Plain English with Derek Thompson

Before today’s show, a personal announcement. After almost 17 years at The Atlantic, I have just officially moved my writing full time to Substack, the newsletter platform. If you like this show, if you’re a fan of my work, I think you’ll love what I’m trying to build. Sign up here. 'Abundance,' the book I cowrote with

Americans are unusually overweight and chronically ill compared to similarly rich countries. This episode presents a grand, unified theory for why that's the case. Our food environment has become significantly more calorie-rich and industrialized in the past few decades, sending our obesity rates soaring, our visceral

Americans die younger and faster than the residents of almost every other rich country. Why? There's gun violence, drug overdoses, and car crashes. Young people are much more likely to die from these accidents than those in other countries. Just as importantly, Americans are more likely to die from chronic illness, esp

I'm very concerned about the relationship between smartphone use and America's mental health crisis. But many researchers don't see things my way. They insist that there is little to no empirical data showing that smartphone and social media use drives up anxiety or depression. So what’s the truth about smartphones, so

In November 1932, Germany was a republic. By the spring of 1933, it was a dictatorship. How did it all happen so quickly? Fascination with Adolf Hitler requires no news peg, but I’ve been particularly interested in understanding the story of Hitler's rise, because in the past few months, several prominent podcast hosts

The tax and spending bill passed by House Republicans last week is the sort of bill that does so many different things that even budget experts could be forgiven for not realizing just how many different parts of the economy it will change. In the realm of workers' comp, the bill would eliminate taxes on overtime pay a