Episodes

  • What Trump's language has in common with cult language

    What Trump's language has in common with cult language
    Mar 21 2026
    When President Trump says things like “fake news,” “witch hunt” or even “Make America Great Again,” he’s not just using catchy phrases -- he’s persuading people into a way of thinking and believing. This week on Code Switch, we talk to Amanda Montell, author of Cultish and co-host of the podcast Sounds Like A Cult, about what the language of MAGA shares with cult language, and why it matters.

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    16 mins
  • The Scouts are too woke, according to Pete Hegseth

    The Scouts are too woke, according to Pete Hegseth
    Mar 18 2026
    Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently put Scouting America — formerly known as the Boy Scouts — "on notice." The once great organization was becoming too woke, he said, and had been tarnished by embracing DEI. On this episode, we're talking to Benjamin René Jordan, author of Modern Manhood and the Boy Scouts of America, about the Scouts' surprisingly progressive history. And we ask him about the complex relationship between scouting and the military.

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    35 mins
  • The Black civil rights leader who sued to be called “Miss”

    The Black civil rights leader who sued to be called “Miss”
    Mar 14 2026
    It’s Alabama, 1963. A black woman stands before a judge, but she refuses to acknowledge his questions until he addresses her by the same honorific given to white women: “Miss.” That woman's name is Mary Hamilton. Her case eventually reached the Supreme Court and changed the courts, and eventually broader culture, for good. We’re revisiting the largely forgotten story of Miss Mary Hamilton, a Freedom Rider who struck a blow against a pervasive form of disrespect.

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    26 mins
  • What the success of "Sinners" does (and doesn't) say about race and Hollywood

    What the success of "Sinners" does (and doesn't) say about race and Hollywood
    Mar 11 2026
    Sinners has already broken records — it's the most Oscar-nominated film in the history of the Academy Awards. But is the movie itself actually historic? And what will its success mean for the future of Black filmmaking? This week, we're joined by Aisha Harris, a host of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, and NY Mag film critic Angelica Jade Bastién. We get into what we loved, what we hated, and how Sinners fits into the broader landscape of big, splashy films that are beloved...yet never quite seem to move the needle on how Hollywood greenlights and funds future projects.

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    35 mins
  • Why Iranian perspectives often get flattened and caricatured

    Why Iranian perspectives often get flattened and caricatured
    Mar 7 2026
    Iran has 90 million people of different ethnicities, faiths, and backgrounds, who have very different ideas about the country. Iranian American scholar Sina Toossi shares some of those varying perspectives with us to help complicate how Iranians feel about U.S. intervention, the war, and what should come next.

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    13 mins
  • How the internet got gentrified

    How the internet got gentrified
    Mar 4 2026
    We all know what gentrification looks like IRL — boxy, corporate-owned apartment complexes, places to get a quick bowl for lunch, streets that are dubbed "cleaner" and "safer" (even at the expense of the people who used to live there). But what does gentrification look like online? We’re talking to Jessa Lingel, who studies digital culture at the University of Pennsylvania, about her argument that the internet has become gentrified, and that we're all suffering the consequences.

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    31 mins
  • Remembering Jesse Jackson

    Remembering Jesse Jackson
    Feb 28 2026
    The late Reverend Jesse Jackson was — and still is — a revered civil rights activist, political trailblazer, and pop culture icon. For his critics, he was also villainized, or at the very least, a punchline. As Jackson's home going ceremony continues, we take some time to remember how Jackson shaped American politics with journalist Adam Serwer, who warns us not to flatten Jackson into a cliche or caricature.

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    20 mins
  • The Young Lords' legacy of fighting for Puerto Rico from the mainland

    The Young Lords' legacy of fighting for Puerto Rico from the mainland
    Feb 25 2026
    While Puerto Rican independence is in the spotlight after Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show, we're throwing it to our play cousins at La Brega, a show about all things Puerto Rico. We hear from former Young Lords member Iris Morales about how the group took their love for their homeland to educate and organize against U.S. colonialism.

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    48 mins