"The Argument" Podcast: Now That's How You "Argue"

 As soon as I use the words  "The New York Times" as the creator and producer of The Argument podcast, about 50 percent of the population will scream, "I'm not listening to that podcast. The Times promotes liberal, socialist, elitist policies that are ruining this country." Did I miss anything in that screed?

I know you won't believe me, but I'll try anyway. The Argument podcast by The New York Times does fulfill its marketing pitch, which is a mission of modeling civil disagreement and answering that most basic question: “How could anyone possibly think that?”

Launched in 2018 with Michelle Goldberg, Ross Douthat, David Leonhardt and Frank Bruni as co-hosts, The Argument attempted to transform the 24-hour news network model of an argument. On these news networks, an argument seems to be defined as a group of like-minded people attacking another group with a different belief system and then demonizing that group for that diversity of opinion. The group attacked doesn't generally have a voice in this echo chamber, and is represented through carefully edited videos or audio clips. 

It's an argument model perfected by conservative podcasts and radio talk shows. In those two scenarios, the talk show or podcast host plays the role of both sides of a debate, typically distorting the position of the "enemy" and discrediting the opposition and then acting as a white knight (irony intended here) to defend the virtuous position of the show's listeners, who bath in this cloak of self-righteousness.

Typically, the goal of these 24-hour news network "arguments" is not to make salient points, but instead to "own the libs" or "expose the deplorables."

By contrast, The Argument podcast is more a debate than a virulent disagreement. It's not "he who screams the loudest" wins the debate. In a blatant rejection of the news network argument model, no one's hand is raised in oratorical victory, because the winner is always the audience who gets to hear facts that chip away their confirmation bias and punch pinholes in their self-contained opinion bubbles.

The podcast's current host is Jane Coaston, who joined the podcast after more than 100 episodes. Coaston came from Vox, where she had been a senior politics reporter focusing on conservatism, the American right, the G.O.P. and white nationalism. Coaston excels in her role as host, referee, rhetorical traffic cop, and synthesizer-in-chief of concepts espoused during each episode. Coaston is not neutral, but she understands the hygienic aspects of a good, clean debate.

Let's look at one specific episode that, I think, exemplifies how The Argument podcast has been successful at managing candid debates around deeply felt topics, all while managing to find a way to hear each other, no matter how disparate their positions seemed to be.

The episode, Is Crime That Bad, or Are the Vibes Just Off?, was released on June 22, 2022. 

Here are the show notes: "From New York to San Francisco, there’s a sense that crime is on the rise in American cities. And in some ways, that’s true: Violent crime has risen. Murders are up nearly 40 percent since 2019. But property crime has fallen for years. And how we define crime, and what’s causing its increase, is a complicated issue — as is what we should do about it."

"So on today’s episode of “The Argument,” Jane Coaston is joined by Rafael Mangual and Alex Kingsbury to debate what’s really going on with crime rates and why people feel so unsafe."

Mangual is a senior fellow and the head of research for the Policing and Public Safety Initiative at the Manhattan Institute. “I do think this is more than just a bad-vibes moment in a lot of places. It really is as bad as it’s ever been or close to it,” Mangual says. Alex, an editor at large at New York Times Opinion, thinks we need to first change the narrative of how we understand crime. “Crime as a general term is just really broad,” Alex says, adding, “Where you sit determines what you see.”

The episode's running time was 37 minutes. During the episode, it was clear that Mangual and Kingsbury disagreed on a number of issues related to the recent increase in crime and potential solutions.

So far, this setup is pretty standard. Bring on two guests with differing opinions and let them "duke it out rhetorically."

That didn't happen here. What happened, which makes The Argument so unique, is this:

First, nobody yelled. Both guests and Coaston, the host, didn't raise their voice, despite the fact the guests diverged on things such as the police's role in reducing crime and the lack of enforcement of white-collar crime.

Second, both guests searched for areas of agreement and then traveled into the areas in which their views diverged. In fact, both guests verbally uttered the words, "I agree," several times during the debate. On Fox News, to agree with a Democrat or RHINO, means rhetorical death. "Never give an inch, even if the facts and the truth are against you."

Third, both guests marshalled facts, statistics and sources to strengthen their respective cases. Neither guest impugned the other's facts, but put a different spin on interpreting those same facts. Therefore, the specter of Trumpian 'alternative facts" never haunted the discussion.

Fourth, both guests seemed content to allow the listener to draw their own conclusions from the discussion. There was never any invective that "if you don't agree with me, you're a socialist, a groomer, a pedophile, unpatriotic or just plain ignorant."

Host Coaston challenged each guest, but did so without repudiating their facts or position, but by questioning the connective tissue between their facts and their conclusions.

Finally, what did I, as a listener, get out of this discussion? A lot, actually. I now understand that truly deciphering the reasons that crime goes up or down is not as simple as a "sound bite" and much more complicated than a few sentences that pander to political ideology or social class or racial identity.

I now understand that the causal relationship between poverty and violent crime rates may be tenuous at best. Furthermore, I now see that investing in greater numbers of police can pay dividends if it's coordinated with better police training, smarter use of community policing and an examination into how the deleterious effects overpolicing and underpolicing can exist simultaneously in the same neighborhood.

Like any chronic societal problem, crime prevention resists simplistic solutions and requires that effective responses emanate from a wide spectrum of political, social, economic, and racial sources. In short, progressives or conservatives do not hold the magic lamp to wish away violent crime. While both groups will deny this reality, the solutions to violent crime reside in ideas from both groups.

Check out The Argument from The New York Times. While you may not change your mind about your most highly cherished beliefs, the podcast may light the candle just bright enough for some listeners to see through the darkness of undeserved self-assurance.

As writer F. Scott Fitzgerald once opined: "The test of first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

 

Photo by Bruno Henrique