Half the Answer – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Trent and Caitlin talk to Liberal Currents author Vikas Valiveti about the current state of scientific consensus on how trans girls and women compete in sports. What are the correct ways to measure athleticism? When does it actually matter? How should we think about fairness and the right to participate? And what’s the incorrect framing that leads people astray when they are thinking about this question?

Resources:

Vikas’ article: https://www.liberalcurrents.com/do-trans-women-belong-in-sports/

IOC policies: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780323916196000075

FINA policies: https://resources.fina.org/fina/document/2022/06/19/525de003-51f4-47d3-8d5a-716dac5f77c7/FINA-INCLUSION-POLICY-AND-APPENDICES-FINAL-.pdf

Lia Thomas rule change: https://www.espn.com/olympics/swimming/story/_/id/40334702/cas-rejects-lia-thomas-challenge-rules-trans-swimmers

Trump comments on sports: https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-womens-sports-will-die-if-trans-athletes-are-allowed-2021-2

Tiny proportion of athletes are trans: https://thehill.com/homenews/lgbtq/5046662-ncaa-president-transgender-athletes-college-sports/

Caitlin and Trent talk to Clay Jackson, a litigator from Dallas, Texas. Clay describes the disconcerting experience of having secret police show up to his door the same day he gave boilerplate know-your-rights information to some neighbors who were concerned about being targeted by ICE. They discuss the rapidly escalating war on immigrants being waged by the Trump administration, the ways ICE and CBP try to cross boundaries of legality and privacy, and what’s next for Clay after his workplace failed to stand behind him and commit to the idea that due process is for everybody.

Resources:

Clay’s story in The Watch: https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-courage-to-be-decent

Clay’s update in Popular Info: https://popular.info/p/fortune-500-company-abruptly-fires

Clay’s Substack: https://clayjak.substack.com

ICE press release: https://ice.gov/100days

Uncles in Crocs: https://newrepublic.com/article/193820/kristi-noem-ice-libs-tik-tok

Rumeysa Ozturk: https://www.npr.org/2025/05/07/g-s1-64726/federal-court-rules-student-rumeysa-ozturk-detention-vermont-challenge

Mohsen Madhawi: https://abcnews.go.com/US/mohsen-mahdawi-columbia-student-freed-ice-feared-citizenship/story?id=121485222

Rebecca Burke: https://theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/05/i-was-a-british-tourist-trying-to-leave-america-then-i-was-detained-shackled-and-sent-to-an-immigration-detention-centre

Ksenia Petrova: https://pbs.org/newshour/show/russian-born-harvard-researcher-describes-detention-at-ice-facility-and-deportation-fears

Definition of ‘criminal’: https://axios.com/2025/01/28/trump-immigrants-criminals-white-house-briefing

Trump’s first-term violations: https://cnn.com/2021/09/23/politics/cbp-targeted-us-citizens-caravan-concerns

Americans disapprove of Trump’s actions: https://washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/04/25/trump-immigration-approval-ratings-drop-poll/

Trump can bring Abrego Garcia back: https://newrepublic.com/article/194815/trump-accidentally-sabotaged-case-abrego-garcia

Trump “doesn’t know” if he has to follow Constitution: https://npr.org/2025/05/05/nx-s1-5386643/when-asked-if-he-needs-to-uphold-constitution-president-trump-says-i-dont-know

March 22 Executive Order: https://nytimes.com/2025/03/22/us/politics/trump-memo-lawyers.html

Rubio calls students “lunatics”: https://reuters.com/world/us/rubio-says-us-may-have-revoked-more-than-300-visas-2025-03-27/

Justice Brandeis quote: https://charterforcompassion.org/arts/arts/online-exhibits/americans-who-tell-the-truth/appointed-and-elected-public-figures/justice-louis-brandeis.html

Thumbnail images:

Border wall by Wonderline https://flickr.com/photos/71401718@N00/3370155351

Scales of Justice by DonkeyHotey https://flickr.com/photos/47422005@N04/7468312536

Centrist pundits, conservative think-tank guys and far-right propagandists say the movement to target libraries with new laws and book challenges is about making sure patrons have access to all viewpoints and kids aren't exposed to obscene materials. But what does the situation really look like on the ground? Caitlin and Trent talk to Katie Talhelm, a Public Library Manager in Texas and intellectual freedom advocate. They discuss book banning, viewpoint diversity, and astroturfed “grassroots” activism.

References

Project 2025: https://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/D8File/2024/03/26/2025_mandateforleadership_full.pdf#page=33

Chris Rufo on Fox: https://www.foxnews.com/video/6340396476112

Far Right Think-Tank Guy in the New York Times: https://archive.is/jVXAF

The Free Press launders “viewpoint diversity” claims: https://www.thefp.com/p/the-truth-about-banned-books

ALA Report on Book Challenges and Bans: https://www.ala.org/bbooks/book-ban-data

The segregationist origins of “Parental Rights”: https://apnews.com/article/religion-education-gender-identity-0e2ca2cf0ef7d7bc6ef5b125f1ee0969

Astroturfing in parental rights movement: https://truthout.org/articles/many-parent-groups-opposing-masks-and-crt-are-actually-driven-by-dark-money/

PNW issues with paramilitary groups: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/drag-queen-story-hours-spark-outpouring-of-support-despite-protests/

Campus Misinformation: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/campus-misinformation-9780197531273?cc=us&lang=en&

Anti-Intellectualism in America:

https://ia802903.us.archive.org/6/items/richard-hofstadter-anti-intellectualism-in-american-life-vintage-1966/Richard%20Hofstadter%20-%20Anti-Intellectualism%20in%20American%20Life-Vintage%20(1966).pdf

Paper on Jenner and Smallpox:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1200696/

Caitlin and Trent speak with Bradford Vivian, a Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Pennsylvania State University, about campus misinformation. How do op-eds and other polemics use hyperbole, metaphor and innuendo to create a false impression that college campuses are overrun with radical left wing revolutionaries, communist professors, mentally weak and coddled students, and zombie hordes chanting mindless slogans, infected by the woke mind virus? And what actually is DEI, anyway?

Dr. Vivian’s book: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/campus-misinformation-9780197531273?cc=us&lang=en&

The Powell memo: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/assets/usa-courts-secrecy-lobbyist/powell-memo.pdf

The Kalven Report: https://provost.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/documents/reports/KalvenRprt_0.pdf

The Academic Freedom Conference that broke Caitlin’s brain: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQy2zhWqTFZ5Thzz1tE8dhWWTRUTQzaIZ&si=GyjjrCwi8maPKp08

Caitlin and Trent, a linguist and an historian, introduce Half the Answer, a new podcast from Liberal Currents. The headlines and pundits ask their questions and present their framing of the topics of the day, but are there better questions we could be asking? Caitlin and Trent will interview experts who have eyes on the situation, searching for anything we’re missing, and hopefully picking up some tips on how to read the news with a healthy skepticism.

Trent and Caitlin speak with cognitive scientist, linguist, and AI researcher Hagen Blix about his book, co-authored with Ingeborg Glimmer, called “Why We Fear AI: On the Interpretation of Nightmares.” What do those selling AI-branded products have to gain from telling everybody that AI could take over the world? What do regular people think about its use in our industries and lives? What does it tell us about the world we live in and our relationship to capital, our governments, and each other?

References:

Hagen’s book https://commonnotions.org/why-we-fear-ai?srsltid=AfmBOopmfLto0hDIbI4L9Cr5XUWkhoNmT3azu6FSgWvJkboHZF08pNCg

Marc Andreessen comments https://pmarca.substack.com/p/why-ai-will-save-the-world

Elon Musk comments https://cnn.com/2024/05/23/tech/elon-musk-ai-your-job/index.html

Stephen Hawking comments https://cam.ac.uk/research/news/the-best-or-worst-thing-to-happen-to-humanity-stephen-hawking-launches-centre-for-the-future-of

Open Letter on AI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_letter_on_artificial_intelligence_(2015)

25% of Facebook posts are AI originality.ai/blog/ai-facebook-posts-study

Instagram algorithms https://benzinga.com/news/24/04/38420928/meta-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-more-than-50-of-the-content-people-see-on-instagram-is-now-ai-recommended

Rat image https://scienceintegritydigest.com/2024/02/15/the-rat-with-the-big-balls-and-enormous-penis-how-frontiers-published-a-paper-with-botched-ai-generated-images/

Papers with LLM phrases https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2024/03/20/the-latest-crisis-is-the-research-literature-overrun-with-chatgpt-and-llm-generated-articles/

Willy Wonka Experience https://themarysue.com/what-happened-at-the-glasgow-willy-wonka-experience-explained/

Cuomo housing plan https://hellgatenyc.com/andrew-cuomo-chatgpt-housing-plan/

Bad tariff math https://theverge.com/news/642620/trump-tariffs-formula-ai-chatgpt-gemini-claude-grok

DOGE dystopia https://cnn.com/2025/03/04/tech/doge-ai-government-cuts-expert-concerns/index.html

DOGE surveillance https://reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/musks-doge-using-ai-snoop-us-federal-workers-sources-say-2025-04-08/

xAI generators https://theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/09/elon-musk-xai-memphis

carcinogenic gas generators https://catf.us/2022/09/new-report-finds-heightened-cancer-risk-14-million-people-toxic-air-pollution-emitted-us-oil-gas-sector/

The Gospel https://theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/01/the-gospel-how-israel-uses-ai-to-select-bombing-targets

Lavender and Where’s Daddy? https://vox.com/future-perfect/24151437/ai-israel-gaza-war-hamas-artificial-intelligence

Andreas Malm: Fossil Capital https://versobooks.com/products/135-fossil-capital

Brian Merchant: Blood in the Machine https://hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brian-merchant/blood-in-the-machine/9780316487740/

Robot image by Radio Saigon https://www.flickr.com/photos/34928082@N05/3396619316

Trent and Caitlin talk with journalist Evan Urquhart about the ways trans rights get discussed in mainstream media, including the notion that supporting trans people’s full participation in society and protecting their right to bodily autonomy represents a viewpoint that is out of touch, too extreme, or endangers the rights of others.

References:

https://www.assignedmedia.org

Did the Harris campaign speak on trans rights? https://glaad.org/harris-accountability-tracker/

Eighth Amendment protections: https://edhub.ama-assn.org/ama-journal-of-ethics/module/2805771

Push to move Dems right: https://thirdway.org/report/renewing-the-democratic-party

https://politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2025/03/02/democrats-in-despair-00206883

https://nytimes.com/2025/03/11/opinion/democrats-center-future.html

Trent and Caitlin talk with Dr. Aris Clemons, an Assistant Professor in Linguistics, about the various slanders and misapprehensions that plague her field of study. We discuss language ideologies, the illusion of objectivity, the futility of being “apolitical” in a political institution, ethnography and lived experience, “other ways of knowing,” and other concepts that get weaponized in attacks on the academy from the right and the center.

References:

Aris’s book chapter: https://academic.oup.com/book/56269/chapter/445192927

Universities as business entities: https://jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1gk07xz?turn_away=true

Science and subjectivity are compatible: https://iaphs.org/sciences-objectivity-conundrum/

A brief history of measurement: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-objectivity/

James Watson was no master of objectivity: https://vox.com/2019/1/15/18182530/james-watson-racist

Research has always been political: https://bioethicstoday.org/blog/the-folly-of-apolitical-science/

“Apolitical” science treated humans like objects https://thoughtco.com/u-s-governments-role-sterilizing-women-of-color-2834600

“Institutional Neutrality” https://chronicle.com/article/institutional-neutrality-is-censorship-by-another-name

Trent and Caitlin talk with Adam Gurri, founder and editor-in-chief of Liberal Currents, about his take that the most accurate way to view the Trump presidency is as an example of “personalism.” What is personalism? What are other examples of personalist systems? What can a nation do once a personalist leader has begun his work? What is the manliest thing you can possibly put in your coffee? All this and more is addressed in this episode of Half the Answer.

Adam's article "America's Paths to Personalism": https://www.liberalcurrents.com/americas-paths-to-personalism/

Caitlin and Trent ask Alan Elrod, President and CEO of the Pulaski Institution, about what nationalism is and what kinds of nationalism are at play today. We discuss how white nationalist and Christian nationalist proponents justify it, and how U.S. progressives can participate in a national identity that celebrates pluralism and multiculturalism. And we let Alan indulge in a little American exceptionalism, as a treat.

References

Alan’s article on nationalism: https://pulaskiinstitution.org/the-pulaski-blog/tragic-nationalism-hungary-trianon-and-the-american-right

“Poisoning the blood” comment: https://nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna130141

“Globalism” comments: https://cnbc.com/amp/2025/03/06/trump-blames-globalists-for-stock-market-sell-off.html

https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/articles/president-trump-we-have-rejected-globalism-and-embraced-patriotism/

Chuck Schumer “Palestinian” comment: https://theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/12/trump-chuck-schumer-palestinian-slur

Executive order on eradicating “Anti-Christian Bias”: https://whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/eradicating-anti-christian-bias/

Executive order on English as Official Language: https://whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/designating-english-as-the-official-language-of-the-united-states/

Linguistic Society of America statement: https://lsadc.org/lsa-statement-against-designating-english-as-the-official-language#:~:text=The%20Linguistic%20Society%20of%20America,are%20not%20valid%E2%80%94and%20in