The Problem with Punditry

The Nation's Katha Pollitt on hot takes, plus: Vivek Ramaswamy says goodbye, Pete Hegseth says hello, Mike Johnson holds up a J6 stop sign, and the March for Life is back!

Day 1 coverage of the Trump administration, New York Post, January 21, 2021. Image credit: Nadia Russ/Shutterstock

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Neil is out this week, but I am delighted to share today’s conversation with cultural critic, poet, and essayist Katha Pollitt. Katha has written about feminism, abortion, human rights, and other topics at The Nation for decades: you can see more of her work here.

Today we are going to talk about Katha’s recent piece, “Let’s Cool It With the Hot Takes,” (January 14, 2025), why journalists turn the temperature up before they know the real story, and what the consequences of that are. What are we not learning when we are drowning in evidence free conclusions about Trumpism?

But first, the news roundup.

• The March for Life was today! On Wednesday, the GOP Senate majority celebrated by failing to achieve cloture for the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, passed by the House in 2023, that requires health care workers to provide care for any fetus that survives an abortion. Note that this is vanishingly rare: out of 10,177 abortions performed in Minnesota in 2017, 3 fetuses emerged with signs of life—and then died.

• Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post reported yesterday that Speaker Mike Johnson warned Republican colleagues investigating the J6 Committee that were they to subpoena former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson, an investigation would reveal that some of their colleagues had sent her sexually explicit messages.

• Looks like Pete Hegseth is on track to become Secretary of Defense, despite a new affidavit offering evidence that he abused his second wife and new evidence from that ex about his alcohol use.

• Apparently, there is more to Vivek Ramaswamy leaving DOGE than his desire to run for governor of Ohio, or his tweets about how lazy white people are, or even philosophical differences about whether government restructuring (Vivek) should precede budget-cutting (Elon). Ken Thomas and John McCormick at The Wall Street Journal report that Elon and the Trumpettes assigned to DOGE became increasingly “annoyed with Ramaswamy’s outspokenness on virtually any topic.” They have also renamed the non-governmental committee The United States DOGE Service, and it will report to Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.

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Your hosts:

Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.

Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024).

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