Ross Douthat Has Been ‘Radicalized a Little Bit, Too’
About this episode
Klein debates his colleague Ross Douthat about how alarmed to be over Republican voting and election-administration bills. Douthat argues most provisions — voter ID, early-voting limits — have small effects on turnout and do not lay groundwork for stealing 2024, with the real constitutional vulnerability lying in state legislatures assigning electors. Klein counters that close elections, partisan administration and the party's treatment of officials who certified 2020 make the trend line worrying. They also discuss the fight over teaching American history — Douthat favors folding fuller accounts of slavery into a still-patriotic narrative — the radicalization of conservative figures like J.D. Vance, and how Douthat's struggle with chronic Lyme disease reshaped his views on medical consensus, Covid, long Covid and the culture of expert certainty.