M. Gessen: recommendation

Transcript context

…So your dream is to follow more rather than less? That’s depressing in a way. [laughs] My dream is to feel like I have a better handle on things. Russia is much simpler in a way. Very little happens, in fact, or what happens is more or less the same thing over and over again. That’s what I mean when I say that spending time on Facebook is really part of my work. I try to have a sense of the temperature of the air, the flavor of the conversation. That’s where social networks, used strategically, I think, are extremely useful. It’s the kind of research tool that I didn’t have as a young journalist, and I really appreciate it now. As for American politics, I’m always in fear of missing stuff, like major stuff. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I bike a lot, and whenever I’m biking, I’m listening to podcasts. I try to switch among podcasts a lot. But then I go hiking, and I go offline for 24 hours, and stuff happens. Then I discover that it happened days later because there’s another news cycle. I mean, the insanity of the news cycle is impossible. Putting normative questions aside, just analytically, what do you wish you understood about American politics that you feel maybe you don’t?…

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