What I’m Thinking at the End of 2024

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.6 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 24 December 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

There’s a lot to process as 2024 draws to a close. In our end-of-year Ask Me Anything, the supervising editor of “The Ezra Klein Show,” Claire Gordon, joins Ezra in the studio to ask your questions – on politics, and lots of not-politics too. Ezra talks about the ways this year has affected him personally: how his views on government have changed; his efforts to stave off burnout; and his off-again, on-again relationship with social media. They also discuss the making of the show: the accusation that certain episodes have “normalized” Donald Trump; how we’re going to approach covering the next administration; the story behind our new theme music; and what’s going on with that arm tattoo. Thank you to the listeners who sent in questions, and to everyone who’s tuned in this year. Without you, this year would have been a lot lonelier. (We also wouldn’t have jobs.) We’ll be re-airing one of our favorite episodes this Friday (on the art of rest). And then we’ll be back here with new episodes in 2025. Wishing you a great end to 2024. Happy new year! This episode contains strong language. Mentioned: “Magical Tree Creatures” by Pat McCusker Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was fact-checked by Michelle Harris. Mixing by Isaac Jones, with Efim Shapiro and Aman Sahota. Our supervising editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Rollin Hu, Elias Isquith, Kristin Lin and Jack McCordick. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times opinion, this is the Ezra Klein Show.
0:39.3	Thank you. So happy holidays. Welcome to the near end of a year that has felt like many, many, many years.
0:49.5	And we thought before it all ends, we would answer a couple more questions, hopefully, slightly more fun ones than none are more election focused, ask me anything.
0:56.8	And then we're going to be back with new episodes in the new year and have some stuff that I'm pretty excited about in the pipeline.
1:01.0	But thank you to everybody who's been listening this year. It has been a ride.
1:12.3	Thank you to Claire Gordon, who's here with me and has been an amazing partner in building the show this year and editing it and getting things out at the last minute to her and to the team. They've all been incredible and getting the show out the door with as fast as news was moving was no small
1:18.1	thing and took no small number of long nights. So thank you to you. Oh, thank you, Ezra. It has been a year.
1:24.5	I am not yet quite ready to process at all.
1:28.1	And these aren't all fun questions.
1:31.4	People are here for your political analysis.
1:34.0	I thought you told me this one is going to be later.
1:36.7	Well, there will be some fun at the end when I'm going to continue the tradition from last year of a rapid fire round.
1:42.9	Okay.
1:43.4	But to start with short, simple suite from Juna, Elena, Amia,
1:49.1	why are you a liberal and not a democratic socialist?
1:55.0	Are all of my AMAs going to start with very complicated definitional questions?
2:00.8	It's been a good table setting?
2:02.5	Good Lord. Okay. I think it really depends what you mean by liberal and democratic socialist
2:08.2	because those things mean different things in Europe where there are deeper traditions of both.
2:13.9	And I think here the liberal, democratic socialist, and left dimensions overlap, but are different and are referred to as different by different people.
2:25.1	Let me try to do this in stages.
2:26.9	I'm a liberal because I believe life is fundamentally unfair.
	...

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