The Drift Editors
“Nobody Is Minding the Store” | An Interview with Marion Nestle
The Drift Editors
Perhaps nowhere today does politics scramble more conspicuously in America than on its dinner plates. The marketplace of food and health ideas has gotten crowded; it’s no longer fringe to be anti-pasteurization, anti-vegetable, pro-methylene blue, or really anything else. The march of eccentric diet creeds from periphery to mainstream seemed to culminate with the appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services....
“The Ultimate Conspiracy of Patriarchy” | A Conversation with Brace Belden, Daniel Boguslaw, Alexandra Brodsky, and Anand Giridharadas
The Drift Editors
Jeffrey Epstein — pedophile, sex trafficker, consigliere to the ultra-rich and the ultra-connected — once belonged to the truly elite. As the full extent of his crimes was exposed, he became the property, at least symbolically, of a different in-group: online conspiracy enthusiasts on both the far right and the far left. In 2019, he died in federal custody, and now — after the Department of Justice’s chaotic file dumps...
“Our Diminished Epoch” | An Interview with Stuart Schrader
The Drift Editors
From Chicago and D.C. to the U.S.-Mexico border and the coast of Venezuela, the hallmark of Donald Trump’s second term has been the unrestricted deployment of state violence. This carnival of coercive brutality comes after years of unsuccessful attempts, by the left, to curb our government’s use of force. The movement against racist police brutality that culminated in the protest wave of 2020 is now in retreat. Demonstrations against the...
“All Sticks, No Carrots” | An Interview with Adam Tooze
The Drift Editors
In our 2021 conversation with economic historian Adam Tooze, we grappled with what was beginning to feel “a lot like normal life” after the unprecedented shocks of the pandemic. Today, the idea of economic turbulence as exceptional sounds almost quaint. Donald Trump’s second administration seems determined to stress-test nearly every assumption that guided post-pandemic economic policy — not to mention the longstanding international order. To help us understand what these...
“Politics Is Conflictual”
| An Interview with Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò
The Drift Editors
“Massive changes often unfold on large time scales,” philosopher Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò told The Drift in 2022. But if the past three years have shown us anything, it’s that they can also happen pretty quickly. Just three years ago, corporations proudly touted their DEI commitments, and a program of climate reparations seemed, if not imminently achievable, at least worth discussing concretely. But the topics we covered in our last conversation...
