Ta-Nehisi Coates on Bridging Gaps vs. Drawing Lines

Summary

The Ezra Klein Show

Episode: "Ta-Nehisi Coates on Bridging Gaps vs. Drawing Lines"
Date: September 28, 2025
Host: Ezra Klein
Guest: Ta-Nehisi Coates

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Overview

In this candid, searching conversation, Ezra Klein and writer Ta-Nehisi Coates wrestle with a central dilemma facing the American left: how to balance the urgent need to bridge divides and build political coalitions with the moral imperative to draw clear lines against hate and dehumanization. The discussion unfolds against the backdrop of political violence, the assassination of right-wing figure Charlie Kirk, and a recent public disagreement between Klein and Coates over how those moments should be handled—both in public mourning and in reckoning with a divisive legacy.

The episode explores big, unsettled questions:

• Is it naïve to believe in coalition politics in today's climate?
• At what point does engagement become complicity?
• How do history, power, and a sense of tradition shape the way we approach losing and fighting back?
• What roles should writers, politicians, and activists play?
• What does it actually mean, practically and ethically, to win?

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Disagreement over Mourning Charlie Kirk ([03:38]–[08:38])

• Coates’s Critique: Coates challenges Klein’s initial column after Kirk’s assassination, arguing that it painted Kirk too generously.

  • “There was something off about what I knew about this guy and the presentation of him as ... a paragon of politics and how politics should be done.” ([04:20], Coates)
  • Coates distinguishes between mourning violence and sanitizing a legacy, emphasizing that Kirk’s politics were rooted in slurs, exclusion, and hate.

• Klein’s Response: Klein defends his choice to focus on grief in the immediate aftermath.

  • "My instinct then is to just sit with them in their grief … That’s not my view of the person's whole legacy. But ... going to people when they're grieving ... saying, listen, I want to tell you really what I thought of your friend just feels ... not what you do in a kind of a community." ([06:01], Klein)
  • Both men agree that political violence is chilling, and that mourning violence is essential—but Klein sees a chance to “cool things down,” while Coates warns against distancing from a person's real impact.

2. The Power of Hate, the Nature of Losing, and Historical Perspective ([08:38]–[13:19])

• Coates: "I believe it's a powerful, powerful, unifying force. And I think Charlie Kirk was a hate monger … I have a politic that rejects violence, that rejects political violence. I take no joy in the killing of anyone, no matter what they said. But if you ask me what the truth of his life was ... I would have to tell you it’s hate." ([09:24], Coates)

• Klein worries that referencing "backlash" doesn’t suffice; he insists on interrogating why the left loses and how strategic error contributes. Coates counters with a longer historical view rooted in struggle and continuity.

  • “[My ancestors] fought ... for the destruction of chattel slavery ... and they never saw it ... they died in defeat, in darkness. ... It is not that things will necessarily be better in my lifetime, but that I will make the contribution that I am supposed to make.” ([11:00], Coates)

3. Has the Left Written People Off? The Limits (and Need) of Political Coalition ([13:19]–[24:17])

• Deplorables Moment: Klein raises Hillary Clinton's infamous “basket of deplorables” comment as an inflection point. He uses it to argue that the left began “writing people off,” shrinking the political tent, and disengaging from persuasion.

  • “The work of politics—of bridging over ... moral disagreements—became somewhat demeaned, diminished ... it began to seem like ... a betrayal.” ([17:27], Klein)

• Coates rejects the language but not the reality of powerful, hate-fueled movements. He recounts the strength and cost of maintaining hope and struggle, given that violence and loss are recurring features for black Americans.

4. The Role of Intellectuals vs. Politicians ([24:49]–[50:45])

• Differentiation of Roles: Deep discussion on whether writers and public intellectuals have obligations different from politicians.

  • Coates: “My expectations for the rhetoric of writers, intellectuals, journalists is very, very different than ... people who expect to hold office.” ([16:57], Coates)
  • Klein: Wonders whether the left (including its intellectuals) offers enough strategic discipline and respect for the old-fashioned work of coalition-building.
  • Coates: “I have a basic level of respect that I accord to everybody ... But ... I can't ever stand by and watch somebody ... in the name of unity ... act like [dehumanizing rhetoric] is not happening.” ([28:57], Coates)

• Drawing Lines vs. Bridging Gaps: Where do you draw the line—“You can't hurl epithets at people. You're out if you do that. ... That’s actually a basic value that most people have.” ([36:12], Coates)

5. What If Most Voters Cross the Line? Majoritarian Dilemmas ([38:14]–[44:51])

• Klein: “The president ... is a person who ... should be on the other side of the line.” ([38:14], Klein) Now, “that means ... a lot of people who are willing to accept things that I thought we would have found unacceptable.”
  • He asks, “What happens if you don't believe that ... if you don't control the line? ... I've been asking the question without really having an answer of what follows from that.” ([39:40], Klein)
• Coates: “Welcome to Black America. That's our history. The line we have drawn ... has not been majoritarian politics.” ([40:40], Coates)
• They discuss Trump’s increased share among Black voters, with Coates offering historical context, noting the consistent presence of conservatism within the Black community.

6. The Realities of Coalition Politics: When, Where, and For Whom Do You Compromise? ([44:51]–[67:38])

• Klein: Raises the provocative idea of running pro-life Democrats in deep red states as a necessary, if uncomfortable, strategy for coalition-building.

  • “In 2010, when the Affordable Care Act passed, there were 40 House Democrats who are pro life ... On the bright side, you don't have to have those negotiations now. On the downside, you can't pass the Affordable Care Act.” ([59:58], Klein)

• Coates Pushback: “The problem with musing about that is ... abandoning it is a very real possibility for people who don't have the [means] to fly to another state ... If you're gonna say that, I think you really gotta put the data behind it.” ([63:12], Coates)

• Balance between inside and outside the tent: Coates shares his discomfort defending Kamala Harris’s positions on Palestine to various communities—stressing that moral dissonance and hard conversations are unavoidable parts of political engagement.

  • “For me, politics is the lesser of two evils ... We have never had the luxury of electing people that represented the best of us ... When I made those conversations ... I had to be buttoned up about it.” ([65:48], Coates)
  • He urges Klein to be just as attuned to the fears and vulnerabilities of those "inside the tent" as to the importance of expanding it.

7. Final Reflections: The Endurance of Struggle & Urgency for Strategic Renewal ([67:38]–End)

• Klein: “The role I want to have is a person curiously exploring his political and intellectual interests in political peacetime ... and the role I somehow have ... is in the business of political persuasion ... and I feel like [we] have failed in a really consequential way.” ([57:48], Klein)

• Coates: “It's not a fatalistic view ... but you understand that losing is a possibility.” ([55:21], Coates)

• Klein: “We are of the nature to … [lose]. And I think the place I’m trying to push is, then how then shall we live?” ([57:14], Klein)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the paradox of mourning and responsibility:

  • “I always think it's important to differentiate how people die versus how they live.” ([04:20], Coates)

• On history’s repeating (but not fatalistic) cycles:

  • “It is not the worst [time].” ([70:45], Coates)
  • “We are not happy, but we are not surprised, man.” ([55:21], Coates)

• On coalition politics:

  • “Before I think people will give you power, they don’t even ask, do they like you? They ask whether you like them.” ([62:55], Klein)

• On the necessity to defend vulnerable communities:

  • “I can't ever ... in the name of unity ... act like that's not happening, because there are real consequences.” ([28:57], Coates)

• On enduring struggle:

  • “The privilege that I draw out of this ... is not that things will necessarily be better in my lifetime, but that I will make the contribution that I am supposed to make.” ([11:00], Coates)

• On being forced to re-evaluate strategy:

  • “I think we are here now ... and it is forcing me to rethink things I would prefer not to rethink.” ([58:43], Klein)

• On intellectual vs. political roles:

  • “The role of politicians and the role of writers, intellectuals, et cetera, is very, very different.” ([50:18], Coates)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:38] Introduction to the central disagreement about response to Charlie Kirk’s assassination
• [08:38] Hate as a political force; the historical endurance of loss and struggle
• [13:19] Klein’s push for honest reckoning with political loss
• [15:42] Clinton’s “deplorables” and the left's shrinking political tent
• [28:27] Coates on the imperative to respect both adversaries and vulnerable communities
• [36:09] Where are the lines? Who defines them, and what happens if we lose control?
• [41:02] Discussion of Trump’s appeal among Black voters; majoritarian dilemmas
• [57:42] Klein and Coates reflect on their respective roles and responsibilities amid political defeat
• [65:43] Compromise, coalition, and tough political choices
• [70:50] Recommended books from Ta-Nehisi Coates

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Book Recommendations ([70:50])

1. The Brothers by Stephen Kinzer – Biography of Allen and John Foster Dulles, U.S. foreign policy, and postwar power.
2. Race and Reunion by David Blight – How America forgets (and distorts) the Civil War and its legacy.
3. Sirens Call by Chris Hayes – On media, attention, and contemporary social challenges.

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Tone & Language

The conversation is reflective, occasionally raw, and deeply personal. Both speakers are analytical, but neither shies from strong emotional stakes—for themselves and the communities they serve. The tone is urgent, skeptical, and yet determined—marked by a mix of historical gravity and present-day anxiety. Both value clarity, plain speech, and the responsibility that comes with a public voice.

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Summary Takeaway

Klein and Coates circle the difference between compromise and complicity, between seeing people as changeable and naming lines that must not be crossed. The moment feels desperate, but both men ultimately reiterate the necessity of struggle, vigilance, and the value of making strategic, sometimes uncomfortable choices in an unruly democracy—always with a keen eye on history and on those most vulnerable to politics done badly.

Transcript

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[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

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[Ezra Klein]

There are two things that are true about what President Donald Trump said at Charlie Kirk's memorial service.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

He did not hate his opponents.

[Ezra Klein]

He wanted the best for them. That's where I disagreed with Charlie. One is it it's frightening to see the President of the United States talk this way about his political foes. I hate my opponent and I don't want the best for them. I'm sorry. I am sorry, Erica. The other, I think, is that it's an opportunity. I don't think that is a strong politics. I think there are opportunities encountering it, but I think it will need to be countered. And for me, one of the central questions animating the show this year that has been animating it since the election is how did we get here? How did we let these people get back into power? What went wrong, our approach to politics that we ended up here? This has been a conversation I've been engaged in since Charlie Kirk's murder, and I wanted to have it with somebody who has maybe not liked who I've been approaching it. Tonasy Coates is a writer I admire, somebody I have a genuine friendship with. In the days after Kirk's murder, he published a piece in Vanity Fair pretty harshly critical of what I had written and what he saw as a whitewashing of this man's legacy and role in politics. He compared what I was doing there to the whitewashing of the Southern cause after the Civil War. I think it'd be the height of hypocrisy for me to say we need to reach across divides and disagreement and then not talk across my own. So I wanted to talk to Ta Nehisi about the piece about the aftermath of Kirk's murder, but also about a disagreement or question. At least that I think is about more than Kirk. I think there's something very unsettled in the sort of broad coalition of the left around the Work of politics around who we talk to and when and how. When is that work moral? When is it necessary? When is it a betrayal? As always, my email, Ezra kleinshoneytimes.com Taanasi Coates, welcome back to the show.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Thanks. I don't know what number time this is.

[Ezra Klein]

I think you're one of the. If you go back to the box days. I think you're one of the. You're on the leaderboard for sure. Well, it's good to see you, man. Good.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Good to be here, Ezra. Thank you.

[Ezra Klein]

All right, well, let's jump into the disagreement. You wrote a column responding to my column on Charlie Kirk, which is so uncomfortable. It's okay. What was your disagreement with what I wrote after Kirk was assassinated?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah. First of all, I just want to thank you for having me. I've had to read things about myself that criticize my work. It's never easy. And people often have a very, very different response than the one you had, which is to invite me here and talk it out. So I appreciate that. I want to say that up front. I felt that when I initially read the column, and I guess we should be fully transparent here and say there was a discussion between us privately before there was a public thing.

[Ezra Klein]

Yeah, we text.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah, we did. We do text regularly, and we did text about this. So I felt like having not done the research that I eventually did for the college, there was something off about what I knew about this guy and the presentation of him as. And I don't want to misquote you here, but as basically a paragon of politics and how politics should be done. I think I had the same reaction that most ordinary people would have, which is absolute horror, the idea that this guy was somewhere speaking and was killed. But I always think it's important to differentiate how people die versus how they live. And then after doing the research, I had to be honest with you, that's when it got really, really difficult. When I went past my initial impressions and started going through all of the clips of the things he said, the way he talked about people, the way he described groups in way that, honestly, even as I was writing it, I was uncomfortable saying. And so the idea that this guy should be in any way celebrated for how he conducted politics, the fact that he just slurred across the board all sorts of groups of people and then ran an organization which appeared to me just a haven of hatred, I would not want that to be a model for my politics. And I know, you know, as we talked, you are not attempting to make a statement for his. The entirety of it. But I guess I feel like at a certain point, somebody does something that is so large that it's tough to think about their legacy and take that out of it. And that's how I felt about him.

[Ezra Klein]

So I think I want to get at the right level of disagreement here. So I think one thing for me is that I don't know. For me, the immediate hours after somebody is murdered in public, when you see that sort of grief and horror pouring out of the people who loved him, and many people loved him, my instinct then is to just sit with them in their grief.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Right.

[Ezra Klein]

To say, I can, for this moment, find some way to grieve with you, to see your friend the way, or in some version of the way you saw him. Right. That's not my view of the person's whole legacy. But going to people when they're grieving like that and saying, listen, I want to tell you really what I thought of your friend just feels. It feels like not what you do in a kind of a community. I can see people coming down on both sides of that.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I actually think that actually is a great impulse, that after somebody's been killed, and not just killed, but because we live in the media environment that we live in, that it's seen and that it will live forever, and that that person's family, you know what I mean?

[Ezra Klein]

That it was being looped in front of all of us.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Jesus Christ.

[Ezra Klein]

Which I think has a lot to do with how this was taken.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

No, it's terrible. It's terrible. And to have to go, like, to have young kids who have to grow up knowing that that is a thing that exists in the world. You know what I mean?

[Ezra Klein]

And I'll go one step further on this. That one thing I wrote about in that piece that I do worry about is I worry we are already in a cycle of political violence, of memetic violence. I think about Pelosi, I think about Shapiro. I think about the near assassination on Trump. I think about when, after that happened, I thought about me, I thought about you. I thought about all kinds of people. I know, right. So I do think there's just something about when violence takes hold, that there's something about it, that it begins to breach all lines. That was part of my reaction, too.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

You know, I think all of that is understandable, but I guess was silence not an option?

[Ezra Klein]

Yeah, Silence to me was not grieving with people. I felt it was important as someone who is liberal, as someone who has a voice that there are moments like that, like, I really do feel it's funny. Cause you said something like this in your piece, but it was a little bit more offhanded that political violence like that is an attack on us all. And that in that moment, it creates for me, even if it's very temporary, that it's important in a moment like that to sort of. Yeah. Come together, to try to see other people in their grief, to try to cool things down just a little bit. I guess given everything you read that Charlie Kirk said, and we probably don't have very different views on the value of the things he said, why do you think he was winning?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I mean, that's not really hard for me to understand. I mean, if I could just back up for a second. I want to say two things. I published a book 10 years ago between the World and Me. And one of the constant, constant reactions to that was that it was overly pessimistic about this country. It was overly pessimistic about the future. Why are you so dark, Ta Nehisi? Why can't you give us any sense of hope? And the reason, I would always say, is because any sort of sober examination of the history of this country says that those of us who believe in equality, those of us who believe in respecting the humanity of our neighbors and of everyone, that we're up against some really, really powerful forces of history and powerful, powerful narratives. And the implication of that is, however good we felt in 2013, 14, 15, 2008, there will be backlash. You know, those of us who were crying in 2008, watching Obama give that speech, you know, those of us who were so moved by watching him and Michelle step outside the car and felt so much fear for him, and then when nothing happened, felt so great about that. Those of us who believe that seeing a black family in the White House, mirroring what, you know, some of us felt the best of us was the best that we had to offer, there are other people watching that too. You know what I mean? And I don't take any joy in saying this, but we sometimes soothe ourselves by pointing out that love, acceptance, warmth, that these are powerful forces. I believe they are. I also believe hate is a powerful force. I believe it's a powerful, powerful, unifying force. And I think Charlie Kirk was a hate monger. You know, I really need to say this over and over again. I have a politic that rejects violence, that rejects political violence. I take no joy in the killing of anyone, no matter what they said. But if you ask me what the truth of his life was. And the truth of his public life. I would have to tell you it's hate. I'd had to tell you it is the usage of hate and the harnessing of hate towards political ends.

[Ezra Klein]

Then let me flip that question actually a bit. Why are we losing?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

We're losing because there are always moments when we lose.

[Ezra Klein]

See, that feels very fatalistic to me.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Doesn't feel fatalistic to me. It feels like the truth. I mean, and let me express what I mean. I'm Ta Nehisi Coates. I'm the writer, I'm the individual. Right. But I am part of something larger. And I've always felt myself as part of something larger. I have a tradition, I have ancestry, I have heritage. What that means is that I do whatever I do within the time that I have in my life, whatever time I'm gifted with. And much of what I do is built on what other people did before then. And then after that. I leave the struggle where I leave it, and then hopefully it's in a better place. Oftentimes it's not. That's the history, in fact. And then my progeny pick it up and they keep it going. I am descended from people who in their lifetime fought with all their might for the destruction of chattel slavery in this country. And they never saw it. They never saw it in my personal belief system. They died in defeat, in darkness. And so I guess the privilege that I draw out of this, the honor that I draw out of this, is not that things will necessarily be better in my lifetime, but that I will make the contribution that I am supposed to make. The fact of the matter is as horrifying as the killing of Charlie Kirk was and as horrifying as the feeling is this moment that we are in an era of political violence. And I don't want to sound flip here, political violence is the norm for the black experience in this country. It just is. I don't even mean like the Malcolm X, Martin Luther King variety of it. Right. Which is the norm, too. You would be hard pressed to have a conversation with a black person in this country that is a descendant of slavery and not have them be able to tell you themselves. Look, my uncle, my grandfather, my great grandfather, they lived in a small town in Mississippi, in Tennessee, in Alabama. They got into some sort of dispute with a white man, and either they were lynched or we had to run. Political violence runs through us. It is our heritage. Is that good? No. Do we valorize it? Absolutely not. Do we minimize it? Absolutely. Not. But a life free of it is not a thing that's really in reach in my time.

[Ezra Klein]

Sometimes I think that having a historical scope that wide can make the present too deterministic. So to me, I look at the last 812 years, and what I see having happened is we, the coalition I am in, the things I believe in lost ground. And people determinedly work to make that. So Charlie Kirk worked to make that so successfully. Right. I think that when he began going to college campuses and putting out a sign at a table, what he was eventually going to build was not obvious. I think he worked. I think he was a successful political actor. And I think that from when in 2016, we lost to Donald Trump the first time, very narrowly won the popular vote, right? And then in 2020, we almost lost to him and began seeing we were losing a bunch of voters we thought we were fighting for, right? Losing more working class voters, losing non white voters. Right. Something was changing, but we won. So, okay, and then 2024, we really got our asses handed to us, and we let a much more dangerous form of politics fully erupt. And I think that reflects strategic decisions they made. I think it reflects decisions we made. So I think for me, it's not enough to say we lost their backlashes. Sometimes you lose. I think it requires a very fundamental rethinking, like a disciplined, strategic rethinking of what have we been doing? Why are people preferring this to us? And I do think that is, like, it opens up into something more that I think that there is a practice of politics here that in a narrow sense, I was talking about Kirk, but in a broad sense reflects to something that I thought was gonna be an argument stretching across the show for like a year. Right. I think more of it came out in this than I had intended, probably. But I think in many ways we've stopped doing politics. We've written a lot of people off, and in writing them off, we are losing and we are unable to protect ourselves, unable to protect them, just unable to make good change in the world.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Can you say more about that, writing them off, please?

[Ezra Klein]

Why don't we start it here if we want to talk about writing off? I've been obsessing recently for a piece I've been writing about the Hillary Clinton deplorables comment. And I want to play it, you know, to just be grossly generalistic. You can put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that and he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets. They're offensive, hateful, mean spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks, they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America. What do you think when you hear that?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

She probably shouldn't have said it.

[Ezra Klein]

Do you think it's true?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I mean, it's probably not how I would say it, but you know what I mean, There are things that I would say. I probably would say what I said earlier in the interview about the force of. And I mean, as I've been saying this probably since as long as we've been talking, but I'm not. I just want to be clear about something. I shouldn't be running for President of the United States. You know what I mean? And my expectations for the rhetoric of writers, intellectuals, journalists, et cetera, is very, very different than what the expectation should be for people who expect to hold office.

[Ezra Klein]

Yeah. So this I agree with. Right. I think that there are different jobs in all this. But when I say we began writing people off, I think that something that happened and I think something I saw in this debate, but kind of like underneath it, was that the work of politics, of bridging over a lot of profound, fundamental moral disagreements, I think became somewhat demeaned, diminished. It began to seem like in many cases, a betrayal to people. The tent shrunk. The people I feel more comfortable with wielding power shrunk. And I think what Clinton was saying there came from somewhere. It came from, you know, the sort of culture that had emerged. It got worse over time, and then I think it really contributed to us losing. And meanwhile, this is why when I say, like in that initial piece, there was something that I respected in what Kirk was doing, like going in, having debates, using them opportunistically. A lot of people have thrown back at me that, oh, he wasn't debating to find truth. Of course he wasn't debating to find the truth. He was doing politics. He was trying to persuade people. And I've watched on our side, not opportunistic engagement, but a lot of, I would say, counterproductive disengagement.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

But would you like to see one of us put up a sign outside of, say, some white evangelical church in Alabama debate me on abortion and then use that content to say such and such smashes, you know what I mean? Church parishioner here Such and such. Owns church, parishioner.

[Ezra Klein]

I would like to see.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Would you like to.

[Ezra Klein]

I would like to see people on our side. Yeah. Go to evangelical churches. Go to places where that feel unfriendly, have conversations. And look, I put things up on YouTube. They're fairly successful, not the best of the business. And I don't use capital letters. Destroys in them. I think you can do it more aligned to hopefully our value structure, our political approach, our political aesthetic, at least the one that I believe in. I shouldn't overuse the term our here, but we weren't doing that either.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I don't know that we weren't. For instance, I have. I don't know if it's on YouTube anymore, but I received an invitation. For instance, I think about when I went up to West Point and I had to go up there and talk about between the world and me, I had to challenge them very, very directly about what it meant to have at that time, Confederate memorials up there and to talk about a Confederate. I can't remember what the motto is exactly, but basically it's a argument against lying and what it meant to have that there and have those grand historical lies. I mean, we had a great, A really, really great interaction. I don't know that I know everybody didn't agree with me. It would never occur to me. And I think it actually insults the dialogue to take that and say, Ta Nehisi owns West Point cadets.

[Ezra Klein]

Ta Nehisi does not recognize the kind of culture I'm talking about here. Like, really?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

No. I'm sorry, say more. No, I mean, what do you mean?

[Ezra Klein]

I think there really was a move towards the sort of approach Clinton is offering here. I think we began to pull back. I really do.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

But maybe it will help if you define the wise.

[Ezra Klein]

I will define the wound. Because I actually think this is a very hard thing about talking about political parties, because they're diffuse, right. It's a lot of people doing a lot of things all at once. But I think of the huge backlash to Bernie Sanders for going on Joe Rogan's show. Cuz Rogan was transphobic, right? Such a big backlash that when I defended him, I became myself a Twitter trending topic, right? To Elizabeth Warren for going on Bill Maher's show, Bill Maher's Islamophobic. There were protests at Netflix when they brought on Dave Chappelle. I think there was a politics of content moderation that took hold. That was more about enforcing boundaries of what were and were not ideas we should be engaged with than about engaging with them again, even if opportunistically. And when I go back to something I was saying to you a minute ago, I am in a process right now of thinking we failed, right? We lost. The loss is having terrible consequences. What do we need to rethink? How do we become competitive again in places where we're not? And I think there is something in here. Do people feel like, even if they disagree with us on some things, that they have a place with us? And my experience going around the country talking to people, I've been on a lot of writer center podcasts lately. Is that rightly or wrongly, what they took? And something that really empowered Trump in the last election was a sense that they didn't and we were against them. And if so, they were gonna be against us. And I think that's in the end, doing politics badly.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

So I think two things. I think about how much you argued that Biden shouldn't run again. What if he doesn't earlier and you have a Democrat who wins the presidency? There are other big explainers that I can see for it, you know what I mean, that don't feel so diffuse. The other thing is, and I know you don't want to talk historically, but when you say fatalism, I take that to mean that what's the point of fighting? But I think that misapprehends the philosophy here. It's not that, you know what's going to happen. It's not that, you know, Donald Trump is going. It's that you don't underestimate what you are up against. You know, it's actually kind of the opposite. You yourself wrote these articles about how high the level of racial resentment was that this country or some segment of it was. So as the term was used at the time, racially resentful, I call it racist. But racist that it flooded down to Barack Obama's dog bar bo. That's not a small amount of power. That's not a small force. And so just really quickly getting back to Charlie Kirk, I would watch those clips of him saying those things, man, and I would see how people would cheer and get charged by it. They were excited. People get activated by hate. It's a very, very, very strong force. And so I don't think it requires you to feel that you will eventually lose. On the contrary, I think it requires you to feel that even if you do lose, you have this kind of steadfastness to keep going.

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[Ezra Klein]

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[Ezra Klein]

One thing that I am seeing happen, and I think I really saw it in some it's more in Trump's first term, but I see it now too. Which is the worse from your perspective? My perspective, the other side gets. The more people want their reaction to sort of be and their strategy to be emotionally constant with how they're feeling about it. Because these people are so bad, there can be no quarter. I had somebody we both know, I'll say, an eminent academic of one form or another, email me after these pieces and just say to me, we are not on the same side anymore. What I was doing was too far right. We are just not on the same side. If I could say these things, I have a feeling right now that we are closer to genuine national rupture. Certainly been in my lifetime. The idea that this experiment that America could topple into something else, into something much worse, into some kind of new extended regime, feels very real to me. Right. I remember when I was on the why we're polarized Book tour. The end of.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I interviewed you for. You did? Yeah.

[Ezra Klein]

The end of that book is its recitation of what happened in the 1960s, the political assassinations, the violence in the streets, like what the state was doing, what was happening. But on the book tour, what I would say is my nightmare scenario is that level of violence and fracture with these kinds of parties where politics is not a. For all of its flaws, a calming force because the views are diffuse across the two parties, but an accelerant. And I think we're much more now in the world I was fearing. Okay, so that's. I think it should make you think, okay, what is some kind of de escalation before you get to rupture look like. But the other is that there are a lot of people who live in places we used to win not that long ago. So I've been thinking about Obamacare. When Obamacare passes, there are Democratic senators in Arkansas, in Louisiana, in West Virginia, in Missouri, in Indiana, in North Carolina, in South Dakota. In North Dakota. And I've been thinking that I think for a lot of us to twists a line about capitalism, it has become easier to imagine the end of the country than winning a Senate seat in Missouri or Arkansas. And I think that's a problem.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah. So I think a couple things about that. First of all, I just want to bring in the historical perspective. Not that long ago, I can remember when Obama won and I believe you would remember this too. And there were all of these pieces about the end of conservatism and the end of the Republican Party. You don't know how it's gonna go. Nobody really. It doesn't mean you shouldn't think about how it's gonna go. I'm not saying you shouldn't, but you really. No one really. Really. I mean, again.

[Ezra Klein]

And in 05, there were all these pieces about the end of the Democratic crisis.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yes, it was. Right.

[Ezra Klein]

Democrats had lost touch with the heartland.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ezra Klein]

Right. They were never gonna get it back.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

That's right. That's right. And so I think it's always important to keep that in the background. Look, I have just. In terms of bridging gaps and everything, I have a basic level of respect that I accord to everybody. You know what I mean? I wanna say what I have to say. I don't wanna shrink back from it. You know what I mean? But I do think on a basic level there's a respect that has to be had for people that I disagree with. Right. At the Same time, I recognize that part of my audience, and I would say an important part of my audience is people who have never enjoyed that respect, you know what I mean? People who, in fact, are subjects of the kind of hate that Charlie Kirk was harvesting. And I can't ever, A, contribute to making them feel like they've been abandoned, and B, I can't ever stand by and watch somebody do that and in the name of unity or whatever, act like that's not happening, because there are real consequences. And so it's like when I read his words towards trans people, Jesus, when I read, you know what I mean, the language towards Haitians specifically, which was very, very. Haitians will become your masters if you don't elect Trump. I mean, this is very, very familiar to me. You know, it's this idea of Haitians coming into the country or immigrants raping your daughters. I mean, this was really, really, really dark stuff, is at the core of this country. And so I feel like for Haitian immigrants that are in Ohio who are living under the weight of this, for trans kids who, you know what I mean, are dealing with being, I don't even want to use the term, bullied, beaten up, attacked, threatened. You know what I mean? It's very, very important to me, given the post, I have to say, I see you. But also, this dude was wrong. And I'm all for unifying. I'm all for bridging gaps, but not at the expense of my neighbor's humanity. I just can't.

[Ezra Klein]

I think this the thing we go to there, right? Not at the expense of my neighbor's humanity, because I've gotten a lot of that in email, right? Like, how am I supposed to talk to these people? How am I supposed to deal with these people who are denying my humanity?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I'm not against talking to him about it. I'll talk to you very clearly. I have no problem with that.

[Ezra Klein]

I guess the place where I'm not even 100% sure if we disagree, if you just sort of see your role differently, I think that in losing as badly as we have, we have imperiled trans people terribly. Yes, politics is for power.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Joe Biden did that.

[Ezra Klein]

Politics is for power. And so I think that the question I am just genuinely struggling with isn't how to have a great Kumbaya moment, but I think it is taking seriously that something we're doing is not working. I mean, I had Sarah McBride, who's the first trans member of Congress, on the show, and she was talking, we were talking about every single survey you can offer on Trans rights has gone in the wrong direction in the past couple years. We've just begun to lose that argument terribly, and that has put people in real danger. So I take your point when you say, look, I want people to feel seen in my writing, and I want people to feel seen in my writing and my podcasting. But the place I'm trying to push towards is I think that there is a diminishment of the political coalition building that we now need to do, because we have come to the view that a pretty wide variety of people are, in some ways, kind of deplorables. I think it's weakened in the last couple of years.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I would never use that language. Jesus Christ. But, like, that's not so when you think about that Hillary Clinton, that's what. Like, I would never say it like that.

[Ezra Klein]

That's great. I think it's good that you wouldn't say it like that. But I still. And I'm not saying I don't even.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Think that, by the way. Like, I don't. I don't even focus on people that. Look, I am at war with certain ideologies and ideas, and I want them expunged. I want to turn them into phrenology. That's what I want. But I don't want the people, you know what I mean, Out.

[Ezra Klein]

So in a way, I'm not sure. I mean, in a way, I think we're saying something not too dissimilar here. I guess the place where I felt a lot of pushback, and maybe this was not your pushback. Right. Was, you know, the first piece, I can just sort of, like, I accept that there's a disagreement on, like, what to do in the 24 hours after a death. Like, you feel like I was whitewashing the guy. And I felt like I was sort of.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I do.

[Ezra Klein]

Yeah, I know you do. I know you do.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

It's very upsetting.

[Ezra Klein]

I know you do. The second piece I did, which I think you saw, was more about this question of what are we gonna do living here in sort of two types of disagreement. One, with a right where Charlie Crook has become sort of the center of it. Right. He's not unusual for the MAGA coalition. He's a sort of uniting force within it and the kind of things he believed in, the way he did his politics. And then two, what are we going to do? Like, how are we going to be here with people who are, like, halfway there? Right. What does it mean to be in this political community together? What do you Think about that question.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

About how to live together.

[Ezra Klein]

Yeah.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Well, first of all, I think it's a truth. You know what I mean? I think it's a foregone. Like, we are. We are. I really, really believe that, you know, I'm not renouncing my American citizenship. They're not renouncing their American citizenship. So this then, you know, as far as I'm concerned, is a contest of ideas and narratives. All I can go to is my role as a writer. And my role as a writer is to state things as clearly as I possibly can, to make them in such a way that they haun to state truths and to reinforce probably the animating notion of my politics. And that is that all humanity is equal and is worthy of that. And I actually think all of the sort of political and policy positions that I probably find myself in sympathy with are attempting to affect that in the real world. And so. And again, I'm putting aside your piece, but I'm just thinking about the moment we're in when I hear or see people who are honored and commemorated in such a way so that they almost become a national religious figure. And then I see their content, and I see that their content is actively destructive to humanity. I have to draw a line there. Like, I just. I think, like, for me, like, the bigger question is, where are the lines? You know what I mean? And I think there's no problem with saying, listen, you can't hurl epithets at people. You're out if you do that. I'm sorry. Look, you want to have a debate about whether we should have affirmative action in colleges, I'm here for it. You want to have a debate, what.

[Ezra Klein]

Does it mean to be on the other side of the line?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I'm sorry, what do you mean, what does it mean?

[Ezra Klein]

So once somebody's on the other side of the line, right, what does that.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Mean for you, for instance, once you think it's okay for school?

[Ezra Klein]

No, no, no.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I'm trying to make this confident.

[Ezra Klein]

Yeah, no, I am, too. Yes, once. For whatever the definition of the line is, what does it mean for you for somebody to be on the other side of it? Right. Not somebody who just died.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Right.

[Ezra Klein]

But somebody still living.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Right. If you think it is okay to dehumanize people, then conversation between you and I is probably not possible.

[Ezra Klein]

And so what do you do with the fact that so many people think that is okay?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I think what you try to do is, again, this is the difference, right? Like, I don't necessarily have the crystal ball to say that in this time, I'm gonna be able to convince a majority of people that, for instance, let's just take the thing that's hot right now. Trans folks are human beings and deserve humanity. Although I think most people know that you shouldn't say what he said. Like, that shit is rude. It's just rude to talk to people like that. And I think most people know that. So as I'm thinking my way through the question, I actually think that's not a hard line to draw. You know, I think not calling people out of their name, I think that's actually a basic value that most people have. And I think people who think it's not, who are pushing that are actually themselves on the other side of the line.

[Ezra Klein]

But so I want to hold on this for a minute, because I do think this is like a very.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

And that's different from policy, Ezra.

[Ezra Klein]

Yeah, I understand. It's different than policy.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

That's different than policy.

[Ezra Klein]

I think that one oath, wondrous reality is the President of the United States is a person who, in his comportment as a human being on the public stage, I would have said in 08, in 12, in 16, should be on the other side of the line.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah.

[Ezra Klein]

I think he's a person who does not act with any sense of public or even personal decency.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Right.

[Ezra Klein]

And then he won in 16, lost sort of narrowly in 20, and then won in 2024. And I think the thing that that has led to for me is recognizing that I don't get to draw the line now. It doesn't mean I don't have one in my own heart, but I think that is the thing that I am struggling with. Not only is he clearly, for most people, or a lot of people, plurality, the voters in the last election, not somehow way over the line, but that means it's a lot of people who are willing to accept things that I thought we would have found unacceptable. If you had told me, I would have thought that the way he acts in public is unacceptable, and it's not. And so I think, for me, and this goes back to maybe the culture that you feel didn't exist, but I feel did, that there was a view that we could sort of work with politics, with drawing these lines, that there are people going to be inside them and outside them, and we could work that way. And I think that I am working with the question of what happens if you don't believe that, if you don't control the line. What I see is any line that existed at all Collapsing. So I'm watching Holocaust revisionism on the biggest right wing podcasts. I'm watching Tucker Carlson turn into what I would describe as a white nationalist and become an absolute dominant force on the right, bigger than he ever was in his smarmy libertarian phase. And this stuff is real appeal, as you said. That's not a surprise on some level. It's just something you have to deal with. And so that's where this question of the line drawing. I have lines what I think should and should not be acceptable, but those lines clearly have no relationship to my country, the politics. And I think I've been asking the question without really having an answer. I want to be honest about this, of what follows from that.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I think you do have a line. I think every.

[Ezra Klein]

I'm sure I do.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I think there are things, for instance, that I could say that would make you say it's no point in ta Nehisi coming up and being on this podcast. And likewise, there are things you could say, obviously, obviously, there's no point in me talking to Ezra.

[Ezra Klein]

I'm saying, what happens if 35% of the country, 40% of the country, the dominant political force in the country is inside that? Does that change anything or. No, like the line just halts.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

No, I mean, welcome to black America. That's our history. The line we have drawn in general has not been majoritarian politics, unfortunately, that's just been what it is. And at the times that it's been majoritarian politics, people have done things and fiddled with government or done extremely violent things to make it not. So.

[Ezra Klein]

How do you deal in that answer? How do you deal with Trump really substantially increasing his share of the black vote?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Actually, I think where he is is about where actually Republicans tended to be before Barack Obama. So I'm a little less. I mean, there's a conservative portion of our community that's always voted Republican. And I think, obviously, I think sexism is a very, very real force. I don't think it's completely explanatory, but the idea that there is, say, 20% of black men who are fundamentally conservative, that doesn't really surprise me too much.

[Ezra Klein]

But I guess let's take. Because I think this is a hard case. I think from your perspective and from my perspective, we probably don't believe hugely different things. A huge amount of the country, a majority of the country, believes things about trans people, about what policy should be towards trans people, about what language is acceptable to trans people that we would see as fundamentally and morally wrong and what politically not in a column or something, but politically, should our relationship with those people be. Do we win them over? Do we compromise with them? This feels like a very salient question. The Republican Party is going to make sure this is a relentlessly salient question.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I agree with that.

[Ezra Klein]

Where does the approach leave us? Where do we go on that?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah, no, I think that's a great question. Look, I think a couple things I think again, look, my tradition is the only thing I have a reference point for. So I'm sorry to keep going back to this, but when I look at the times that we have lost, if I think specifically about the black tradition, for instance, it's hard for me to say politically they did something wrong, you know what I mean? Like Reconstruction falls, what was the thing that should have been done? On the contrary, I see a kind of courage that I wish we had today in a lot of people, you know what I mean? I see people willing to die and take bullets all the time, you know what I mean? What more could Ida B. Wells have done to get the anti lynching bill passed? I mean, here is somebody that was banished from Tennessee on threat of being killed after she saw her friends murdered and lynched. And one of the things I will say is when I look back at that long tradition and I look back in the times that people have won and the places they've won, it's often not been their heroism that was the decisive factor. Ultimately, it's often not been their strategy that was the decisive factor. Folks look back at the civil rights movement, for instance, and they talk about how brilliant it was to do the sit ins and use mass media in the way that Martin Luther King used mass media. The appearance, all of that's true. But if we don't have World War II and the planet does not get a view of how horrific it can be when you decide you're going to eliminate people based on their traits. Civil rights movement happened. I don't know. I don't know. I think windows open and close. And so I think some of this is up to the decisions that politicians make. I think some of it is also up to what is happening in the broader mass culture at the time. I think all this kind of works together. I'm not against, you know, this kind of strategizing. I think that that has to happen. But I think you also have to recognize, like how broad the world is when you say politics.

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[Ezra Klein]

I think there's been a period, particularly on the left, in which the Civil War, pre it, post it, the writings of that time, the people of that time have become a sort of rooting period, a place where we sort of go back and look and think about who are we, what was revealed about us. I'm taking nothing away from that.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Right.

[Ezra Klein]

But that's obviously a period where politics ultimately fails. I actually think, and I've thought about this a lot in reaction, I have read in the last couple weeks I've thought a lot about how many people believe we are already in a cold civil war, that we are in a time that we are dealing with divisions and questions. I see it on the right for sure. I hear it on the left. I have a lot of email that's like we need a national divorce. How that's going to be effectuated, never exactly clear.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Do people you respect say that to you?

[Ezra Klein]

Well, yes, actually I will say that, but I'm not gonna. People say things to me that are off the record and I shouldn't say it. But you don't believe that though. I think this is really important. I was curious what you'd say to this question. You don't believe we are at a point where the next 10, 20, 30 years can't be shaped by decisions we would understand as within normal politics, within elections and legislation and organizing and so on? No. Good. I think that's great.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I mean, look, I mean that could happen. Yeah, that could happen. But I guess the broader thing I am thinking about is how much does this era stand out in the long sweep of American history? Yeah, it's bad.

[Ezra Klein]

Well, so this is actually.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

But I don't. It wouldn't make my list for the worst.

[Ezra Klein]

No, I agree with you. I agree with you. I'm where you are on this to just be super clear. But I actually think one reason then the amount we focus on the Civil War period is tricky is because that's a period when it didn't work like that. Right. You actually had to go over the cliff of that and have the war. I've been thinking a lot about, because I've been reading a lot about McCarthyism. So I've been thinking about that whole period. And you just sort of brought up the World War II as sort of a generator of the politics allows us to have the Great Society, the Civil Rights act, et cetera. I think another way of sort of glossing that is you have the rise of red scare politics which predate McCarthy. You have McCarthy, who Joseph McCarthy, who is just for a period an unbelievably dominant force.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

It's insane.

[Ezra Klein]

Everybody who challenges him loses.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

That's right.

[Ezra Klein]

He becomes a complete kingmaker. He's eventually boxed down and beaten by Dwight Eisenhower, sort of center right, very, very anti communist politician, but who can sort of take the center from McCarthy. But then it's like what happens next? Nixon, who is the genteel red bader to McCarthy's non genteel red Bader, runs in the next election. He's beaten by jfk, who's a very center left, very anti communist, sort of runs to Nixon's right on communism. And he does it with Lyndon Johnson on the bottom of the ticket, sort of representing Southern politics and Democratic Party. It's a very, very, in a way checkered series of moves that are accepting huge amounts of McCarthyism at that time. And yet it does sort of lead to political power that is then wielded in a very, very different way within fairly short order. I take from this I've been thinking about this because I think we're sort of in a new McCarthyism. Some lessons on how politics can work and the give and the take of it. We've been sort of brought up in Civil War a bunch. But what do you take from this period?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I take something that we've kind of been circling for this entire conversation, which is that the role of politicians and the role of writers, intellectuals, et cetera, is very, very different. Politicians do things that I wouldn't do. I don't, for instance, I don't hold JFK or RFK up. You know what I mean? As the people. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ezra Klein]

I'm not a fan of jfk, Camelot revisionism, but, you know, I guess not a very good president.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

That's like a separate thing from whether, you know what I mean, why politics happens the way they do. Let me give you an instance that often also comes up. That's not the Civil War and that's the New Deal. Right. I think there is a pretty strong argument that the New Deal quite did. I mean, not a strong argument, but it's pretty clear that the New Deal did quite a bit to create the social safety net, expand, create an American middle class. Right? That's true. Did FDR want to in his heart, exclude black folks in the way that they were excluded from it? No. That was the price of getting the thing done. I understand that as politics, but were I there in that time, it would be incumbent on me to yell at FDR to not do that. I just think that's really, really, really, really. We don't all have the same role. When I wrote Case for Reparations, it was not my expectation, nor did I even think it would be politically intelligent for Barack Obama to go up and yell, I'm for reparations. You know what I mean? But that's different than my role, I.

[Ezra Klein]

Guess the substructure of a bunch of what I am saying, which may or may not be an argument with you. It's just when I texted you to come on, I was like, I've been thinking about what the underlying arguments are here. So you're kind of getting this spilling out of my brain. I think that there is a work of politics that for a bunch of different reasons has become demeaned. And I think, and this does not speak well of the people, so to speak, in power doing it. But I think that they are not doing it well. I think the culture around them, I think politicians are not always leaders. I think they're often Followers. And I think that the idea that that kind of political coalition building, building across these gigantic differences, building across public opinion, both not just as you wish it existed, but as it exists, has become seen and treated as often betrayal, cowardice, moral fallibility. It's not, I think it's fine to say people got different roles and in fact it's good for intellectuals to criticize the politicians. But my view is that the political practice became too weak. I don't think that was true for Obama. I went back preparing to talk to you and I read your piece, My President was Black. It's a beautiful piece.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Thank you.

[Ezra Klein]

And it's very much in this tension, right, where you say quite a bit like it would have been a bad idea for Barack Obama to say the things I am saying here, to do the things in some ways I wish he had done, that politics wouldn't have worked. There would have been no Obama presidency and his presidency would not have been successful. And I think I've been thinking about that line in my own work and just in the political culture as I see it, that line between the sort of intellectual, analytical work and the actual work of politics, the how do we live here with each other work, right. Which I think is actually honorable work and I think feels right now to me like morally urgent and necessary and not just over disagreement, just the whole thing being done in a strategic and disciplined sense. I think one of the things I've thought about is the need to actually raise the status of just like old fashioned politics. And I think I've been surprised to find myself feeling that way. But I think one way the second Trump term has changed me is I don't. And maybe you always believe this, right? I'm not putting this on you. I think what got built for all of its flaws in the back half of the 20th century was much more fragile than I'd understood. Not just like the legislation or any of that, but the actual sense of what you could and could not do, what we would and would not accept. And I've just like the sense that we can just tumble all the way back has become much more real to me. And so the work that people did to begin to build those guardrails and how hard that actually was. And at this point we eventually, I feel like we began to take something actually quite beautiful for granted or only see what wasn't there as opposed to what was. And it's forced a little bit of for me, like how did they do it? How did they get out of the.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Last one of these, you know, I'll just say, and I think I'm speaking for a broader community here. We are not happy, but we are not surprised, man. And again, the reason why we go back to reconstruction in the Civil War is because it is before the 1960s, the only glimpse at the possibility of a real democracy in this country. It happened, and in some places, it was actually quite, quite successful. You have people who had been enslaved, who were written off as illiterate fools. You know what I mean? Serving in legislatures, Congress, and actually with the standard of the time, actually, it's such a hopeful, incredible, incredible story. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. And it was violently destroyed. Once you see that and once you have that in your heritage, once you. You know what I mean, understand that. Once you understand that Martin Luther King could be standing up, telling people, telling his own people, we do not embrace violence at all. It is morally repugnant. We embrace love. And that. That could get you shot, not burn it down. Love can get you shot. You know, you just have a different view of your country. I emphasize this over and over again. It is not a fatalistic view. It is not we. You know, it is written in stone that we will ultimately lose. But you understand that losing is a possibility.

[Ezra Klein]

But so then what does that. There's a Buddhist meditation I like. This is a weird place to go. But it goes like this. I am of the nature to grow sick. I'm of the nature to grow old. I'm of the nature to lose the people I love. I'm of the nature to die. How then shall I live?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I love that.

[Ezra Klein]

Yeah. And I do it because sometimes you need the reminder. What I hear you saying, in a way, is we are of the nature, too.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah.

[Ezra Klein]

And I think the place I'm trying to push is, then how then shall we live? Because in this distinction you're making between, like, you would have been there correctly yelling at fdr, and I'm not, like, asking you, but like me, right? Like my work, my role.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Can you answer that? Can you say what you. I think it's a good point. Like, would you define for me how you see, like, what your role is?

[Ezra Klein]

I don't know what my role is anymore. I'll be totally honest with you, man. I feel very conflicted about that question. The role I want to have is a person curiously exploring his political and intellectual interests in political peacetime. And the role I somehow have is sometimes that. But I am in the business. I'm a political opinion writer and podcaster, and so On. And I'm in the business of political persuasion. And I feel like me and the people who believe what I believe, not narrowly speaking, but the whole broad coalition, have failed in a really consequential way. And I think it is.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

You feel like you failed in your work?

[Ezra Klein]

I think there are places I failed. I mean, I think there are things I got right, too. Like, I think we shouldn't have run Joe Biden again. I think I was right about that. I think I've gotten a lot right, but I think I've gotten definitely things wrong. But I think we are here now. Right. That's what I would really say. And it is forcing me to rethink things I would prefer not to rethink. I will give you an example because people are mad at me on this one right now. I said in a podcast with my colleague Russ Douthen, he was pushing me on left radicalism. I was saying I don't care about left wing radicalism. I don't think it's some great threat. I don't think it's a huge political problem. I worry about left wing pessimism, fatalism that we are losing and don't want to change anything. And I said that the question for me is how do we win Senate seats in places like Kansas and Missouri and Ohio? I said I would like to see us doing things like in red states. And here I meant redder than those, you know, running pro life candidates. People got real upset about that. And I get why. But in 2010, when the Affordable Care act passed, there were 40 House Democrats who are pro life. At some level, you had to do this whole negotiation with this guy, Bart Stupak.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah, I remember.

[Ezra Klein]

Yeah. And on the bright side, you don't have to have those negotiations now. And on the downside, you can't pass the Affordable Care Act. And the point is not that issue. Right. That one issue. You know, although things like the example, say, Susan Collins, where she's in theory pro choice, but she votes for Mitch McConnell and John Doone as leader, like, that's how you build power on some level. Right. If you have those, you know, Joe Manchin, I wish he were still a senator from West Virginia. As much as I have deep disagreements with him, I think that I am a person. I think you are a person, whether you admit it or not, who is one of the people with a voice in shaping what our political culture is. And I believe at some level that political strategy is downstream from political culture. I think it means exploring things that are uncomfortable and being pretty disciplined in a way. Maybe I haven't been about separating the question of what I believe from what I believe will win power, because I currently think that the cost of losing power is horrifying and dangerous, and we can't keep doing it. So that's.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah. So can we start with that? Exactly. Because, you know, immediate thing, and I don't have the numbers in front of me, but the immediate thing that springs to mind for me in that question is not who you're abandoning, but how do you square the fact that, in fact, reproductive rights has proven to be pretty popular in red states. And I'm thinking about referendums that have been passed such that they've had to change the rules. How do you separate that?

[Ezra Klein]

Again, I sort of said this in.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Glance, like, there are people who didn't vote for Kamala but give me my reproductive rights.

[Ezra Klein]

I think that I was using First Pro Life as an illustrative example. But there are many red districts in this country, and there are states that we do not even think about competing in anymore. Right. I'm not talking about Ohio here. I think you have to try things, by the way, not only moderation kind of things. You could try going much harder on economic populism, which some people are trying. I think you might need to combine those two strategies, which is sort of the Dan Osborne in Nebraska approach. I think even before the question of what your policies are, and I believe this very deeply, there's a question of whether or not people feel like you respect them and like them, even if they disagree with you before. I think people will give you power. They don't even ask, do they like you? They ask whether you like them. And I think a lot of the country feels we don't like them. Not only do I believe that. I know that. I've seen the focus groups, I've seen the survey data. I have talked to the people who work on this. Changing that is going to require making moves that somehow send a loud enough signal that people begin to think we have changed it at some level. Sherrod Brown should be able to win in Ohio.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yes.

[Ezra Klein]

The reason he cannot win in Ohio is the Democratic Party itself is a millstone around his neck that drags him down. So what do you do about. I'm not here to tell you. I got the answer. What I would feel much better about is I felt there was, like, a strategic discipline about finding it.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

So I just. If you will take this very gentle pushback.

[Ezra Klein]

Yeah, please.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I think you're here for it. I do think what immediately strikes me is if you take. I know you would just. It's not the example necessarily that you would hold out about reproductive rights. But I think the problem with musing about that is abandoning it is a very real possibility for people who don't have the option necessarily to fly to another state or do X, Y and Z. So I suspect when they hear somebody of your status, even if it's not the example, you mean putting it out in the air like they feel. And it's not just that you're putting it out in the air, it's putting it out in the air. And actually, I don't necessarily even mean that one. Like, if you're gonna say that, I think you really gotta.

[Ezra Klein]

I'll stand back.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

You gotta put the data behind it. I think that's really, really important.

[Ezra Klein]

I will say, and I think this is actually the nub of it. Right. Like, I'm glad we're sort of here. I am saying the thing it sounds like I am saying, to be very, very clear, I think in a place like Nebraska, you should try to run some pro life Democrats. I wish people, instead of saying that an expressive or strategic question in politics was betraying or abandoning the people we wish to protect, I wish what we said was we lost power in a way that allowed Donald Trump to drive the supreme court to a 6, 3 Republican majority. And that majority overturned Roe v. Wade. It overturned Roe v. Wade and actually abandoned all these people, actually fucked them over.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Right, right.

[Ezra Klein]

It is part of, I think when I say that the work of politics has become diminished, it is part of how that happened, that talking about this creates this sort of counter argument. Well, even to discuss it is to abandon. In 08, as you and I both know, Barack Obama ran as a public opponent of gay marriage.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Right.

[Ezra Klein]

He ran opposed to it at a time when not only I won't speak for you, was I not opposed to it, but most of us did not. Yeah, most of us did not think he was opposed to it.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Right.

[Ezra Klein]

Like at his heart, we did not think he was opposed to it, but he was playing politics. That playing of politics allowed him to name Supreme Court justices. And that led to the decision that created a constitutional right to same sex marriage. And I am saying that that kind of playing politics is needed.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I can give you an example from the other side, by the way, too.

[Ezra Klein]

Yeah, go for it, brother.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

You know what my position was during the election about Palestine, about Gaza? Kamala Harris was running to be the first black woman to be president of The United States. You cannot imagine how animated black folks were about that. And some would argue the base of the Democratic Party, black women, you know what I mean? We're gonna see this thing. She was not taking a position that I thought was particularly moral. I had to talk in front of black audiences about that, you know what I mean? And I had to do the other thing, which was go before Arab American audiences here, Palestinian American audiences here, and say, look, I'm with you. You can be mad at me. You probably will be mad at me. I get it. But for me, politics is the lesser of two evils. We have been fighting this battle for a long time. We have never had the luxury of electing people that represented the best of us. And this is why I'm voting for her. This is a really, really serious thing. And when you hear these Palestinians, Palestinian Americans, and when you hear these Muslim Americans, and when you hear these Arab Americans upset about this, you know, you can't just yell at them. You have to take them seriously. These were hard, very, very difficult conversations. But when I made those conversations, look, man, I had to be buttoned up about it. I just think you take very, very seriously the need to convince people outside of the tent right now, right? About like, we have to convince them to come in. I guess what I want from you is I want you to take as seriously people who are in the tent and who are vulnerable and afraid. And if you have to convince them of something that's extremely, extremely uncomfortable or tell them that you're taking a position that is extremely uncomfortable, I just think you owe them a little more. That's all I'm saying.

[Ezra Klein]

Yeah, that's fine. I'll take it. But I want to put this on you for a minute. Right? You keep sort of putting it back on me.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah, I'm open. Go ahead. I won't.

[Ezra Klein]

You keep putting it back on me. Here on the Ta Nehisi Coach show, you are one of the most influential public intellectuals in the country. I know you don't like to think of politics as a thing you do, but it is a thing you do. What then should we do? As bad as, you know, this can get, and given that you are not a hopeless person or who, you know, doesn't think you should just collapse into fatalism, what do you think should happen now?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I think that really depends on what your role is. I don't have a great overarching theory for what everybody needs to do, because I think we all have different positions. You know, I know what my role Is. And I do see myself as part of politics, by the way.

[Ezra Klein]

Yeah.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

You know, and I think that's a very, very important way of answering the question. I mean, I'm not gonna be the person that yells at you because, you know, you went on a bunch of right wing podcasts. You know, I've said many times in the course of this interview, I see myself as a writer, I see myself as a journalist. I see myself as someone for whom it's very, very important to state the truth plainly and to clarify things as best I can. I'm not a strategist for the party, and I've tried to, as you raised in that Barack Obama piece, I've tried to respect the difference.

[Ezra Klein]

I guess I'm not pushing you to be a political strategist. Right. I think that for me, something you see me doing right here, something I think people reacting to me doing, is saying that, something about knowing that this much of the country is on the wrong side of what my line would have been, knowing that what Kirk was doing, what people like him were doing, was working. That that imposes a set of questions upon us that need to be answered.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

The thing I'm struggling with in this conversation, and even in that question, is the fact that there are things that you yourself have actually advocated for, that had they been done, we would be having a very different conversation.

[Ezra Klein]

I think I wanted to not be close.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

You said what?

[Ezra Klein]

I wanted to not be close.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Oh, you want. Oh, see, I mean, you will call this my fatalism, but I am not surprised. I think it's going to be close. I think it'll be close for a very, very long time. I would like for it to be less close, too.

[Ezra Klein]

But do you think that's within our power? Not really.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Listen, I have a friend, and I'm not gonna out him. He's a mutual friend of ours who always says, this is the best set of white folks we have ever had in the entire history of black America. This is the most woke, this is the least racist, this is the most aware group that we have had. You know what I mean? Like, for us and for those of us who ground ourselves in a larger tradition, this is not close. Like, this is a remarkable, remarkable time in terms of our freedom as writers and journalists to speak to people, in terms of the amount of people who are empowered and have some amount of privilege and could just look away and are not looking away. It's not a great time politically. You understand what I'm saying? But it's not the worst either.

[Ezra Klein]

No, it's not.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

It's not the worst.

[Ezra Klein]

All right then, I think always our final question, what are three books you'd recommend to the audience?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

So the first book is a book called the Brothers by Stephen Kinzer, which is a joint biography of Allen Dulles and John Foster Dulles and how incredibly, one was head of the State Department, the other was head of the CIA and how they worked to overthrow multiple countries during Eisenhower's time. It's just an incredible, mind boggling book and it's helping me answer some questions about the role of America in the broader. In the broader world. The second one is an oldie but goodie, which I reached for before I wrote my piece is Race and Reunion by David Blight, which I think is just essential because it shows how a country forgets and forgets in service of a politic that I would say is problematic. The third one is our mutual friend Chris Hayes book Sirens Call, which I think in fact actually tells us a lot about the conversation that we're having today, you know, in the influence of social media, screens and distraction.

[Ezra Klein]

Honesty. Coats, man. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Thank you, Ezra. I appreciate it, too.

[Ezra Klein]

This episode of the Israel Clown show is produced by Roland Hu. Fact Checking by Michelle Harris with Mary Marge Locker. Our senior audio engineers, Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Amin Zahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show's production team also includes Annie Galvin, Marie Cassion, Jack McCordick, Marina King, Kristin Lin and Jan Kobel. Original music by Aman zahota and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Grassini Semuluski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Strasser.

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