Not Another Politics Podcast - Podcast Rankings and reviews

If you’re looking for a heavily right- or leftwing podcast, this isn’t for you. Each week’s discussion does not react to the buzzword of the week, nor does it follow a particular woke or MAGA script. Research is incorporated and discussed thoughtfully, but it doesn’t become academic navel gazing. My only complaint is that Wioletta needs a professional mic! It sounds like she’s recording on beat-up Thinkpad from 1996.

This isn’t a show where you will get the normal hot takes and such from the hosts that are recycled during the 24 hours news cycle. It reminds me a lot on how seminars would work in undergrad where everyone would pick and prod at the discussion raised by a certain piece of quantitative (well as much as you can get from this field) research.

That might turn off the average Joe, whose looking to see what the leanings of the hosts are, but if that doesn’t interest you, the show is perfect for discussing why we see such trends in the world.

This show ignores the deep structural inequality built into America’s political institutions — particularly around race. In a political era shaped by white nationalist politics and converging racial justice movements, the absence of lens that looks at how group hierarchy steers elections and polices is hard to ignore. Feels very ivory tower like, and fails to incorporate the rich political insights present in a diverse metro like Chicago. I listened for about a year. This show feels very exclusive and elitist like a lot of other politics podcasts. I think the hosts could learn a lot by engaging with more black scholars who have the same empirical training, but a much richer appreciation for the role that power plays in American politics.

Podcast for technocrats who view politics largely as a topic for social science. The hosts filter out most historical context in favor of largely apolitical rationalist analysis that tends to focus on behavior and individual cognition of voters and politicians rather than offering any deeper insights focused on things like class structure, racism, gender norms etc.