Gun sales in America took off in the Cold War, and they’ve grown exponentially. Two experts on the culture of firearms in the United States say this phenomenon has a lot less to do with the Second Amendment than it does with the marriage of economics and politics.

With this live taping from West Lafayette, Ind., we close out season four. Three experts on Black Power, women’s movements, and Democracy’s discontents join Siva and Will onstage to discuss what the past has to teach us about defending - and improving - government by the people.

In one little, seemingly interminable year, a virus laid America low, protests over racial injustice erupted across the country, climate change unleashed record-setting wildfires and hurricanes, and citizens voted in one of the most fraught national elections in history. Will and Siva are joined by a panel of experts for this bonus episode — recorded live — to break it all down and build it back up.

Americans delivered the presidency to Joe Biden last week. But they also issued a referendum on the U.S. electoral system itself. This week we talk to Jamelle Bouie and Dahlia Lithwick about what those voices seem to be saying.

Many people still refer to unauthorized immigrants in America as “illegal” — but it’s the country’s immigration system itself that is lawless and inhumane, says political scientist Elizabeth Cohen.

Charleston. Tree of Life. Christchurch. All these deadly attacks have some grim details in common — their death tolls were massive... white-power ideology fueled their architects... and they only seemed like the work of loners, according to historian Kathleen Belew.

America incarcerates more people than any country: nearly a quarter of the world’s prison population. And U.S. inmates are disproportionately Black and Latino. Elizabeth Hinton explains how we got here, while Siva and Will consider what hope there is for truth and reconciliation.

Leah Wright Rigueur calls America a failed state. As a polity, she says, the United States has failed Black people, falling short of its promises of equality and justice. This summer’s protests are a dramatic diagnostic of that failure — the latest in a long history of wake-up calls.