The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

How Are Those Luxury Beliefs Working Out? Rob Henderson and the coinage that keeps on giving (FULL INTERVIEW)

Aug 26, 2025

This week, I welcome back Rob Henderson, the social psychologist, author, and commentator who coined the concept of luxury beliefs: ideas that confer status on the upper class while inflicting real costs on lower-income communities. Rob was last here in early 2024 discussing his memoir, Troubled: A Memoir of Foster...

Is The Racial Reckoning Over? John McWhorter on language, art, and defunding the grammar police

Aug 19, 2025

This is the full version of the Aug 4 episode, now available to all subscribers.

Author, New York Times columnist, and superstar linguist John McWhorter returns to the pod to catch us up on what’s been on his mind now that the Woke Emergency is over . . . or is it over? We talk about how figures like Robin...

Is Everything Terrible? Tablet editor Alana Newhouse on the problem with burning it all down.

Aug 18, 2025

This week I’m joined by Alana Newhouse, journalist, cultural critic, and founder/editor-in-chief of Tablet Magazine. Since launching Tablet in 2009, Alana has carved out a space for nuanced and surprising reporting on Jewish identity and the larger cultural questions shaping those issues, as well as the broader issues...

Extreme Religious Conversion - Kelsey Osgood on women, religious transformations, and what anorexia has to do with it. (FULL INTERVIEW)

Aug 4, 2025

This week, I’m joined by author Kelsey Osgood to discuss her recent book “Godstruck: Seven Women’s Unexpected Journeys To Religious Conversion.” The book, which profiles women who traded secular lives for religious communities such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, evangelical Christianity,...