Advertise on podcast: The Liberalism.org Show
Rating
5from
This podcast has
17 episodes
Explicit
No
Date created
2026/03/10
Latest episode
2026/10/01
Average duration
37 min.
Release period
13 days
Description
A free society is bigger than its politics. It lives in our economics and our courts, but also in our families, our technology, our art, and the ordinary business of living alongside people who see the world differently. On the Liberalism.org Show, Aaron Ross Powell talks with the site's writers and scholars, taking one of their essays as the starting point for a wide-ranging conversation—from tariffs and zoning to science fiction, sitcoms, and mini tacos. Curious, serious, and always circling back to how liberal ideas play out in the life you actually lead.
Podcast episodes
Check latest episodes from The Liberalism.org Show podcast
The Hidden Costs of Political Alliances (with Janet Bufton)
2026/10/01
Every political alliance asks its members to set some disagreements aside, but what happens to our ideas when we stop raising them? Host Aaron Ross Powell talks with Janet Bufton, a Contributing Fellow at Liberalism.org and co-founder of the Institute ...
The Gender Gap Is Really a Diploma Divide (with Josh Zingher)
2026/09/17
Young men are drifting right and young women are drifting left, but the more revealing divide may be who is sitting in the college classroom and who isn't. Host Aaron Ross Powell talks with Josh Zingher, associate professor of political science at Old ...
The Proslavery Thirteenth Amendment That Almost Was (with Damon Root)
2026/09/03
In his first inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln endorsed the Corwin Amendment, which would have permanently barred the federal government from interfering with slavery in the states where it already existed; had it been ratified, that would be the Thir...
From Permission to Freedom in Healthcare (with Lauren K. Hall and Alicia Plemmons)
2026/08/20
Most of us assume the rules governing American healthcare were written for our safety — and that the system, whatever its flaws, basically works. In this episode, host Aaron Ross Powell talks with Lauren K. Hall, professor of political science and asso...
What Conservatives Actually Believe About Democracy (with Scott Warren and Morgan Ramsey-Elliot)
2026/08/06
Most conservatives don't see themselves as opponents of democracy — they see a democracy that has drifted from the values that make it legitimate. On this episode, Aaron Ross Powell talks with Scott Warren of the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins Un...
Rebuilding a Liberal Majority (with Jamelle Bouie, David French, and Danielle Allen)
2026/07/26
Institutions of bigotry, racism, and social control were supposed to be decades into retreat. Instead they have come roaring back from the top-down. In this special joint release of The Liberalism.org Show and The UnPopulist 's Zooming In, recorded liv...
Why We Keep Fighting About New Technology (with Troy Cross and Karim Farhat)
2026/07/16
Why does every new technology spark the same recurring fight, with utopian boosters on one side and doomers on the other, and what would a more productive conversation look like? On this episode (recorded live at the Institute for Humane Studies’ Flour...
Tariffs, Emergency Powers, and the Limits of the Presidency (with Ilya Somin)
2026/07/02
It started with a blog post. When the Trump administration invoked emergency powers to impose sweeping tariffs, law professor Ilya Somin suggested in passing that someone ought to challenge it in court — and then found himself co-counsel in the case th...
Freedom, Faith, and the Unfinished Work of Democracy (with Jason Canon and Melvin Rogers)
2026/06/18
What kept Black thinkers faithful to American democracy through slavery, Jim Crow, and worse? On this episode of the Liberalism.org Show, political theorist Jason Canon talks with Melvin Rogers — the Edna and Richard Salomon Distinguished Professor of ...
The Future and Its Enemies, Revisited (with Virginia Postrel)
2026/06/04
Recorded at Flourishing House, the Institute for Humane Studies' gathering at SXSW exploring what people and societies need to thrive, this episode finds host Aaron Ross Powell in conversation with Virginia Postrel — journalist, former Reason editor, a...
The Power of Cities (with Jason Canon and Ed Glaeser)
2026/05/27
Cities are humanity's greatest invention—not in spite of their density, but because of it. In this bonus episode of the Liberalism.org Show, Jason Canon sits down with Harvard urban economist Edward Glaeser, author of Triumph of the City and Survival o...
Why Liberalism Needs the Family with Lauren K. Hall
2026/05/20
Liberals have ceded the family to social conservatives for decades — and Lauren K. Hall thinks it's a mistake liberalism can't afford. In this episode, host Aaron Ross Powell talks with Hall, professor of political science and associate dean of academi...
Yours, Mine, or Ours? Liberals Need a Theory of the State with Michael C. Munger
2026/05/06
Markets can fail — but can government actually fix them? In his Liberalism.org essay " Yours, Mine, or Ours? Liberals Need a Theory of the State," political scientist Michael Munger argues that liberals have been losing the policy debate by defending t...
Sitcoms: A Defense with Shal Marriott
2026/04/23
Can a half-hour of sitcom reruns make you a better liberal? Shal Marriott thinks so — and in this episode of the Liberalism.org Show, host Aaron Ross Powell talks with Marriott, a PhD student in political science at McGill University, about her article...
Mini Tacos, Murder, and the Problem of Getting Exactly What We Want with Sarah Skwire
2026/04/08
What does a thriller about a murderous house-hunter have to do with liberalism? Quite a lot, it turns out. In this episode, host Aaron Ross Powell talks with Sarah Skwire, Senior Program Officer at Liberty Fund and a Liberalism.org Fellow, about her ar...