Talkin‘ Politics & Religion Without Killin‘ Each Other

Can you be a Democrat and a Christian? For some of our friends in the church, the answer seems to be no.

Recorded live on Substack the Friday before Election Day, with two friends who host shows of their own: Lori Adams-Brown of A World of Difference and Will Chan Wright of Faithful Politics. We get into why candidates like James Talarico and Adam Hamilton have their faith questioned, why a handful of issues soak up so much of the church’s moral attention, and how Christians are doing on empathy. Then come the risky predictions: the House, a Senate lightning round, and whether the polls can be trusted. To close, we ask whether there’s a path forward for the church in America.

Calls to Action

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✅ Know someone who’s been told their faith doesn’t count because of how they vote? Send them this one.

About Our Guests

Lori Adams-Brown is a business and nonprofit executive and host of A World of Difference, a podcast about how our differences make us stronger. She grew up in Central and South America, worked in Indonesia and Singapore, and now leads in Silicon Valley tech.

Will Chan Wright is a U.S. Army veteran and co-host of Faithful Politics. For six years, he and Pastor Josh Burtram, a conservative, have shown that a progressive and a conservative Christian can talk faith and politics together.

Links and Resources

• Lori on Substack: https://loriadamsbrown.substack.com/
• A World of Difference: https://aworldofdifferencepodcast.com/
• Faithful Politics: https://www.faithfulpolitics.us/

Connect with Talkin’ Politics & Religion Without Killin’ Each Other

• Substack: https://coreysnathan.substack.com/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@politicsandreligion
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Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

“In toxic systems, the person who names the problem becomes the problem.” (Lori Adams-Brown)

Now go talk some politics and religion with gentleness and respect.

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“I’m Denver Riggleman, damn it. That can’t happen to me.” But it did. The man who’s spent his life fighting bullies is now figuring out how to win back the people he’s lost.

Denver Riggleman is back, and this time we did it live on Substack, a few days before the midterms. We start in Apartment A1 in Manassas, where a tiny eight-year-old got locked out of the house and threw his first punch. From there it’s the Air Force, the NSA, Congress, the January 6th Committee, and a distillery in the Blue Ridge Mountains where he says Trump voters tell him things over bourbon that they’d never say to a pollster. Then it gets personal: his mom, the friends who told him he was dead to them, and what it’ll take to build a bridge back.

Calls to Action

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✅ Send this one to the person you’ve been meaning to call

About Our Guest

Denver Riggleman represented Virginia’s 5th District in Congress from 2019 to 2021 and later served as an adviser to the House Select Committee on the January 6th Attack. Before that, he was an Air Force intelligence officer who worked with the NSA and helped plan the first strikes in Afghanistan after 9/11. He’s the author of The Breach (with Hunter Walker). He and his wife Christine, the real master distiller, run Silverback Distillery in Afton, Virginia, and East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Married 37 years and counting.

Links and Resources

• Denver’s Substack: https://substack.com/@denverriggleman
• Denver on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thebreachmedia
• Denver on Bluesky: @denverriggleman
• Denver on X: @Denver4VA
• Silverback Distillery: https://www.sbdistillery.com/

Connect with Talkin’ Politics & Religion Without Killin’ Each Other

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• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@politicsandreligion
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Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

“As much as I hate bullies, I don’t like being one.” Denver Riggleman

Now go talk some politics and religion with gentleness and respect.

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Kevin D. Williamson says the saving grace of Donald Trump is that he’s stupid and lazy. And that’s just one of the things he says on this episode that will make somebody mad.

Kevin D. Williamson of The Dispatch joins Corey to talk about growing up in Lubbock, learning to write from Tom Wolfe and the back pages of National Review, and why his reporting method amounts to “send Kevin someplace he doesn’t belong.” Fresh off a week in the Rio Grande Valley and elsewhere in Texas covering the midterms, Kevin explains why Texas Democrats are courting a new constituency: normal people. Then the conversation turns to impeachment, corruption, Catholic and evangelical America, and why your politics shouldn’t be your religion.

Calls to Action

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✅ Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@politicsandreligion

✅ Share this episode with a friend who treats politics like a religion

Key Takeaways

• Texas Democrats changed their slate. Outside of James Talarico, the party nominated boots-and-cowboy-hat Tejano candidates who talk about healthcare and gas prices instead of identity politics.
• Corruption is becoming a kitchen-table issue. Kevin argues voters connect $6 diesel to the grifting they see from people in power, and it’s showing up in the polls.
• Impeachment depends on the Senate. If Democrats win the Senate, Kevin expects impeachment plus a long run of oversight investigations, which he calls how the constitutional system is supposed to work.
• Politics has replaced church for a lot of people. Bitter political tribalism has grown as participation in religious life has declined. If politics is your religion, Kevin says, you should try to fix that about yourself.

About Our Guest

Kevin D. Williamson is national correspondent at The Dispatch, where he writes the Monday newsletter Wanderland. He spent 15 years as a writer and editor at National Review, served as theater critic for The New Criterion, and is writer in residence at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. His books include The Smallest Minority: Independent Thinking in the Age of Mob Politics among several others.

Links and Resources

• https://thedispatch.com/
• Bordering on Sanity, Kevin D. Williamson, The Dispatch: https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/wanderland/texas-democratic-candidates-midterms-talarico-normal/
• Wanderland newsletter: https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/wanderland/

Connect with Talkin’ Politics & Religion Without Killin’ Each Other

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Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

“If Christians believed their own dogma, the world would look different from the way it looks.” Now go talk some politics and religion with gentleness and respect.

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Terms of Service with Future Caucus

A Vermont Democrat and a South Carolina Republican, both young parents in legislative leadership, on what it takes to raise small kids while serving in the statehouse.

Terms of Service is a limited series from Future Caucus and TP&R, hosted by Future Caucus CEO Layla Zaidane. People run for state legislature to serve their communities, then find the fine print. This episode brings together Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone (D-VT) and Rep. Brandon Newton (R-SC), assistant majority leaders in their chambers, on bringing a baby to the House floor, scheduling around daycare pickup, and why legislatures need people living through the issues they vote on.

This series is a partnership between SCAN Media and Future Caucus. Executive Producers: Future Caucus and Layla Zaidane.

CALLS TO ACTION

✅ Leave a rating and review: https://lovethepodcast.com/politicsandreligion

✅ Subscribe on Substack: https://coreysnathan.substack.com/

✅ Watch and subscribe on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@politicsandreligion

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The norms are built around the 90. When only 10 of 100 lawmakers have small kids, defaults like a 5 p.m. call get built for everyone else. In South Carolina, committee chairs now aim to wrap by 5 p.m., a change in culture rather than in the rules.

A baby on the floor lowered the temperature. Stone brought her son Salem to the Vermont House every day of session, starting 10 weeks postpartum. Colleagues from both parties thanked her, and she says it helped her bipartisan bill banning toxic chemicals in baby food.

Fixes for parents help everyone. Vermont lets members vote remotely in committee up to three times a session, and older members used it during flu season as much as parents did. Small changes like that make the job workable for anyone with something else going on.

ABOUT OUR GUESTS

Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone (D) represents Burlington in the Vermont House and serves as an assistant majority leader, first elected in 2022. She is an occupational therapist at the University of Vermont Medical Center.

Rep. Brandon Newton (R) represents District 45 in Lancaster County, South Carolina, first elected in 2016 at age 22. He serves as an assistant majority leader and teaches as a college professor. Host Layla Zaidane is president and CEO of Future Caucus.

LINKS AND RESOURCES

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FutureCaucus

Future Caucus: https://futurecaucus.org/

CONNECT WITH US

Substack: https://coreysnathan.substack.com/

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@politicsandreligion

Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn: @coreysnathan

PARTNERS

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room. Yes, really.

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Two weeks out, Silver Bulletin's forecast gives Democrats a 75% chance to win the Senate. But as our guest reminds us, one in four chances happen all the time.

Corey sits down with Eli McKown-Dawson, senior elections analyst at Silver Bulletin, to look under the hood of the midterm forecast. They cover how polls get weighted, why a four-point lead can mean a 90% chance to win, and go state by state through the Senate map, from Texas and Maine to Kansas and Nebraska.

Calls to Action

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✅ Subscribe on Substack: https://coreysnathan.substack.com/

✅ Watch and subscribe on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@politicsandreligion

✅ Share this episode with the friend who says the polls are always wrong

Key Takeaways

- Polls are snapshots, forecasts are probabilities. A poll captures opinion at one moment. The model combines polls with fundamentals and simulates the election many times.

- Not every poll counts the same. Silver Bulletin weights pollsters by track record, recency, and transparency, and adjusts for partisan house effects.

- The Labor Day shift was real. Once pollsters moved to likely voter models, the generic ballot went from about D+6 to D+9, reflecting Democrats' recent turnout edge.

- Candidates still matter. Maine is competitive mainly because of Susan Collins, and Ken Paxton's weaknesses help explain why Texas leans toward Talarico.

- Try to understand why people believe what they do. Eli's advice is to separate someone's politics from how you feel about them as a person, and to bring some intellectual humility.

About Our Guest

Eli McKown-Dawson is a senior elections analyst at Silver Bulletin, where he writes about polls, politics, and elections and develops polling averages and election forecasts. He previously contributed to YouGov's U.S. politics team.

Links and Resources

• Silver Bulletin: https://www.natesilver.net/
• Eli on X: @emckowndawson
• Votebeat, "Experts say the midterms could face challenges, but are less concerned than in the spring": https://www.votebeat.org/national/2026/10/15/fall-2026-election-expert-survey-troops-polls-seize-ballots-voting-fraud/

Connect with TRP&R

• Substack: https://coreysnathan.substack.com/
• YouTube: https://youtube.com/@politicsandreligion
• Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn: @coreysnathan

Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

"One in four chances happen all the time." – Eli McKown-Dawson

Now go talk some politics and religion with gentleness and respect.

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Twenty years in the pulpit. Ten years of disillusionment. He says he’s better for it.

Pat Kahnke cast his first vote for Ronald Reagan, spoke on behalf of the pro-life movement, and picked his church because he walked in on Pro-Life Sunday. Then 2016 sent him back to rethink all of it. In this Substack Live conversation, Corey and Pat talk about why the “binary choice” argument falls apart in the primaries, what “if love is obedience” says about authoritarian faith, the Somali community and the ICE occupation in Minnesota, and Pete Hegseth’s push to livestream an execution.

Calls to Action

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✅ Watch and subscribe on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@politicsandreligion

✅ Share this episode with someone who’s been told voting is a binary choice

Key Takeaways

Disillusionment can be a gift. Pat has lost his illusions about the movement he came from, about the average voter and even about Minnesota. Seeing what actually is helps him get past most of the anger and try to be useful.

The binary choice is a myth. White evangelicals chose Trump over every other Republican in the primaries. Pat says that blows the “lesser of two evils” excuse out of the water.

Earned authority vs. positional authority. Pat’s biggest fights with his own church elders were over whether authority is owed or earned. He sees an authoritarian kind of Christian who will back anyone willing to exercise power over the people they fear.

Pick one issue. Instead of arguing with friends and family about everything, Pat suggests learning one issue well and discussing it calmly, with facts. For him, that issue is immigration.

About Our Guest

Pat Kahnke is a retired evangelical pastor who spent 20 years in ministry in the Twin Cities, including a church he planted in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood. He’s the author of MAGA Seduction: Resisting the Debasement of the Christian Conscience (2020) and A Christian Case Against Donald Trump (2024), and he hosts Culture, Faith, and Politics on YouTube and Substack.

Links and Resources

• Culture, Faith, and Politics on Substack: https://culturefaithandpolitics.substack.com/
• Culture, Faith, and Politics on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@culturefaithandpolitics
• “Religious Groups Differ Widely in Their 2026 Midterm Preferences” (Pew Research Center): https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/10/13/religious-groups-differ-widely-in-their-2026-midterm-preferences/

Connect with Talkin’ Politics & Religion Without Killin’ Each Other

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Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

“Find something that you care passionately about.” Now go talk some politics and religion with gentleness and respect.

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Last time we promised unreasonably irresponsible midterm predictions and got sidetracked. This time we actually make the calls.

Chip is back at Doc’s Inn for another round of “To the Republic... To the Pub.” First comes a fight over whether the polls lean left, what Nate Silver actually said in 2016, and whether 2024 Trump voters are staying put. Then the House, and the Senate map race by race, from Georgia to a wild card in Nebraska. Also featured: a Kalshi bet, a Montblanc pen, and a shot riding on the outcome.

On the Map

The House, plus Senate races in Georgia, Minnesota, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Kansas, Ohio, Maine, Texas, Alaska and Iowa. Corey also brings a wild card: Nebraska. Some calls we agree on. Some we definitely don’t.

Calls to Action

✅ Leave a rating and review: https://lovethepodcast.com/politicsandreligion

✅ Subscribe on Substack: https://coreysnathan.substack.com/

✅ Watch and subscribe on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@politicsandreligion

✅ Share this episode with the friend who already knows exactly how the midterms will go

Connect with Us

• Substack: https://coreysnathan.substack.com/
• YouTube: https://youtube.com/@politicsandreligion
• Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn: @coreysnathan

Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Pull up a stool. Folks we disagree with? It’s more fun to talk to ’em than to talk about ’em.

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He almost never votes for Democrats. This year, he’s making an exception.

Matt K. Lewis has spent his career on the right. He’s won a Buckley Award, he was named CPAC Blogger of the Year, and he once wanted to grow up to be Alex P. Keaton. In this Substack Live conversation, Corey and Matt dig into why he’s voting blue in 2026, how Trump broke up his own coalition, the Senate races worth watching four weeks out, and what both parties could learn from a wave, if one comes.

Calls to Action

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✅ Share this episode with someone who’s rethinking their vote this year

Key Takeaways

A vote meant as a message. Matt sees a blue wave as the lesson Republicans need to finally put distance between themselves and Trump. If the wave doesn’t come, he worries the party decides it has to stick with him.

Connect the dots. Warnings about norms and the rule of law don’t move enough voters on their own. “He’s building a ballroom while you can’t afford gas” does.

Don’t get high on your own supply. Matt argues that a wave won with candidates like Roy Cooper and Mary Peltola isn’t a mandate to move left. He thinks the smarter read is economic populism without the culture-war baggage.

2028 is wide open, his vote included. His 2026 vote is a message about Trump. In 2028, either party has to earn it.

About Our Guest

Matt K. Lewis is a political columnist for The Washington Sun and a former senior columnist at The Daily Beast. He’s a podcaster, YouTuber, and frequent political commentator on television, and he wrote Too Dumb to Fail and Filthy Rich Politicians.

Links and Resources

• Matt K. Lewis at The Washington Sun: https://www.washingtonsun.com/columnist/matt-k-lewis
• Matt on Substack: https://mattklewis.substack.com/

Connect with TP&R

• Substack: https://coreysnathan.substack.com/
• YouTube: https://youtube.com/@politicsandreligion
• Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn: @coreysnathan

Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

“Help me help you.” Now go talk some politics and religion with gentleness and respect.

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For ten years, Pete Wehner's email subject line for every new outrage was "No bottom means no bottom." Now he and Jon Rauch think they may have found one.

Jonathan Rauch and Peter Wehner join Corey to talk about their New York Times essay, "Trump Has Finally Lost the Plot." They lay out where Trump succeeded, where his effort to remake American society failed, and why Minneapolis, the courts, and his falling approval numbers made the difference. Jon stayed for some bonus time to talk about when to keep a hard conversation going and when to walk away.

Calls to Action

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✅ Watch and subscribe on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@politicsandreligion

Key takeaways

• Rauch and Wehner put Trump's agenda into three buckets: lowering the country's norms, running the government as a family business (Max Weber's "patrimonialism"), and using federal power to rewire civil society. He mostly succeeded at the first two and failed at the third.
• They credit the people of Minneapolis, the lower courts, and approval ratings in the 30s with forcing the administration to retreat.
• Drawing on a sermon by Rabbi Michael Holtzman, Rauch says walking away from someone is sometimes fine. Walking away with contempt is the problem.

About Jonathan Rauch

Jonathan Rauch is a senior fellow in the Governance Studies program at the Brookings Institute, a contributing writer at the New York Times and The Atlantic, and the author of The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth.

About Peter Wehner

Peter Wehner is a senior fellow at The Trinity Forum and a contributing Opinion writer at The New York Times and The Atlantic. He served in the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush administrations and is the author of The Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump.

Links

• "Trump Has Finally Lost the Plot," The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/19/opinion/trump-vance-turning-point-minneapolis.html

Connect with us

• Substack: https://coreysnathan.substack.com/
• YouTube: https://youtube.com/@politicsandreligion
• Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn: @coreysnathan

Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Turns out there's a bottom after all.

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Everyone says the polls blew it. Carl Allen says they didn't, and his research shows candidates averaging 49% or higher in well-polled races have won 98% of the time since 2004. Then we go race by race: Texas, Ohio, Maine, and two red states that could shock everyone on election night.

Recorded live on Substack, this conversation with data analyst Carl Allen starts with why polls aren't predictions and ends with a tour of the 2026 Senate map, with real poll averages and prediction market odds pulled up as we talked. Along the way, Carl explains why a one-point lead can be safer than a three-point lead, and why undecided voters in Minnesota aren't the same as undecided voters in Ohio.

Calls to Action

✅ Leave a rating and review: https://lovethepodcast.com/politicsandreligion

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✅ Watch and subscribe on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@politicsandreligion

✅ Share this episode with the friend who refreshes the polls every morning

Key takeaways

• Polls estimate a candidate's current support, not the final margin. When late deciders break heavily one way, as they did for David Crowley in Wisconsin's governor primary, that isn't a poll error.
• Watch the 50% line, not the spread. A candidate near 50% has little room to be overtaken, no matter how many voters are undecided.
• Undecided voters aren't a monolith. That's why prediction markets give a small Democratic lead in Minnesota 90% odds while a similar lead in Texas gets about 60%.
• Carl's sleeper races are Kansas and Nebraska. If Democrats have a strong night, he expects those two to move together.

About Carl Allen

Carl Allen is a researcher and analyst of sports and political data and the author of The Polls Weren't Wrong (CRC Press, 2024). His research focuses on inefficiencies in political betting markets and improving polling methods, and his background includes quantitative analysis for University of Louisville Baseball and MLB data work for Stats Perform.

Links

• The Polls Weren't Wrong: https://www.routledge.com/The-Polls-Werent-Wrong/Allen/p/book/9781032483023
• Carl Allen on Substack and Threads: @RealCarlAllen

Connect with us

• Substack: https://coreysnathan.substack.com/
• YouTube: https://youtube.com/@politicsandreligion
• Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn: @coreysnathan

Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Polls measure support. Elections count votes. Know the difference.

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Joan Blades helped launch MoveOn. Jacob Hess grew up a conservative kid in Utah. Their friendship is the argument.

Joan Blades, co-founder of MoveOn and Living Room Conversations, and Jacob Hess of the Deseret News join Corey to talk about what happens when political opposites actually sit down together. They cover MoveOn's 1998 start as a one-sentence petition, why these conversations feel scary before they feel fun, and how local pride could rebuild trust in our elections.

Calls to Action

✅ Leave a rating and review: https://lovethepodcast.com/politicsandreligion

✅ Subscribe on Substack: https://coreysnathan.substack.com/

✅ Watch and subscribe on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@politicsandreligion

✅ Invite one friend who votes differently to a Living Room Conversation: https://livingroomconversations.org/

Key takeaways

• Hess traces his turn to a graduate school computer lab, where a classmate held him after he learned his brother was being sent home to die. After that, the culture war rhetoric about "dangerous" people stopped making sense.
• Hess argues dialogue shouldn't ban persuasion, because people with conviction end up feeling they must leave it at the door. Blades says curiosity and listening build the relationship that makes honest grappling possible.
• Hess frames this work as public health, since chronic anger is chronic stress. Blades adds that if we're in a loneliness epidemic, human relationships are the obvious remedy.
• Blades is organizing locally around a principle from Braver Angels' cross-partisan work: voting should be easy, cheating should be hard. Local pride in how elections work, she says, is the path to national trust.

About Joan Blades

Joan Blades is a co-founder of Living Room Conversations, MoveOn, and MomsRising. A mediator and attorney by training, she co-authored The Custom-Fit Workplace and The Motherhood Manifesto.

About Jacob Hess

Jacob Hess writes for the Deseret News and co-authored You're Not as Crazy as I Thought (But You're Still Wrong) with Phil Neisser. A former board member of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation, he teaches mindfulness and researches long-term healing from depression. His upcoming book is Recovering Hope.

Links

• Living Room Conversations: https://livingroomconversations.org/
• Trustworthy Elections Initiative: https://www.ncdd.org/trustworthy-elections.html
• Braver Angels Trustworthy Elections report: https://braverangels.org/trustworthy-elections/
• Jacob Hess, Deseret News: https://www.deseret.com/authors/jacob-hess/
• Jacob Hess on Substack: https://www.publishpeace.net/

Connect with us

• Substack: https://coreysnathan.substack.com/
• YouTube: https://youtube.com/@politicsandreligion
• Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn: @coreysnathan

Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Scary in line. Worth the ride.

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"Woke 1 was crazy," AOC said on national TV, and then she laughed. Corey wants to know what that laugh leaves out.

This morning, Corey published a new essay on Substack about what the woke era actually cost: friendships, careers, invitations that stopped coming. It's also about the friends who stayed close anyway, across real disagreement. This episode, Corey reads it to you himself.

Calls to Action

✅ Leave a rating and review: https://lovethepodcast.com/politicsandreligion

✅ Subscribe on Substack: https://coreysnathan.substack.com

✅ Watch and subscribe on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@politicsandreligion

✅ Share this episode with a friend you disagree with and still call on the hard days

Links and Resources

• Read the original essay on Substack: Yeah, Woke 1 Was Crazy

Connect with Us

• Substack: https://coreysnathan.substack.com
• LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, TikTok, X: @coreysnathan
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Our Partners

• Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room. Yes, really.

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Credentials used to be enough. Rachel Kleinfeld and Renée DiResta on what earns trust now.

Rachel Kleinfeld of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Renée DiResta of Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy join Corey to talk about their new paper, "How to Engage With New Media: A Strategic Guide for Nonprofit Organizations," co-authored with Margot Treadwell. The conversation moves from an institution caught flat-footed when a researcher becomes a target, to why a big following no longer guarantees reach, to how hard disagreements go better when nobody fears being screenshotted.

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Key takeaways

• Kleinfeld says academic credentials and a nice institutional home no longer confer legitimacy. Authenticity and trust do, and they come from building a community that listens.
• The paper cites Meta data showing 41% of posts on the average Facebook feed come from recommended content unconnected to people the user follows. DiResta explains why that means a large following no longer guarantees reach.
• The paper's four questions come before any posting: who the audience is, what the mission is, which gatekeepers shape the field, and how to create content. Kleinfeld says audiences should be sorted by values and worldview, not demographics.
• DiResta finds hard conversations work best in private group chats where no one fears being screenshotted. Kleinfeld says the place to start is common values.

About Rachel Kleinfeld

Rachel Kleinfeld is a senior fellow in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she advises governments, philanthropists, and activists on how democracies make major social change. Raised in a log house on a dirt road in Fairbanks, Alaska, she earned her BA at Yale and her graduate degrees at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.

About Renée DiResta

Renée DiResta is an associate research professor at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy and a contributing editor at Lawfare. She is the author of "Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality" and was formerly research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory.

Links

• "How to Engage with New Media: A Strategic Guide for Nonprofit Organizations": https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2026/08/nonprofit-organizations-how-to-engage-social-media-new-media-strategy
• "For Expertise to Matter, Nonpartisan Institutions Need New Communications Strategies": https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2025/09/communications-social-media-nonprofit-institutions-new-media-environment
• Rachel Kleinfeld on Substack: https://rachelkleinfeld.substack.com/
• Renée DiResta: https://www.reneediresta.com/

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Expertise still matters. Trust is what makes people listen to it.

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What happens when the people who read your writing talk back?

A couple weeks ago, The Dispatch published an essay Corey wrote about his hometown of Freehold, New Jersey, growing older alongside his friends from high school, and what it means to lose someone who isn't gone. This episode, recorded live on Substack, Corey reads it himself and reacts to comments in real time on Substack Live as well as some that came in at The Dispatch, including one from a stranger that turns into a pretty candid moment.

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Links and Resources

• Read the original essay at The Dispatch: "Whatever Happened to Freehold, New Jersey?" - https://thedispatch.com/article/freehold-new-jersey-springsteen-politics/

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Some things deserve disagreement. Few deserve losing a friend over.

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Mike Madrid on why both parties are running on empty, and what's actually filling the vacuum.

Mike Madrid, author of The Latino Century and co-founder of the Lincoln Project, joins Corey to argue that neither party is being reshaped so much as replaced. The conversation moves from a 13,000-person Texas town that could decide the midterms to what it costs a person to spend a career in gladiator politics, and why Madrid traded that fight for painting, pilgrimages, and personal writing.

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Key takeaways

• Madrid argues both parties are "zombie parties," hollow shells running on inertia while voters increasingly organize around issues instead of labels.
• Beeville, Texas, a 70% Hispanic town that went 70% for Trump, is why Madrid calls it the most important town in America for the midterms.
• State Rep. James Talarico is connecting with Latino voters by framing politics as class, not identity: the working class had the American dream stolen from them.
• After years of "gladiator politics," Madrid stepped back from the fight and now spends his time writing, painting, and teaching, calling it work that's better for his soul.

About Mike Madrid

Mike Madrid is a longtime Latino GOP political consultant and co-founder of the Lincoln Project. He's the author of The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy, and co-hosts the Latino Vote Podcast with Chuck Rocha. He writes The Great Transformation on Substack, where most of his reporting and essays now live, and this fall he's teaching courses built around his book at USC and UC Irvine.

Links

• "The Latino Century" by Mike Madrid: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Latino-Century/Mike-Madrid/9781668015278
• The Great Transformation on Substack: https://greattransformation.substack.com/

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The parties aren't just dying. Something else is already replacing them.

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Two megaphones, two drinks, one bar. Corey quits talking about talking and just gets to the talkin'.

Second edition of "To the Republic... To the Pub." Corey sits down with his buddy Chip, a Tea Party guy since the '70s, and it turns into a real fight: Trump's second term, JD Vance, ICE and the Home Depot raids, and whether bipartisanship even means anything anymore. Not talking about people we disagree with. Talking with them.

FOR THE RECORD: Biden's Last Two Years vs. Trump's First 20 Months

• Jobs: averaged 216,000/month in 2023 and 168,000/month in 2024 (BLS, revised). Under Trump, growth has slowed sharply, roughly 716,000 jobs added total from January 2025 through June 2026, versus 2 million over Biden's final 17 months.
• Inflation: fell steadily under Biden, from a 4.1% average in 2023 to 2.9% by December 2024. Under Trump it's climbed back to 3.4% for the 12 months ending July 2026.
• GDP: grew 2.9% in 2023 and 2.8% in 2024. Grew 2.1% in 2025, Trump's first year, and slowed to 1.5% in Q2 2026.
• Stock market: the S&P 500 gained roughly 53% and the Dow roughly 31% combined over 2023 to 2024. Since Trump's inauguration, the S&P is up about 26.5% and the Dow about 21%.
• Consumer sentiment (University of Michigan index): rose from 69.7 to 74.0 between December 2023 and December 2024. Fell to a near-record low of 44.8 in May 2026 and sat around 52 as of August.

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Pull up a stool. Folks we disagree with? It's more fun to talk to 'em than to talk about 'em.

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A newspaper editor from East Tennessee on why Dolly Parton was one of the last people almost everyone agreed on, and what that says about faith, place, and the work of editing well.

Michael Reneau, executive editor at The Dispatch, joins Corey to talk about growing up 50 miles from where Dolly Parton was raised, and what her death revealed about a country that still finds a handful of people impossible to dislike. The conversation moves from Appalachia and Hurricane Helene to Bryan College, Flannery O'Connor, and the hardest thing Michael has ever watched his parents live through.

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Key takeaways

• Dolly Parton's death pulled praise from across the political spectrum, and Michael sees that as a clue about what Appalachia's isolation and hardship actually produced: solidarity, not the caricature.
• Editing longer-form work, learned in part from mentor Marvin Olasky, means being ruthless about finding a story's essence, and Michael treats AI strictly as a tool, never as a substitute for that judgment.
• The formative event of Michael's faith was watching his parents grieve his infant sister's death and hold onto their belief anyway, not any theological argument he later studied.

About Michael Reneau

Michael Reneau is executive editor at The Dispatch, where he oversees editing across the newsroom. Before joining The Dispatch in 2022, he was editor of World Magazine, and prior to that spent several years as editor and writer for an award-winning daily newspaper in East Tennessee. He lives in Greeneville, Tennessee, with his wife and four kids.

Links

• The Dispatch: https://thedispatch.com
• Michael's tribute to Dolly Parton: https://thedispatch.com/article/dolly-parton-tennessee-music-philanthropy/

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• Substack: https://coreysnathan.substack.com/
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Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Nobody agrees on much these days. Dolly was the exception.

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A friend's Facebook post asks who's afraid of the truth. Corey wonders if he's who she means.

A couple weeks ago, The Fulcrum published an essay Corey wrote about an old friend's social media post, and what it stirred up about the walls we build online without meaning to. This episode, Corey reads it to you himself.

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Links and Resources

• Read the original essay at The Fulcrum: Walling In, Walling Out
• Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone
• The Village Square: https://villagesquare.us/

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Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room. Yes, really.

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The theology quietly staffing Trump's cabinet, and why it doesn't need to make sense to work.

Dr. Keri Ladner studies the radicalization of the American religious right, from the Moral Majority to the New Apostolic Reformation. She joins Corey to unpack Christian dominionism, the Seven Mountain Mandate, and how movements with contradictory theologies ended up governing together.

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Key Takeaways:

Contradictory theologies, same movement. NAR, Christian Reconstructionism, and neo-Confederacy don't agree on doctrine, but they've united around Trump and the belief that Christians are called to take dominion over government.

The Seven Mountain Mandate isn't about church. It reframes government, education, and business as spheres apostles are called to control, well beyond the pulpit.

A neo-Confederate is advising the Pentagon. Doug Wilson calls himself "paleo-Confederate." Ladner traces his influence in American Dominion, including his role leading prayer at the Pentagon.

Dr. Ladner's advice is deliberately unglamorous. Vote in the midterms. Turn abstract political fights into stories about real people you already know.

About Our Guest:

Dr. Keri Ladner is the author of Endtime Politics: From the Moral Majority to QAnon (2024) and American Dominion: The Rise and Radicalization of a New Christendom (Bloomsbury). Her work has appeared in Christian Century, Religion Dispatches, and Good Faith Media.

Links and Resources:

• American Dominion, published by Bloomsbury (also on Amazon, or ask your local library to carry it)
• Substack: "The Boogaloo," by Keri Ladner - https://keriladner.substack.com/

Connect with us

Substack: https://coreysnathan.substack.com

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Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

"Just talk to people."

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A Navy SEAL commander on identity, faith, and why we fight the wars we fight.

Captain Robert "Gus" Gusentine spent nearly 30 years in the Navy, commanding SEAL Team 10 and leading special operations forces from the Philippines to the Pacific. He joins Corey to talk about faith, painting, moral injury, and what it means to defend your identity without losing your soul.

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Key Takeaways:

Identity is the last citadel of the soul. Gus argues that when you back someone into a corner over their identity, there's nowhere left for the conversation to go. That's why wars of religion cut so deep.

Faith and religion aren't the same fight. Drawing on a mentor's line, "we never go to war over faith, we always go to war over religion," Gus distinguishes belief itself from the practice and politics built around it.

Moral injury outlasts the battlefield. Gus and Corey discuss what happens when service members carry out orders that conflict with their conscience, and why caring for that wound is a command responsibility.

Art forces you to see differently. Gus talks about painting as a discipline that trained his eye long before it trained his hand, and how that same habit of seeing applies to leadership and writing.

About Our Guest:

Captain Robert "Gus" Gusentine served nearly 30 years in the Navy, including as an exchange officer with Germany's Kamphschwimmer Company, commander of SEAL Team 10, operations chief (J3) for Special Operations Command Pacific, and commander of Joint Special Operations Task Force Philippines. After retiring in 2014, he led the Strategic Leaders International course at the Naval Special Warfare Schoolhouse, teaching senior military officers and diplomats from around the world. He is also a painter and writes on Substack alongside Roger Herbert.

Links and Resources:

• https://gusentineandherbert.substack.com/
• rvgusentine-art.com
• Home Base Veteran and Family Care - https://homebase.org/

Connect with us

Substack: https://coreysnathan.substack.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@politicsandreligion

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Partners

Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room. Yes, really.

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