How They Failed: California Republicans, Media Critics and Facebook

In a special Opinion Audio bonanza, Jane Coaston (The Argument), Ezra Klein (The Ezra Klein Show) and Kara Swisher (Sway) sit down to discuss what went wrong for the G.O.P. in the recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom of California. “This was where the nationalization of politics really bit back for Republicans,” Jane says. The three hosts then debate whether the media industry’s criticism of itself does any good at all. “The media tweets like nobody’s watching,” Ezra says. Then the hosts turn to The Wall Street Journal’s revelations in “The Facebook Files” and discuss how to hold Facebook accountable. “We’re saying your tools in the hands of malevolent players are super dangerous,” Kara says, “but we have no power over them whatsoever.”

And last, Ezra, Jane and Kara offer recommendations to take you deep into history, fantasy and psychotropics.

[You can listen to this episode of “The Argument” on Apple, Spotify or Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]

Read more about the subjects in this episode:

• Jane Coaston, Vox: “How California conservatives became the intellectual engine of Trumpism”

• Ezra Klein: “Gavin Newsom Is Much More Than the Lesser of Two Evils” and “A Different Way of Thinking About Cancel Culture”

• Kara Swisher: “The Endless Facebook Apology,” “Don’t Get Bezosed,” “The Medium of the Moment” “‘They’re Killing People’? Biden Isn’t Quite Right, but He’s Not Wrong.” and “The Terrible Cost of Mark Zuckerberg’s Naïveté”

(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)

Credit…Photographs courtesy of The New York Times

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This episode was produced by Phoebe Lett, Annie Galvin and Rogé Karma. It was edited by Stephanie Joyce, Alison Bruzek and Nayeema Raza. Engineering, music and sound design by Isaac Jones and Sonia Herrero. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair, Michelle Harris and Kristin Lin. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Matt Kwong, Daphne Chen and Blakeney Schick.