The Gray Area with Sean Illing

America’s reactionary moment

What just happened?
It’s been almost two weeks since the presidential election, and many Americans are still grappling with the result. The political reckoning will probably last for months, if not years, and we may never know exactly why voters made the choices they did. But one thing is clear: the roughly 75 million people who voted for Trump were saying “No” to something. So what were they rejecting?
Today’s guest is Zack Beauchamp, Vox senior correspondent and author of The Reactionary Spirit: How America's Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept the World. It’s a book about democracy and the contradictions and conflicts at the heart of it.
Beauchamp speaks with host Sean Illing about America’s growing reactionary movement and what it could mean for the country’s political future.
Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling), host, The Gray Area
Guest: Zack Beauchamp, Vox senior correspondent and author of The Reactionary Spirit: How America's Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept the World.
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The Gray Area with Sean Illing takes a philosophy-minded look at culture, technology, politics, and the world of ideas. Each week, we invite a guest to explore a question or topic that matters. From the the state of democracy, to the struggle with depression and anxiety, to the nature of identity in the digital age, each episode looks for nuance and honesty in the most important conversations of our time. New episodes drop every Monday.