fiancé is a wildly popular show on TLC. It’s about couples who are international—like, it’s usually one person lives in America, and the other person lives somewhere overseas—and I want to begin your 90 Day Fiancé journey with one couple in particular: Colt and Larissa.

Longoria: Okay. I’m gonna—do I hit play?

Hunte: Yes. Hit play!

Colt: My name is Colt. I’m 33 years old. I live in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Hunte: We are in Las Vegas, Nevada, and we’re at the airport, and we’re meeting Colt and Larissa. Colt is a white guy in his 30s. He lives in Las Vegas.

Larissa: I am Larissa, 31 years old, from Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Hunte: And Larissa is from Brazil. She is also in her 30s. And they met online. T...

During World War II, wherever American troops spread democracy, they left the canned meat known as SPAM in its wake. When American GIs landed overseas, they often tossed cans of SPAM out of trucks to the hungry people they sought to liberate. That’s how producer Gabrielle Berbey’s grandfather first came to know and love SPAM as a kid in the Philippines. But 80 years later, SPAM no longer feels American. It is now a staple Filipino food: a beloved emblem of Filipino identity. Gabrielle sets out on a journey to understand how SPAM made its way into the hearts of generations of Pacific Islanders, and ends up opening a SPAM can of worms.

This episode is the first in a new three-part miniseries from The Experiment—“SPAM: How the American Dream Got Canned .”

A transcript of this episode is available.

Be part of The Experiment. Use the hashtag #TheExperimentPodcast, or write to us at [email protected].

This episode was produced by Gabrielle Berbey and Julia Longoria with help from Peter Bresnan and Alina Kulman. Editing by Kelly Prime, with help from Emily Botein, Jenny Lawton, Scott Stossel, and Katherine Wells. Fact-check by William Brennan and Michelle Ciarrocca. Sound design by David Herman with additional engineering by Joe Plourde. Transcription by Caleb Codding.

This episode was produced by Gabrielle Berbey and Julia Longoria with help from Peter Bresnan and Alina Kulman. Editing by Kelly Prime, with help from Emily Botein, Jenny Lawton, Scott Stossel, and Katherine Wells. Fact-check by William Brennan and Michelle Ciarrocca. Sound design by David Herman with additional engineering by Joe Plourde. Transcription by Caleb Codding.

Music by Parish Council (“A Painting of a Frog” and “The Grey Around It”), Keyboard (“More Shingles”), Ob (“Mog”), and Laurie Bird (“Jussa Trip”) provided by Tasty Morsels. Additional music by Alexander Overington. Additional audio from U.S. National Archives, Paramount News, gilbertoy69, PublicDomainFootage. Special thanks to Noella Levy and Craig Santos Perez.