Podcast
Never Close the Inquiry
Hosted by Nick Hagen · EN
Never Close the Inquiry is for pushing back on black and white, us vs. them thinking in politics—for creating dialogue across the aisle, and for demystifying the right for the left and the left for the right. The goal is better conversations, better arguments, better solutions, better relationships, and, maybe, a few giant skips and a jump and a hitch-hike down the line, a better country.
neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com
neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com
10episodes
Episodes
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Episode 50! The Neophytes Never Close the Self-Inquiry But Not in a Bad Way
6d ago01:13:29Tap to summarizeEpisode 50! The Neophytes Never Close the Self-Inquiry But Not in a Bad WayEach of us has political biases. Figuring out (and confessing) what those biases are is interesting and difficult enough, but figuring out where they originally came from might be the real trick. For this special, historical, entirely unprecedented, unyieldingly riveting 50th episode of the Never Close the Inquiry podcast, the Neophytes take Thomas, our resident radical leftist, and Channing, our resident moderate righty, and ask a simple question: Why?As per usual, we left A looking for B and ended up somewhere around 13. That said, as natural—i.e., disjointed—as our conversations may be, there is a real point to asking each other and ourselves what our biases are, where they came from, and why they push us toward specific policies, especially where our basic moral framework may not provide clear political guidance. Perhaps this can be dismissed as a view based off little more than anecdotal evidence, but I believe that the better we understand our own instincts and their origin, the slower we are to judgment of the instincts of others, and the more inclined we are to seek to understand them. It is true that there is far more that unites us than divides us, but that fundamental reality can hide behind the clouds when we don’t understand why anyone believes what they believe.So, call this episode an attempt to model what we’d like to see repeated at scale.Not brought to you by Dr. Pepper and A&W, but we’d like it to be, so if you know anyone, let us know.For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe
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The Neophytes: The Complicated Legacy of Lindsey Graham
2w ago01:33:07Tap to summarizeEpisode 49 - The Neophytes: The Complicated Legacy of Lindsey GrahamAt one point or another over the past decade, Senator Lindsey Graham, a Teflon Don of the Senate, offended just about everybody. He delivered emphatic broadsides both for and against President Trump, took moderate positions, took less moderate positions, and stuck to his (warning: pun) guns as to hawkish views not currently in vogue among the Republican base. Despite what mostly-reasonable observers could interpret as craven flip-flopping to ingratiate himself with whoever happened to be in charge, the eminently quotable, genuinely charming Graham never suffered a truly serious challenge in a primary or general election, and remained of influence with wildly different administrations of both parties. Perhaps of most interest to us, the easily distracted Neophytes, Graham seems to have been adored by his colleagues on both sides of the aisle. The same cannot be said of plenty of those colleagues.And perhaps in that last bit there are useful lessons: among others, that serious disagreement on matters of policy need not bar us from being friends, AND that being friends can make it a heck of a lot easier to move toward agreement on matters of policy. I stand by my view that people are much more persuadable when they feel—and actually are—understood, and that it’s much easier to produce that understanding by asking sincere, open, curious questions than by analyzing from afar with “anyone who believes XYZ must be evil or, at best, stupid” as a starting point.Side note: the seat now occupied by the late senator’s sister was previously held by Strom Thurmond, a real piece of work who did not leave the Senate until he was 100. That seat held a grand total of four individual buttcheeks over a 70 year span.For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe
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The Neophytes: In Which the President Adds Graham Platner to the US Men’s National Team
3w ago01:12:29Tap to summarizeEpisode 48 - The Neophytes: In Which the President Adds Graham Platner to the US Men’s National TeamThe terrific and inspiring US Men’s National Team’s foray in the World Cup ended with President Trump-centered controversy and a thumping at the feet of foreign waffle-makers, the ceasefire in Iran has ceased, and Graham Platner is on the outs in Maine after having been accused of, among other things, rape. Just weeks ago, we questioned where the line was regarding the character and past actions of a candidate, or whether there even was a line. Turns out, there is, both for the Neophytes and national Democrats, and Mr. Platner is on the wrong side of it. Platner did not drop out until the day after we recorded, but to parrot my younger self explaining to teachers, my parents, and, later, my bosses why I didn’t need to write anything down, we got the gist of it.For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe
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The Neophytes Learn Politics from Jalen Brunson and Exult in Their Newfound SpaceX Riches
Jun 1800:51:29Tap to summarizeEpisode 47 - The Neophytes Learn Politics from Jalen Brunson and Exult in Their Newfound SpaceX RichesThe Neophytes—each of whom invested in SpaceX at the age of 12—question who on earth would voluntarily wear Snapchat’s new $2200 Snap Specs, discuss the SpaceX IPO, and talk about what Knicks star and NBA champion Jalen Brunson can teach us about the limitations of using current metrics to forecast future development.For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe
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The Neophytes Get a Tad Bleak About the Importance of Character in Politicians
Jun 1201:17:53Tap to summarizeEpisode 46 - The Neophytes Get a Tad Bleak About the Importance of Character in PoliticiansSo what would you do in 2028 if it turned out one or both of JD Vance and Gavin Newsom (hypothetically, the candidates) were revealed to likely be responsible for a string of unexplained decades-old disappearances in a remote corner of the Ozarks or Sierra Nevadas?All else being equal, virtually everyone would choose a politician of high character over one of low character. But all else is never equal, and we are too often presented a choice between a mediocre person who shares few of our political views and a worse person who shares more.So what do you do? If experience and this conversation are any guide, most people, on both and every side of the political aisle, will pull the lever on matching political views almost no matter what.I’m not sure what that says about us or our system, but it isn’t fantastic.On the bright side, each us enjoyed a delicious low calorie beverage during the recording of this podcast.For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe
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The Neophytes Masculinely Discuss Masculinity
Jun 401:48:00Tap to summarizeEpisode 45 - The Neophytes Masculinely Discuss MasculinityWarning: the audio is a tad echoey because the SD card, afraid of this conversation being made public, self-corroded and didn’t record anything. Sadly for the card, we believe in redundancies—in this case, the iPhone which recorded the video.On Saturday, I read “Progressives Don’t Understand Masculinity” by the Last Blue Dog here on Substack. I read the transcript of the podcast discussion that prompted the article. Then, an hour or so later, I attended FitCon, which, per its name, is a fitness-focused convention with various competitions—Crossfit, boxing, strongman, roller derby, and literal armored combat, among others—and dozens of vendors selling supplements and apparel. The convention, of which I am a huge fan—yes, a very good friend happens to own it, but it actually is great—was very well-attended, and mostly by people who probably agree progressives don’t understand masculinity. That all got the ball rolling, and Mabes, Channing, and I, all straight white dudes, decided to talk about America’s masculinity crisis, what Democrats are missing, and what we think it means to be a man. Naturally, the conversation ended up going in many different directions, perhaps none of which really have all that much to do with politics, but what is the point of the podcast format if not to start with one plan and end with another entirely?Two more points:* I could not be a bigger fan of the Art of Manliness, which, per its tagline, “provides useful, actionable, no-fluff content to help men become better men in all areas of their life.” I would add that their content is refreshingly, remarkably apolitical and non-toxic (or however you want to put it). The husband and wife behind the website and podcast, Brett and Kate McKay, are here on Substack. I think them very much worth a follow.* The podcast ends with a reading of the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling. It’s my favorite didactic poem and the only one I have memorized. At some point, I might write a whole series of articles on the virtues it articulates.For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe
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The Neophytes Get Awfully Prudish About Prediction Markets
May 2201:13:45Tap to summarizeEpisode 44 - The Neophytes Get Awfully Prudish About Prediction MarketsPrediction markets, like Polymarket and Kalshi, allow users to purchase shares in certain real-world outcomes; or, in human speak, to bet on stuff. Like, all sorts of stuff. For example, a US special operations soldier recently made over $400,000 betting on the removal from office of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The soldier is in a fair amount of trouble—he’s been indicted for unlawful use of confidential information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, and wire fraud—but his punishment, and the new frontiers of insider trading, are kind of beside the point. The point is that people—you, me, high schoolers, government employees, nuns probably—can place bets on stuff like the deaths of political leaders, the length of the war in Iran, the price of gas in a month, and all sorts of other strange stuff that has always been the subject of private bets, but never anything of this scale.As it turns out, we, the Neophytes, don’t like it. We’re not necessarily opposed to gambling, especially if it’s done with honor in the shadows with an offshore bookie probably in Thailand, but this brave new world where every sporting event is sponsored by a sportsbook and millions of people without fully developed prefrontal cortexes can lose money betting on the temperature in New York is not to our puritanical taste.But all of this raises legitimate questions: is there a valid use case for prediction markets? Do they provide something of real value? Or even if they don’t, to what degree should the government restrict them, if any?Anyway, please download the official Neophytes app to place a bet on the number of comments this episode generates.For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe
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Ultramarathons and the Joy of the Difficult
May 1901:13:01Tap to summarizeEpisode 43 - Ultramarathons and the Joy of the DifficultUltramarathoner, trainer, and nutritionist Jesse Rich and I have known each other since we were old enough to consciously know people. He was the one who unwittingly sparked my own love of fitness more than 25 years ago when he and a few of our fellow Cub Scouts could do more pullups than me on the bar at his house. More recently, Jesse has made a name for himself in the long distance trail running community. Among more than a dozen other podium finishes, he won the 2025 Run Rabbit Run 100 in and well around Steamboat Springs, Colorado. In isolation, it's hard to measure what his winning time of 17 hours and 43 minutes means--it's only when you see the runner-up came in over 83 minutes behind and 54 of 109 racers never finished at all that the magnitude of the accomplishment really starts to sink in (for the record, I had to look all that up). I invited Jesse on the podcast to talk about his running but also about the records set at the 2026 London Marathon, where three male runners broke the previous all time record and two broke the fabled two hour mark, and the top female runner broke the all time women's world record. And we did talk about that and the advances in nutrition that seem to have enabled it, but what started as a running-focused conversation became something much wider.Jesse runs absolutely incredible distances, often alone, with no phone and no music. He spends more uninterrupted time with his thoughts than I likely have in my entire life. I couldn't help but be thrown back to a recent interview I did with attorney and AI entrepreneur Kimball Parker, who spoke of living to the peak of our license as humans even as we are able, if we so choose, to cede more and more ground to computers. I don't think we all need to run ultramarathons, but I hope we can learn something from those who do. I left our conversation genuinely inspired--in part to run further and higher, but more generally to consciously test and raise my limits and do everything I can to remain human.Technology is great, but so are we.For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe
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Two of Three Neophytes Discuss Political Violence and Challenges to Norms
Apr 2801:21:54Tap to summarizeEpisode 42 - Two of Three Neophytes Discuss Political Violence and Challenges to NormsWell, we had another topic ready to go, and then someone tried to shoot the President again. So, the original plan went out the window, and Channing and I discussed the attempted shooting and political violence generally, pushing norms, the lack of true dealmakers in political office, and the consequences of a system that promotes ideological purity over the flexible pragmatism that moves us forward.For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe
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The Three Neophytes Again Discuss Iran and Maybe Some Ideas for Fixing Everything Wrong with our Politics
Apr 2101:43:14Tap to summarizeEpisode 41 - The Three Neophytes Again Discuss Iran and Maybe Some Ideas for Fixing Everything Wrong with our PoliticsThe Iran War/Conflict continues apace, and whether we have a clear objective and clear, palatable way to achieve it remains up for some debate. President Trump and Secretary of War Hegseth have yet to solve an increasingly severe communications problem, the President is feuding with the Pope and/or our Sovereign Lord Jesus Christ, and gas prices are going to have well-heeled liberals ready to look past that whole DOGE thing and give Elon Musk’s Tesla another chance. Chanman, Mabes, and I talk about all of it—what we lack in focus we make up for in, well, hopefully something.This episode is not brought to you by Diet Dr. Pepper, some Monster coffee thing Mabes was drinking, and Cafe Rio, Utah’s best vaguely Mexican-inspired food, but it could be (if you known anyone at any of our non-sponsors, let us know).For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe
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