We get into why the New York Times and Hollywood have a decades-long blind spot for left-wing dictatorships, the actual difference between Norway’s social democracy and Venezuela’s socialism, why “free stuff” isn’t the same thing as the government seizing the means of production, and how Cuba spent 70 years exporting revolution across Latin America. Venezuela went from a top-5 global economy in the 1960s to nearly 9 million refugees and 70%+ of households in poverty in under 30 years. Germania breaks down how that happened, and why the same playbook is showing up in New York City politics right now

People & Organizations to Follow

• RAIR Foundation USA — Amy Mek’s investigative organization tracking radical mosques, imams, and Islamist funding in the US

• White Rose Magazine — cited for essays on Islam as a political ideology

• ISGAP: The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) is committed to fighting antisemitism on the battlefield of ideas.

More Podcasts on Socialism and Culture

• This conversation reveals the Frankenstein government that has taken over Spain

• A Century of NYT Changing History by Spinning the News

• Liza Libes Shares How Academia Turned Jane Austen Into a Colonizer (and Buried Tolstoy’s Best Lessons)

• Oikophobia: Why Successful Societies Turn Against Themselves

• From Foster Care to Yale with Rob Henderson

• From America is Evil to American Exceptionalism with Lucy Biggers

• Alll the News that’s Fit to Spin with Ashley Rindsberg

Reading and listening Suggestions:

• Follow the Qatar Money from ISGAP: Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood Funding of Higher Education in the United States

• Everything from White Rose Magazine

• The DSA Platform ( make sure you are sitting down)

• A fascinating overview of Who Really Runs the DSA?

• The Shared Struggles and Alliances of the San Francisco Chinese and Jewish Communiities
  

Truth over tribe, one mug at a time. ☕

When your coffee mug says “Truth Over Tribe”, the conversation changes.

We read, argue, and ask the uncomfortable questions. Join us. Add The Curious Middle to your podcast playlist. And if you have ideas for a future episode, email us at thecuriousmiddlepod@gmail.com

Follow us on Instagram at @thecuriousmiddlepod,

Love,

Polina and Yelena,

Listening to both of our conversations with James will reveal what has been happening across America in the last ten years. Once you understand it, you can explain it and find ways to change it.

Part 1 with James Lindsay

Part 2 with James Lindsay

“It’s one of the most wide-ranging psychological operations that’s ever been executed on the American public — honestly, the global public.” — James Lindsay, on Trump Derangement Syndrome

“The second she said ‘I’m voting for Trump,’ it clicked in my head. I have permission from my broader social universe to do this.” — James Lindsay

“You must never, ever give one drop more information than was asked for.” — James Lindsay, on talking to people who disagree with you

“People overestimate how well they know things. The only way to open their mind is to have them explain what they think they know but don’t actually know for themselves, at length.” — James Lindsay, on the illusion of explanatory depth

“The idea is: we’re going to do a bunch of stuff, so let’s blame the Jews for doing that stuff, so that when we do it, people get mad at Jews and not at us.” — James Lindsay, on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion

“Anti-Zionism is a reformulation of the classic Soviet anti-imperialist narrative against Britain and against the United States.” — James Lindsay

“Don’t let anybody ever call you a racist for objecting to Islam. It is certainly not racial in any way whatsoever to reject Islam.” — James Lindsay

“Have you tried voting? If Republicans who care about this country showed up in double their present numbers, almost every one of these problems we’re freaking out about could be stopped.” — James Lindsay

“We are bigotryophobic to the point where we’re so afraid that people will identify us as some social evil — specifically, some form of bigotry — that we will do anything to make sure that perception doesn’t leak out.” — James Lindsay

“Better, in fact, is worse — because it hides the possibility of a fundamentally different world.” — James Lindsay, on critical theory

“This is psychological, emotional abuse on children, done intentionally, as an educational program backed by the state.” — James Lindsay, on ethnic studies curricula

People & Organizations to Follow

• RAIR Foundation USA — Amy Mek’s investigative organization tracking radical mosques, imams, and Islamist funding in the US

• Benedict Beckeld — writer/researcher who argues “oikophobia” (hatred of one’s own society), not suicidal empathy, is the real driver

• Gad Saad — evolutionary psychologist and author, coined/popularized “suicidal empathy”

• White Rose Magazine — cited for essays on Islam as a political ideology

More Curious Middle Podcasts on Culture:

• Alll the News that’s Fit to Spin with Ashley Rindsberg

• Liza Libes Shares How Academia Turned Jane Austen Into a Colonizer (and Buried Tolstoy’s Best Lessons)

• Oikophobia: Why Successful Societies Turn Against Themselves

• From Foster Care to Yale with Rob Henderson

• From America is Evil to American Exceptionalism with Lucy Biggers

Reading and listening Suggestions:

• Everything from White Rose Magazine

• The DSA Platform ( make sure you are sitting down)

• A fascinating overview of Who Really Runs the DSA?

• The Shared Struggles and Alliances of the San Francisco Chinese and Jewish Communiities
  

Truth over tribe, one mug at a time. ☕

When your coffee mug says “Truth Over Tribe” Bring us with you to the office and watch the conversations change.

We read, argue, and ask the uncomfortable questions. Join us. Add The Curious Middle to your podcast playlist. And if you have ideas for a future episode, email us at thecuriousmiddlepod@gmail.com

Follow us on Instagram at @thecuriousmiddlepod,

Love,

Polina and Yelena,

We get into why the boomer playbook of saving 10% for 40 years would have failed almost half the time since the American Revolution, why health insurance companies run under 3% margins while funeral homes and self-storage run 10-15%, and the five things that actually predict getting ahead. Joseph also tells the real story of how he got rich, including the tenant who turned out to be running a human trafficking operation out of his first rental property, and the two-block real estate bet that nearly bankrupted him before it made him a multimillionaire.

The opportunity was never gone, it just takes longer to find than the get-rich-quick books tell you, and it won’t be easy or passive. This is an optimistic view of America from a historian who did the research in books and in his own life.

“You can make five to seven times as much money holding people’s junk, throwing it away, or putting them in the ground than you can keeping them healthy.” — Joseph Moore

“Nothing will change your political opinion so much as having to make payroll.” — Joseph Moore

“The rungs on the ladder to success were sawed off by the people who went ahead of you.” — Joseph Moore, on 19th-century complaints about opportunity in America

“It’s a despair industrial complex — there’s no clicks for a journalist, no votes for a politician, and no tenure for academics like me if we tell you the world is getting better.” — Joseph Moore

We are on YouTube!

We resisted as long as we could, but apparently people love YouTube. If you get your podcasts on YouTube, please subscribe here:

More Curious Middle Podcasts on Culture:

• Alll the News that’s Fit to Spin with Ashley Rindsberg

• Liza Libes Shares How Academia Turned Jane Austen Into a Colonizer (and Buried Tolstoy’s Best Lessons)

• Oikophobia: Why Successful Societies Turn Against Themselves

• From Foster Care to Yale with Rob Henderson

• From America is Evil to American Exceptionalism with Lucy Biggers

Reading and listening Suggestions:

• The DSA Platform ( make sure you are sitting down)

• A fascinating overview of Who Really Runs the DSA?

• The Shared Struggles and Alliances of the San Francisco Chinese and Jewish Communiities
  

Curious Middle Merch

Truth over tribe, one mug at a time. ☕

When your coffee mug says “Truth Over Tribe” Bring us with you to the office and watch the conversations change.

We read, argue, and ask the uncomfortable questions. Join us. Add The Curious Middle to your podcast playlist. And if you have ideas for a future episode, email us at thecuriousmiddlepod@gmail.com

Follow us on Instagram at @thecuriousmiddlepod,

Love,

Polina and Yelena,

Liza went to Columbia wanting to study Tolstoy and came out having read more Edward Said and Sartre she signed up for. We got into how her English degree turned into a theory degree overnight, why Anna Karenina isn’t the feminist manifesto her professors taught it as, and why so much of what gets published now has had the backstory and the beauty edited right out of it by agents chasing a formula.

Liza’s family fled the Soviet Union, and her grandfather was imprisoned for being Jewish. Watching that same ideology resurface in new packaging on American campuses is terrifying.

Find Liza at PensandPoison.org She also runs Advictus Prep and is shopping her first novel, which is basically a love letter to beauty written in spite of a literary world that’s decided beauty is suspect. If you’ve been meaning to finally pick up that classic on your shelf, this is your sign!

“I don’t think I met anyone in the English department who had the same reaction... A lot of people I think were actively trying to push this agenda because it had been sold to them.” — Liza

“Good fiction is inherently moral. That’s not to say moral in one specific restricted sense, but good fiction should teach us something about the way to live our lives.” — Liza

“A lot of our art today is ironic, nihilistic, cynical, and just downright amoral.” — Liza

“If your response to [boredom in a marriage] is I’m just going to abandon this whole thing that gives everyone meaning, then that is going to lead you to a dark place.” — Liza, on Anna Karenina

“People will hold onto their identity more than the truth.” — Polina, paraphrasing Chase Hughes

“My family kind of went through horrific examples of antisemitism twice, just in our personal lives... and it’s horrific that it’s happening again.” — Liza

“If you’re going to make one change in your life to lead a more full and fulfilling life, read classic literature.” — Liza

More Podcasts on Culture:

• Alll the News that’s Fit to Spin with Ashley Rindsberg

• From Foster Care to Yale with Rob Henderson

• From America is Evil to American Exceptionalism with Lucy Biggers

• Why so Many Gen Z’s Cant Take a Joke or a Different Opinion

Reading and listening Suggestions:

A fascinating overview of Who Really Runs the DSA?
Notes from Jillian Michaels’ episode

The DSA operates less like a grassroots movement and more like a “party within a party,” using internal mechanisms to bind elected officials to its platform.

Internal Control

• Candidates complete an 87-question survey and pass multiple internal votes before getting endorsed.

• Once elected, officials join the Socialists in Office Committee (SIO), a weekly body of elected officials, branch leaders, and activists that sets unified positions.

• Officials are expected to vote as a bloc with SIO decisions, regardless of personal views. DSA calls this “co-governance.”

The “Dirty Break” Strategy
DSA treats the Democratic Party as a “host body,” running candidates on the Democratic line to access its infrastructure and voters while building a separate socialist apparatus from within.

Pipeline
Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) recruits on college campuses, feeding a pipeline into campaign staff roles, policy jobs at allied foundations, and NGO work.

Funding and Alliances

• Red: Global Marxist funding, including tech figure Neville Roy Singham, alleged to have ties to Chinese state media.

• Green: Islamist organizations, notably CAIR, a major donor and mobilizer for DSA candidates.

• Blue: Globalist foundations and dark-money networks, including Open Society Foundations.

• Foreign government ties: The Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, a German state-funded foundation with a New York office that trains the American far left.

Policy Positions

• Social ownership of energy, housing, finance, and tech

• 32-hour work week at full pay, universal Medicare, student debt cancellation

• Long-term: abolish policing and prisons; short-term: defund, decriminalize, end cash bail

• Withdraw from NATO, end sanctions on Cuba and Iran, open-border immigration policy, stop deportations

• Views Israel as a “colonial apartheid state”; requires BDS support

• Green New Deal with government seizure of fossil fuel companies and “degrowth”

Curious Middle Merch

Truth over tribe, one mug at a time. ☕

When your coffee mug says “actually, let’s think about this.”

No tribes. No talking points. Just good conversation and better caffeine.

Bring us with you to the office and watch the conversations change.

We read, argue, and ask the uncomfortable questions. Join us. Add The Curious Middle to your podcast playlist. And if you have ideas for a future episode, email us at thecuriousmiddlepod@gmail.com

Follow us on Instagram at @thecuriousmiddlepod,

Love,

Polina and Yelena,

What if you could name the thing tearing America apart? Benedict Beckeld joined us to trace a pattern that has played out in every great civilization in history: ancient Greece, Rome, Enlightenment France, Britain, and now America. The more successful a society becomes, the more its own people turn against it. Wealth, safety, and open intellectual space create the exact conditions for a culture to start eating itself alive.

Benedict is a writer and philosopher whose work spans contemporary culture, political philosophy, and the philosophy of history. He holds a master’s in ancient Greek, Latin, and German, and a PhD in philosophy. His book Western Self-Contempt: Oikophobia and the Decline of Civilizations is the only full-length study of the subject, and the work that brought the term into mainstream conversation.

We get into all of it: why universities are ground zero, why intellectuals are the most susceptible, what October 7th has to do with it, whether religion is the antidote, and the uncomfortable historical truth about whether oikophobia has ever actually been reversed.

The good news, America is different. The bad news, the odds are not good. Understanding what we’re up against is the first step to fighting back.

• “The fact that we until recently only had a word for hating foreigners is itself a sign of oikophobia — it means it’s only the hatred of the foreign that we consider worthy of condemning.”
  — Benedict Beckeld

• “There is nothing so human as taking a good idea too far. We take the potential positive of self-criticism and it becomes a competition about who can be the most self-hating.”
  — Benedict Beckeld

• “Historically, it has never been reversed. Which is not to say we shouldn’t try — and I mean this, because America is unique.”
  — Benedict Beckeld

• “Imagine if you were sick and didn’t know what was going on — you’d be panicked. But if a doctor gave you a diagnosis, you’d say: okay, I know what this is, this is how I treat it. Before this, we were very sick and had no word for it. Now we do.”
  — Polina Rubin

• “There is a spirit of freedom in America that is unmatched in the world. You say an idea in Europe and people say, are you sure that’s wise? You say the same thing here and people say, that’s amazing, what can I do to help?”
  — Benedict Beckeld

More Podcasts on Culture:

• Alll the News that’s Fit to Spin with Ashley Rindsberg

• From Foster Care to Yale with Rob Henderson

• From America is Evil to American Exceptionalism with Lucy Biggers

• Why so Many Gen Z’s Cant Take a Joke or a Different Opinion

Reading and listening Suggestions:

AI

• Are you following Leopold?

• Sam Harris and Vinod Khosla on our AI future

  ---

What Your History Teacher Skipped: The Bible and American Democracy

When the Israelites demanded a king, the prophet Samuel warned them exactly what they’d get: their sons taken for war, their daughters for labor, their land seized for his own. God said let them have it — but make sure they know it’s a mistake. An anti-monarchical argument baked into scripture before democracy had a name.

The Calvinist reformers read that text closely. John Calvin (1509–1564) built a theology around one uncomfortable idea: all humans are fallen, kings included. No one deserves automatic deference. Authority flows upward from the people, bound together by a covenant before God.

The Scottish Presbyterians ran with it. So did the Dutch Reformed and the English Puritans. When the Puritans came to New England, they brought both the Hebrew Bible as a governance model and Calvinist covenant theology in their luggage. The Mayflower Compact is essentially that same ancient covenant — a voluntary agreement before God, signed before anyone set foot on land.

Princeton, originally a Presbyterian college, produced more Founding Fathers than any other institution. The idea that no man is above the law, that authority requires consent, that a community is a covenant — none of it was invented in 1776.

John Adams studied Hebrew at Harvard, which required it as part of the curriculum. He wrote about the Hebrew commonwealth as a model of self-governance and called the Hebrew language one of the most ancient and consequential in human history.

Thomas Jefferson taught himself Hebrew well enough to read the Old Testament in the original. He considered it essential to understanding law and governance.

Benjamin Franklin proposed that the official seal of the United States feature Moses parting the Red Sea. Jefferson’s counter-proposal was the Israelites being led through the wilderness. Neither made it, but the fact that both men went there first says everything.

Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Dartmouth all required Hebrew for admission or graduation in the colonial era. Yale’s original seal was in Hebrew. Dartmouth’s still is — Vox Clamantis in Deserto, “a voice crying in the wilderness,” is Latin, but the imagery is straight from Isaiah.

The Founders weren’t just casually aware of the Hebrew Bible. Many read it in the original, quoted it as a legal and political authority, and saw ancient Israel as the closest historical model for what they were trying to build.

It’s one of the most important things about American history that almost nobody learns in school

If you love history like we do, check out any podcast where Bill Federer has been a guest, like this one: why be Thankful for America with Bill Federer

We read, argue, and ask the uncomfortable questions. Join us. Add The Curious Middle to your podcast playlist. And if you have ideas for a future episode, email us at thecuriousmiddlepod@gmail.com

Follow us on Instagram at @thecuriousmiddlepod, Email us thecuriousmiddlepod@gmail.com.

Wishing you sunshine and happy moments as summer rolls in.

Love,

Polina and Yelena,

P.S. — We interrupt our serious content to remind ourselves and you to celebrate more, with people you love.

In this episode, Adam explains why antizionism is its own category of hate that must be named. It is distinct from antisemitism but equally harmful, and naming it matters more than debunking individual claims. Adam lays out a practical framework for how to respond when you’re hit with terms like “colonial,” “apartheid,” or “genocide,” and why the key is boundary-setting rather than fact-checking.

• In our podcast we cover:

  • Why antizionism is a war on Jewish existence.

  • How antizionism hurts Palestinians

  • How to combat antizionist libel

  • Adam lays out an effective way to respond when you’re hit with libelous words like “colonial,” “apartheid,” or “genocide” — and it has little to do with arguing facts that fall on deaf ears. If you’re worn out from going in circles with anti-Israel extremists, this episode is for you.

• Adam’s movement, MAAZ Action (mazaction.org), offers free trainings — 1 to 2 hours — that communities, synagogues, and corporations can access right now.

  https://www.movementagainstantizionism.org

LISTEN here to the full episode with Adam

• About Adam Louis Klein

• Follow Adam on IG

Reading and listening Suggestions:

• Listen to our podcast with Ashley Rindsberg, author of The Gray Lady Winked, about the New York Times's decades-long practice of misinformation, fabrication, and infatuation with leftist movements.

• Melissa Brodsky’s Substack breaks down the NY Times’s bias toward leftist ideology and its pattern of working against Jewish causes.

• Coleman Hughes interviews historian Walter Russell Mead — worth every minute.

• A reminder to buy and support the art your friends make.

Know someone who needs to hear this? Send it. Share it in your community. Especially with people who think you can be antizionist and still be a friend to the Jewish people.

• Follow us on Instagram at @thecuriousmiddlepod

• Email us thecuriousmiddlepod@gmail.com

We read, argue, and ask the uncomfortable questions. Join us. Add The Curious Middle to your podcast playlist. And if you have ideas for a future episode, email us at thecuriousmiddlepod@gmail.com

Love,

Polina and Yelena

Our guest Rabbi Daniel Lapin has spent decades making that case, and in this conversation he makes it clearly. He’s the bestselling author of Thou Shall Prosper, founder of the American Alliance of Jews and Christians, and one of the most practical thinkers on money, character, and how to live well.

We get into his Five F’s framework: Family, Finance, Friendship, Fitness, and Faith, and why these five areas, arranged in a circle, are the clearest measure of whether someone has their life together. Rabbi Lapin breaks down which F matters most at different life stages, why your relationship with money says more about your character than almost anything else, and how ancient biblical wisdom maps directly onto the way the world actually works.

We also talk about why socialism keeps spreading, what the fall of empires has to do with America right now, and why AI is being overhyped in exactly the same way the internet and the automobile were.

90% of Rabbi Lapin’s listeners are not Jewish. These are universal principles — and this is one of those conversations you’ll want to share.

A few of our favorite lines from this episode. It’s full of transformative life advice, but you’ll have to listen for the rest!

Rabbi Lapin's books

• Thou Shall Prosper

• Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance

If this episode made you think of someone , that’s your sign. Stop and share it with them!

• Follow us on Instagram at @thecuriousmiddlepod

• Email us thecuriousmiddlepod@gmail.com

In case you missed our update we had a name change that better aligns with where we are in life, and our goal of rejecting the extremes. We believe in curiosity over certainty and conversation over labels.

No matter where your day takes you, we hope you take us along 😎
Add The Curious Middle to your podcast playlist—and if you have ideas for a future episode, email us at: thecuriousmiddlepod@gmail.com

Love,

Polina and Yelena

Have you ever thought about how much power The New York Times has, and what happens when that power is used to shape narrative instead of pursue truth?

In this episode of The Curious Middle, we speak with Ashley Rindsberg, author of The Gray Lady Winked, about the Times’ reporting on some of the most important stories of the last century: the Nazi invasion of Poland, the times downplaying the famine in Ukraine, the times burying the Holocaust, the times misreporting in Israel during the intifada, the 1619 Project and more.

Ashley Rindsberg is an investigative journalist and author focused on media malfeasance, information warfare, and the hidden systems influencing public discourse.

Ashley joins us to explain why he believes the paper has repeatedly protected power, buried inconvenient truths, and helped shape public opinion in ways that changed history. We also talk about the Sulzberger family, the culture inside elite newsrooms, the collapse of trust in journalism, and how listeners can build a healthier media diet today.

Follow Ashley’s Substack

In this episode:

• What first inspired Ashley to write The Gray Lady Winked

• Why the New York Times is unlike any other media institution

• The Times’ Holocaust coverage and what was buried

• Soviet propaganda, Stalin, Hitler, Cuba, Iraq, Israel and the Intifada,

• The 1619 Project and narrative-driven reporting

• The Tom Cotton op-ed controversy, safe spaces, silencing dissent and newsroom ideology

Listen here:

More reading:

Books:

• Buried by the Times by Laurel Leff

• Stalin’s Apologist: Walter Duranty: The New York Times’s Man in Moscow by S.J. Taylor

Articles

• About the NYT Nazi Correspondent from Tablet Magazine

• NYT journalist Walter Duranty, who downplayed the Ukraine famine.

“Committed to protecting his own influence and to a future “greater good” promised by the Soviet regime, Duranty at first dismissed rumors of the Ukrainian Famine. Then he downplayed them. Then he claimed that Ukraine’s “food shortages” were the result of local mismanagement and the work of “wreckers” and “spoilers” intent on undermining Soviet progress.”

More podcasts with Ashley:

• Ashley on the Coleman Hughes podcast

• Ashley on the Winston Marshall podcast

Key Quotes

• “They set cultural agendas, they set the news agenda, they influence politics, they influence culture.”

• “They didn’t want to appear to be the Jewish newspaper that was advocating for Jewish lives or Jewish people. So they did the exact opposite.”

• “You don’t bury a story about tens of thousands of people being murdered in Europe by accident.”

• “The narrative was so overpowering for them that it obliterated what was in front of their faces.”

• “It became a culture of silence.”

In case you missed our update we had a name change that better aligns with where we are in life, and our goal of rejecting the extremes. We believe in curiosity over certainty, conversation over labels.

No matter where your day takes you, we hope you take us along 😎
Add The Curious Middle to your podcast playlist—and if you have ideas for a future episode, email us at

thecuriousmiddlepodcast@gmail.com

Love,

Polina and Yelena

Hello Friends,

In our latest episode, we speak with Marissa Streit, CEO of PragerU, to talk education, civics, and parenting in the middle of what can only be described as… cultural chaos.

Marissa shares the moment that inspired her to “enlist” through education, unpacks how ideology can sneak into places you’d never expect (yes—even math and literacy), and challenges parents to stop outsourcing their values to institutions that don’t share them.

She also gives super practical, real-life ways to use PragerU at home in just 5–20 minutes a day—because no one needs another overwhelming parenting to-do list.

It’s an honest, eye-opening, and surprisingly empowering conversation for parents who want to raise grounded, confident kids in a very confusing world.

Most Americans don’t know that U.S. high school students generally do receive civics education, but there’s no single federal requirement that applies to all students nationwide: some states require a year long class others require half a year and civics testing requirements differ by state.

Estimates indicate the federal government invests about $0.50 per K–12 student per year specifically toward civic education programs. By contrast, STEM fields receive about $50 per student from federal sources — 100× more at the federal level per pupil!

Listen here:

Key Quotes

“Education got us into this mess. Education is going to get us out of this mess.”

“Most people rely on others to do the fighting for them… and they don’t begin to fight until it’s absolutely too late.”

“America… is being taken down through ideas, through the erosion of what it is to be an American.”

“Civics education is reduced to just activism… How do you defend a country that you don’t understand and don’t love?”

No matter where your day takes you, take us along 😎
Add Meant For You to your podcast playlist—and if you have ideas for a future episode, email us at meantforyoupod@gmail.com.

Love,

Polina and Yelena

Sarah Hurwitz: Chosen for Responsibility, Judaism, Israel, and the Battle Over the Jewish Story

Ada Palmer on Suriving the End of the World, Again and Again.

Brandy Shufutinsky on the Marxist Roots of Ethnic Studies in K-12 Schools and College Campuses

One Semester of Civics: Sharon McMahon on the Threat You Didn’t See Coming

How to Live a Psychologically Rich Life with Shigehiro Oishi

PS This podcast is better with YOU If you have topic ideas for 2026, email us at meantforyoupod@gmail.com

Love,

Polina and Yelena

Our latest pod will enlighten you about dysfunctional luxury beliefs. Rob Henderson, known for coining the term “luxury beliefs,” joins us to discuss his memoir Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class. Rob shares his extraordinary path—from homelessness and the LA foster care system, to adoption in rural Northern California, to enlisting in the Air Force at 17, and eventually studying at Yale and Cambridge.

Rob shares research that shows how childhood instability (more than poverty alone) shapes life outcomes; why the foster system is so under-resourced; how elite cultural narratives can unintentionally harm the very communities they claim to help; and how certain “status beliefs” spread through universities and media. We discuss the hypocrisy and social dynamics of campus ideology, the “Halloween costume controversy” at Yale, and why honest conversations about family structure, class, and social policy are so hard to have yet so critical for making real progress.

Click here to listen:

Themes we dig into in our conversation:

• How luxury beliefs give status to the elite—and the costs are paid by people with the least power.

• Poverty alone doesn’t predict failure. Instability does.

• The people most skeptical of family are usually the ones who grew up in intact families: “They live like it’s the 1950s—and talk like it’s the 1960s.”

• “Elite students condemn capitalism on Monday and interview at Goldman Sachs on Wednesday.”

• “You don’t need the worst childhood to feel the damage of instability.”

• “Telling struggling kids they’re privileged doesn’t create compassion—it creates resentment.”

If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like these conversations:

• Brandy Shufutinsky on the Marxist Roots of Ethic Studies

• Your School’s Ethic Studies Curriculum with Monica Harris from FAIR For ALL

Love,

Polina and Yelena

PS: Topic ideas? Email us at meantforyoupod@gmail.com and please do a good deed, share this newsletter with a friend.

Happy Holidays to you and your loved ones!

Former Michelle Obama speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz joins us to explore the world of Jewish wisdom she discovered beyond ethnic jokes, bagels, and a vague sense of guilt. She shares how her culturally Jewish upbringing transformed into a deeply learned, joyful identity—and why real Jewish study is essential if we want to withstand modern antisemitism.

We trace how 2,000 years of Christian anti-Judaism, Nazi antisemitism, and Soviet anti-Zionism have been intentionally funneled into today’s leftist campus ideologies—shaping the anti-Israel narratives dominating universities, media, and movements on both the far left and far right. Most people don’t know they’re repeating propaganda from the soviets and nazis.

We also cover the idea that every human being is created in the image of God shaped democracy and human rights, and why “the chosen people” is wildly misunderstood, it’s a burden of responsibility, not a claim of superiority. Sarah also explains Judaism as a living, evolving interpretive tradition (hello, 2,500 years of commentary and argument), why dissent and chavruta-style debate are sacred, illustrated live in our back and forth!

And yes, Sarah ends on a surprisingly hopeful note…

but you’ll have to listen to hear it.

Listen here:

We dig into the following:

• Why Sarah loves the title “As a Jew”—and how she went from saying “I’m just a cultural Jew” to proudly saying “I am a Jew”.

• The history of Israel’s founding: land purchased at inflated prices, UN partition, war, refugees on all sides and why Israel is not founded on some unique “original sin”

• Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, and why Palestinians are treated as a unique, multi-generational refugee category in a way that has harmed both Palestinians and Israelis.

• Why Sarah, as a proud Zionist and proud American, rejects the idea that Jews can’t be loyal Americans.

• What “chosenness” really means in Jewish tradition (spoiler: not racial superiority)

• The Jewish idea that every person is created b’tzelem Elohim (in the image of God) and how that idea helped shape the moral core of American democracy.

• How chavruta (study partnership) and argument “for the sake of heaven” sharpens thinking and deepens truth—illustrated live in Polina, Yelena, and Sarah’s back-and-forth

Resources & Links

If you enjoyed this episode, you may also appreciate these conversations:

• Our previous podcast with Sarah discussing her first book, Here All Along

• Brandy Shufutinsky on the Marxist Roots of Ethic Studies

• Rabbi Steve Leder, History, Faith , DEI, Ethics, Anxiety and Awe

• Sophia Khalifa, Bedouin Muslim Israeli Engineer Shares Why She Became an Acivitist for Israel

• Dumisani Washinton, Pastor, CEO and Author of Zionism and the Black Church

• Soviet Anti-Semitism with Izabala Tabarosky,

• Erin Molan Fearless Reporter and Advocate for Humanity

Love,

Polina and Yelena

PS: Topic ideas? Email us at meantforyoupod@gmail.com

Politics has been our main dish lately, but we’re hungry for music, science, philosophy, health, beauty, fitness, and travel too!

Monica explains how her experience as a Black woman in Hollywood and then in “flyover country”shattered many elite narratives about America. She describes why she believes much of our current polarization is manufactured by media and political interests, and how identity-based frameworks like liberated ethnic studies and DEI are deepening division rather than healing it.

Listen here:

We dig into the following:

• Why “Liberated Ethnic Studies” is dividing students, not uniting them

• How modern DEI programs drifted far from genuine civil rights principles

• Why identity-based teaching harms kids socially and emotionally

• The catastrophic decline in civic education—and why it matters now more than ever

• How the American Experience curriculum offers a unifying alternative

• What parents MUST know about what’s being taught in classrooms today

• This conversation is a must-listen for parents, educators, and anyone concerned about polarization, education, and the future of democracy.

Resources & Links

• FAIR For All: https://fairforall.org

• Monica’s Substack: The Illusion of Division

• Monica’s book, “The Ilusion of Division”

• If you want to know more about this topic, listen to our podcast with Brandy Shufutinsky: The Marxist Roots of Coursework in K-12 and our College Campuses.

Love,

Polina and Yelena

PS: Topic ideas? Email us at meantyoupod@gmail.com

Politics has been our main dish lately, but we’re hungry for music, beauty, fitness, and travel too.

Hi Friends,

Before you head off to your family festivities, we have one conversation you need to hear. This episode will help you understand, and maybe even feel a little empathy for the bleeding-heart liberals who sometimes make you feel like you’re losing your mind at the dinner table.

Lucy Biggers, head of social at The Free Press, is a former climate activist who once saw the world through a doomsday, oppressor-vs-oppressed lens. Lucy admits she was swept into an ideology that shaped everything she believed about America, identity, and morality. She understands the progressive mindset because she lived it. And now Lucy is sharing what the F%#& is happening with so many millennials today, while reminding us that many of us once walked the same path.

In this conversation, Lucy reveals how she went from working inside a left-wing digital newsroom, where groupthink ruled and nuance disappeared, to slowly “re-educating” herself with the help of The Free Press.

We talk about:

• How smart, idealistic young people get swept into movements, from climate activism to “Free Palestine” marches to democratic socialists like AOC and Zohran Mamdani, often searching for purpose, belonging, and someone to blame

• Why it’s so hard to change your mind publicly, and the emotional cost of losing old followers, gaining new ones, and choosing principle over group approval

• Why Lucy still believes in American exceptionalism, free thinking, open debate, and the courage to say, “I was wrong” , not as shame, but as wisdom

Now, go and have a great Thanksgiving and remember the this advice we recently heard from Dennis Prager. Shalom Bayit (שלום בית) with family members is more important than politics.

Shalom Bayit = Meaning: peace in the home, domestic harmony.

Love,

Polina and Yelena

Hello Friends,

Wishing you a happy Thanksgiving break! In the theme of families, we hope you will listen to this love story between a father and a son, and a family that refused to settle.

Leland Vittert, NewsNation’s chief Washington anchor and author of the memoir Born Lucky, joined us to talk about his childhood, his career, and all the unexpected ways he truly was born lucky.

Despite years of bullying and difficulty navigating school as an autistic kid, Leland had one enormous blessing: parents who never gave up on him, never lowered the bar, and never stopped believing he was capable of a beautiful life. The devotion of Leland’s father will melt your heart, and make you think about the millions of ways a child’s life can be transformed through love, discipline, and grit.

Leland shares moving stories about how his dad refused to quit on him and modeled what character really looks like. We also dig into journalism—his time reporting from Jerusalem, the state of today’s media, who to trust, what’s broken, and what still gives him hope.

If you’ve ever felt different, misunderstood, or simply love a powerful father–son story, listen in. This episode will make you rethink what’s possible!

Our Picks for the Week:

Feeling the family-dinner tension already? Dennis Prager offers one of the clearest explanations we have heard about the cultural divide between left and right.

Excellent clip about the indisputable legitimacy of Israel:

We have been devastated by the murder of Charlie Kirk. Since that tragic day, it has been all we can talk about. More than anything, we are horrified that in America, someone could be silenced with violence simply for holding and voicing a different opinion. Charlie’s death forces us to ask a frightening question: if speaking our minds can bring such consequences, is there any point in expressing views that don’t align with what the fringe groups deem acceptable? As podcasters, should we be worried for ourselves or our children if we say words that someone finds “dangerous”?

Charlie Kirk was not only a national figure, he was also a beacon of light, logic, and courage for many of us. He stood boldly for Judeo-Christian values, for America’s founding principles, and for the right of Israel to exist in the face of rampant lies and misinformation. Even when we did not agree with every one of Charlie’s positions, we respected that he fearlessly took the frontlines of debate to defend freedom, faith, and his pursuit of truth.

As mothers and citizens—not politicians—we feel deeply the weight of this loss. We are left to wonder how to protect our ourselves, our families and our communities when discourse itself has become dangerous. We mourn Charlie’s voice, but we also mourn what his silencing means for all voices that dare to dissent.

May Charlie’s memory be a blessing, and may it stir us to courage. Let us honor him by striving to be better: by choosing dialogue over destruction, empathy over indifference, and courage to be ourselves in the face of fear.

The Marxist Roots of Ethnic Studies in Our Schools and College Campuses with Brandy Shufutinsky

Since we have been in full back-to-school mode, we have been delayed in our newsletter, but we didn’t want you to miss our episode with Brandy Shufutinsky. Honestly, it’s one of the most important conversations we’ve had so far, and a topic that was central to Charlie’s work on collage campuses.

Brandy Shufutinsky is the newly appointed Director of the Education and National Security Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. In our conversation, we discuss how today’s ethnic studies curriculum, originally intended to promote understanding among diverse communities, is instead fueling division, promoting an oppressor-vs-oppressed worldview, and teaching students that capitalism is synonymous with white supremacy and exploitation.

Brandy brings deep expertise to this topic, holding a doctorate in International and Multicultural Education from the University of San Francisco, an MSW from USC, and an M.A. in International Relations from the University of San Diego.

Today, at least 22 states mandate ethnic studies in K–12 education, 24 more have incorporated elements of it, and California has made it a graduation requirement. Yet there are no national standards for what’s being taught, and no real education on the dangers of communism, the importance of civics, or an emphasis on nurturing diverse opinions and critical thinking.

Brandy also shares how you can get involved locally to push for rigorous standards, honest history, and an end to the ideological indoctrination in our classrooms. If we want to preserve a strong and free Republic, the way we educate the next generation must change.

Quotable Moments:

• "If you are, or simply appear to be white, you're automatically put in the oppressor category."

• "We cannot have the Republic we have today with an ill-informed, miseducated next generation."

• "It's easy to be a communist when you're living in a capitalist society."

Our listening Recommendations:

What was Charlie all about? Megyn Kelly summarized his opinions and beliefs from 15 appearance on the Megyn Kelly show:

This conversation with Rob Henderson and Winston Marshall is fascinating. A must listen to understand the cultural shifts, psychology and personality types of liberals and republicans, men and women.

“Drawing on his work in psychology, Henderson explains the “dark triad” — narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy — and how social media rewards these traits, amplifying extremism online. He considers how the lack of a common enemy after the Cold War and 9/11 has turned Americans inward, seeing each other as the threat.
From immigration battles and “luxury beliefs” among elites, to the gender divide in politics, marriage, and the rise of anti-natalist ideology — Henderson maps out how cultural and psychological fault lines are remaking American life.
Can the US pull back from the brink of hatred-fueled politics?”

The Charlie Kirk podcast honors Charlie’s life and legacy.

Bari sits down with Ben Shapiro, Senator Mark Kelly, Matt Continetti, Katherine Boyle, Konstantin Kisin, and The Free Press’s own Eli Lake and Maya Sulkin to reflect on Kirk’s life and this awful moment in American history—and to consider how we can begin to look forward.

Lastly, lets remember that life is all about balance. In this dark week, please don’t forget to make time to step outside to observe and find peace in nature.

L’Shana Tova,

Love, Polina and Yelena

Our latest episode is with David Banhsen, Chief Investment Office of The Bahnsen Group, a wealth management firm based in Newport Beach, California overseeing $4 billion in client's assets. David is also a thought leader, and author of Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life.

Topics Discussed:

• America’s growing tribal divide and how it is similar to modern idolatry

• Why our view of retirement is broken

• The impact of AI on the Workforce and why AI cannot replace virtue

• How we can reclaim the purpose and dignity of work in modern life

• How a life in finance and a life of faith are deeply compatible

David challenges the idea that we should spend our lives trying to stop working, pointing out that retirement as we know it is a recent invention from post-WWII prosperity, longer life expectancy, and clever marketing.

For most of human history, retirement was just called... death. Today, It’s sold as a 25-year vacation. But maybe we’ll all be happier by staying productive longer?

Am Israel Chai.
Our hearts and souls are with the brave men and women of Israel, and with the courageous people of Iran who are yearning for freedom from regimes of hate, tyranny, and the oppression of human rights. We stand with them.

If you want to stay informed about the war in the Middle East here are a few of our favorite sources:

• The Free Press

• Dan Senor’s Call Me Back Podcast

• Eylon Levy’s State of the Nation

• The Commentary

Our Picks for the Week:

Nadav Eyal on the Call Me Back Podcast:

Are you following us on IG?

No matter where your summer adventures take you, we’d love to be on your podcast playlist 😎☀️

Fiction has to make sense. History doesn’t.

In 1494, the French invaded Italy with a massive army. Cities fell, fear spread, and King Charles VIII seemed unstoppable… until he hit his head on a door frame and died. ⠀ Because fiction has to be believable. History? Not so much.

Don’t miss our latest episode with Ada Palmer— historian, futurist, professor, and sci-fi storyteller where she drops wild history lessons and takes us into the future with her take on how AI will impact our generation.

The part of our conversation that keeps echoing for us is this:

Every generation has been called to save the world.
They rose to the challenge.
Now, it’s our turn.

Our Picks for the Week:

The Middle East, the US and How Qatar is Reshaping Global Culture:

If you want to understand the crisis in the Middle East and its direct effects in the U.S., this episode is required listening:

And, happy beginning of the Summer!

Ada Palmer is an Author, Futurist, Associate Professor of Modern European History at the University of Chicago and someone who sees the world with an incredibly rare, long lens.

Ada believes we’re not living in a uniquely apocalyptic time—just a normally apocalyptic one.

We're living in a moment we must rise to, work hard on, do well where what we do matters,” she told me. “We have the ability to reduce 100% harm to 70% harm. We have that responsibility.

That line really stuck with us because it’s so easy to feel powerless right now. But Ada’s message is the opposite: we do have agency, and what we do does matter.

She also reminded us that fear isn’t new.

We are not more scared than our predecessors were 50 or 100 years ago. They were just as scared as we are. The stakes were just as high. The rewards of hard work were just as real. The penalties of messing up were just as disastrous.

Ada sees change not in election cycles, but in centuries. We talk about why we need to stop chasing “total wins” and start celebrating the small, meaningful steps forward. Progress is almost always incremental, but that doesn’t make it any less real or important.

From ancient Rome to climate policy, Ada brings in historical parallels that made us see our moment differently. She doesn’t sugarcoat the challenges but she offers something many of us are craving: perspective, hope, and a reminder that we’ve come through hard things before.

The part of our conversation that keeps echoing for us is this:

Every generation has been called to save the world.
They rose to the challenge.
Now, it’s our turn.

Ever wonder what it felt like to live through the fall of Rome or what daily life was really like during the Renaissance? Historian Ada Palmer doesn’t just explain history, she reframes how you see it:

Our Picks for the Week:

The Middle East, the US and How Qatar is Reshaping Global Culture:

If you want to understand the crisis in the Middle East and its direct effects in the U.S., this episode is required listening:

Culture

This story about teenagers and their newspaper in the Hamptons will give you hope!

They’re 15. Wait Until You Read Their Newspaper.

Tech

Forbes Annual AI 50 list - are you using any of these yet?

Our Book of the Month

We are loving Personal Librarian

“A remarkable novel about J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, the Black American woman who was forced to hide her true identity and pass as white in order to leave a lasting legacy that enriched our nation, from New York Times bestselling authors Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray.

In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture in New York City society and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps create a world-class collection.”

We have pulled together a list of some of our most inspiring conversations from our podcast featuring women who’ve taken huge risks, rebuilt their lives, or spoken the truths most of us prefer to keep quiet. These women will make you feel like you are not alone, and their stories may nudge you to make a different choice or view your life and problems in a new way.

Listen in to hear how these ladies made big leaps, started businesses, rebuilt their lives, endured life’s challenges, found purpose, raised children and healed themselves.

Starting Over, Resilience, Overcoming:

• Natasha Sizlo, - From Rock Bottom to Chasing Destiny in Paris

• Nicole Avant - A Mindset of Gratitude and Service

• Bethany Hamilton on - Faith, Waves, and Fearlessness: Bethany Hamilton’s Unshakable Journey”

• Claire Bidwell Smith, -Finding Peace After Grief

• Dara Kurtz - How Dara Crushed Cancer and Changed Her Life

• Annette Ross was Meant for love,- After overcoming a tragic accident during the birth of her second child that left Anette unable to walk, Annette went on to create a beautiful life with five daughters and the love of her life

Travel:

• Jeannie Ralston - The Unlikely Lavender Queen: A Memoir of Unexpected Blosssoming

Life Stories and Culture:

• Laura Belgray - Author of Tough Titties, on growing up loud, weird, and real

• Kat Timpf - Truth Bombs and Punchlines: Kat Timpf on Humor That Hurts (and Heals)

• Tiffany Shlain - Reclaiming time with Tech Shabbats

• Zibby Owens - Bookfluencing and being a literary connector

Mental Health

• Lori Gottlieb (Maybe You Should Talk to Someone author ) on why you really should talk to someone

Serving Others

• Heidi Kuhn - Founder of Roots of Peace, on turning grief into global impact

• Dr. Leana Wen - Lifelines: A Doctor's Journey in the Fight for Public Health

• Jessica Honegger - Going Scared and Choosing Purpose Over Comfort

Parenting

• Silicon Valley’s Esther Wojcicki - Raising and Teaching Successful People

Relationships

• Amy Chan, - “The Love Rehab You Didn’t Know You Needed” and the Psychology of Love

• Eve Rodsky (Fair Play) - Burnout, breakdowns, and building a movement

Artists:

• Valerie June - Songwriting and helping people connect to nature

Careers: Looking for career clarity, inspiration, or a reset?

• Jenny Wood - Stand Out, Speak Up, Move Up: Jenny’s Blueprint for Rising in the Ranks

• Kathy Caprino - Author of The Most Powerful You, breaks down the 7 power gaps holding back 98% of women and 90% of men—and how to close them.

• Lauren McGoodwin - Founder of Career Contessa, talks about entitlement in the workplace and why chasing the “perfect job” can lead us astray.

• Julian Guthrie - The untold story of the first female venture capitalists in Silicon Valley—and how they changed the game

• Courtney Martin - Challenging traditional definitions of success

• Joan Barnes - Founder of Gymboree opens up about resilience, entrepreneurship, and recovering from bulimia while building a beloved brand.

• Jane Boulware -From Iowa Farm to Microsoft—and What Retirement Really Means