Now!

This would be so much better if Ross Douthat engaged in real debate instead of spending the entire time trying to come up with clever put-downs of his fellow commentators.

There is no true representation for the conservative side. I really try(key word) to listen frequently to get a balanced view of American thought and politics, but it’s so condescending and the bellybutton gazing is annoying. Ross does a great job of talking his colleagues off the edge, but there should be more true balance.

We need more of this; people from diverse viewpoints listening and engaging with each other. Why are we so afraid to hear people with ideas that are different from our own?

I’ve listened to, and mostly enjoyed the podcast throughout its previous incarnations, off and on, like when it was previously called the “Argument” which is perhaps a more apt title. Finished listening to the TL;DR: Blame Biden episode… and was reminded again of how Lydia Polgreen is ideologically captured, and her tendency to take personal digs at her colleagues’ character and background, e.g. Ross Douthat, in lieu of addressing the merits of opposing positions. A very cringe and disheartening tactic. Glad her appearances are not as frequent.

Lots of gratuitous interruptions and digs against Ross. Aim for more balance and more civility.

Not to my liking.

Ross really makes this podcast. Without him it would be just another group shouting into the echo chamber. I find Ross’ perspectives incredibly well-reasoned and honest, attributes that are sorely lacking in today’s discourse. Editing to add that I really hope that Ross’ cohosts can avoid becoming terminally Trump-deranged post election. The Democrats lost many voters (myself included, a female and a minority) because of their sweeping and unfair generalizations. Michelle says that Trump mobilized such diverse voters as myself in a kind of xenophobic anger. I’m so sick of Democrats saying that it’s xenophobic to enforce the border. It comes across as dismissive and condescending, and I hope the Democrats continue to lose as long as they hold such attitudes. I’m not anti-immigrant or xenophobic, and to not want the kinds of people who rape women under boardwalks or shoot Jewish men minding their own business does not make me so. Continue to be out of touch to your own detriment.

This show turns my stomach with the way they try so hard for this light, friends-laughing-and-chatting-over-beers kind of banter, when they’re talking about really dark and heavy stuff. The jokey tone feels extremely forced and performative. And Ross’s mean-spirited trolling and both-sidesism gets more tiresome by the second. He is so defensive and petty. And his fellow hosts laugh it off like it’s somehow endearing. Grow up, all.

Genuine, earnest humility from Ross Douthat. My brother-in-smugness out smugs us all on a too regular basis. Shout-out to the music and production values of this show… no different from other NYTs productions in this regard…best in the business. ❤️

While it appears clear that three of the hosts oppose Trump, it’s not clear (in any episodes I’ve listened to) if Ross D. supports Trump or not. Why so afraid to show one’s cards?

It’s one thing to have a conservative voice to balance out admittedly progressive contributors. It’s an entirely different thing to accuse all women in the US of banding together for the right to “murder their unborn child in the womb”. That’s not a matter of opinion, that’s just hating women openly. Trash podcast.

I want to like the show and do enjoy episodes here and there, but Ross ruins it for me. The left leaning voices seem to trip over themselves to acknowledge his opinion and insight, where he does not give them the same respect and acknowledgement. He’s so cynical and throws a wet blanket on every discussion. I appreciate having a conservative viewpoint, but he’s not it. I don’t think the podcast medium suits him. Sorry.

I loved the old podcast with Ross and Michelle Goldberg (and Frank Bruni and David Leonhardt). Michelle Cottle is atrocious. I can’t stand her attempts to be hip and her use of slang from gen z. I feel her presence brings the overall quality of show down. Without her I’d give it 5 stars. This podcast is not what it could be. I like some of the guests they bring on and Carlos Lozada is a good addition.

This is so brutal

Ross provides a welcome respite from my typical leftist echo chamber. I really appreciate the ability of the hosts to disagree in a convivial manner. My usual podcasts have become too exhausting recently, so Matter of Opinion has become my new favorite listen!

As long as everyone keeps their tones properly in check I tend to enjoy this one! It’s nice to get the range of opinions and the analysis is generally interesting. But I’ve got to say the VP debate episode was a tough listen. Ranking it as if it were a high school debate with a winner and a loser felt one dimensional and totally neglected how people actually consume debates. But aside from an offhand acknowledgement that they weren’t representative of the audience it was hardly addressed and instead the conversation devolved into squabbling over picayune details (I admit I did not finish). Not sure what happened there but not my favorite! I think the best episodes do a good job maintaining a more playful tone. For example, I remember an episode where everyone assembled their fantasy presidential tickets that was actually quite funny. Clearly not every episode topic can reach that level of silliness. But I think podcasts like this play an important role in modeling how to disagree both thoroughly and respectfully (and ideally even amicably). I’ve seen it strike that tone in the past, and that’s what I’m hoping for going forward too. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Love the podcast. Love the deep analysis. Get rid of Ross. He’s annoying.

“Goaded?” What a poor baby.

Ross reminds me why I am glad I left the Catholic Church.

Someone needs to tell Douthat that facts don’t care about his feelings

This show is 3 liberals and 1 conservative (who doesn’t even support Trump!) and that 1 conservative is apparently too much for most of the listeners reviewing this show. Get a grip, people—it is OK to listen to what people who disagree with you think.

Ross is a bad faith actor that is desperate to justify bad ideas an bad people having power.

Unsubscribing because I can’t stand Ross — his voice, his looseness with facts, his puppetry for indefensible policy positions and outright misrepresentation of truth. Maybe I’ll start listening again after the election but I don’t need to hear more squabbling right now. Can you please try to model fact-based civil discourse for your listeners?

5 stars for Michelle, Carlos, Lydia and others. Ross’s intellectual affectations have become unlistenable. He has great difficulty admitting when his argument or even his side is wrong, which is frequent. The last podcast “unpacking the role JD Vance played” where Ross dresses up Vance’s abject lying about a Fed opinion piece was the last straw. I had to unsubscribe. Sorry, Michelle, Carlos and Lydia.

I find him so slimy and full of propaganda. Thoughtless mouthpiece for billionaire interests

Why is it that none of you challenge Ross on the misinformation and outright lies by Trump, and the detrimental policies he promotes. I will no longer subscribe to this podcast, especially when Ross decides to publish his “opinion” piece on the VP debate midway through the debate with a URL slug from last week. Maybe Ross needs to read The NY Times’ fact checkers where he was labeled as false and/or misleading.

Ross is the thin red line that separates the NYT from The Jacobin. I find it hypocritical for people to kvetch about his viewpoints, while also complaining about polarization. He is open minded, intelligent, and clearly a critical member of the group whose refreshing new perspectives make the show a worthwhile listen.

I’ll change my rating to five stars when Ross is no longer on the show. Probably not gonna listen anymore because because of him .

Keep up the good work, MOO crew.

I’m not sure what this show is trying to pull off. If it’s supposed to be a discussion of conservative vs progressive viewpoints, then I think it fails. If it is what merely a platform to rant against the other side then it is just tiresome. It’s not for me, and I suspect it’s not for most NYTimes readers…

I am tired of the news media giving oxygen to an issue. That is a blatant racist lie it’s not about a bigger issue. It’s about racism. There is no issue with illegal immigration in Springfield as you stated in your report Haitians are there legally with temporary status so to use this as an argument regarding illegal immigration and feed into Trump and Vance’s lies is disgraceful. And your conservative reporter in this issue is really really stretching the truth and making excuses for Vance and his blatant lies. Please report the news appropriately and stop giving the “both sides” reasoning. this is just an a racist attack that is causing harm to individuals that don’t deserve it.

To Ross, President Biden is unpopular because of his age and not his policies.

I enjoyed this discussion, however, ‘prolife’ has more meaning than simply abortion. How about prenatal access to healthcare, new mother’s access to healthcare and support, family support through the childhood years, access to safe schools? And I could go on. Compassion for moms and dads and their vulnerable children is’prolife’. You can’t tell me that Trump will provide more support for those folks than Harris will attempt to do. I’m disappointed that you both didn’t bring these issues up. Thanks, Melanie Stephens, CA.

He consistently does everything he can to try to establish moral equivalence between Trump and MAGA-ism and progressives. He is very good at it. But there is no comparison between the real dangers that another Trump administration poses and the fanciful dangers of a Douthat consistently spouts of a Harris administration. That makes Douthat’s equivocation dangerous. I wish his fellow podcasters would do more to call out his nonsense.

You both missed the biggest point: do you just want a law, or do you want abortions to decrease, because they have dramatically increased since Dobbs. Women’s lives are at risk if miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy occurs because the laws are vague and doctors are scared to do anything!! Why do you ignore this issue?? In the name of goodness, do your homework!! Check out Guttmacher: “Abortion rates are highest in more than a decade”!!

Listening to Douthat’s ongoing, unending equivocation of Trump’s manifest ignorance and unfitness is beyond tiresome. However, French’s presence rates 2 stars.

As a liberal, I appreciate hearing conservative counterpoints (something I am rarely exposed to in my left wing echo chamber) but Ross is downright creepy - especially the disturbing brand of pronatalism he spews EVERY episode. Unfortunately, he seems to have recently decided that he is going to lead/dominate this podcast when what the show actually needs is for him to take a step back and stop his condescending mansplaining.

I have loved this podcast for exposing me to different opinions and allowing me to be able to have better conversations with people. Lately it has felt like something has changed. First, Ross has become insufferable, like he’s not even trying to have conversations with the other hosts, but is just sometimes allowing them to speak so that he can be condescending and dismissive. Second, I had been looking forward to hearing the coverage of the DNC, which I thought was an historic event, full of hope, real promise, and (yeah I’m gonna say it) joy. I’m not sure what these hosts saw or if no one could stand up to Ross, but that show was so cynical and negative, I wondered if maybe this was now a Fox News X NYT crossover show. Third, regarding how the tone has literally changed, the Upspeak has got to stop. Everyone is doing it now, and it is grating to the ears. Please stop ending every sentence fragment at a higher pitch. Three stars because the show used to be great, two off because you have to see something has changed and needs work.

I think that this podcast is great. Every Friday I am excited when I wake up for a new episode. All the haters can yap all they want, but I’ll keep loving this show

Go to the New Yorker, The Daily, Ezra Klein for actual substance and insight.

Not here to criticize the opinions (it’s an opinion podcast, you get what you get), but omg the vibes are OFF. There’s an air of negativity that leaves you feeling as deflated as the kid who smoked too much pot in the 90’s DARE commercial. My brain’s doom and gloom enough as is, and needs to network with more positive brains. Sageing the apartment, taking a multivitamin and sitting in my sun lamp for a bit to shake this feeling off.

I would like to a hear a Black voice on this podcast. None of them knows the name of VP Harris sorority. It just speaks to the homogeneity of the discussion.

I have been listening to this podcast since it was The Argument, and I used to really love hearing both sides having a civil discourse. Now it has become decidedly more one-sided and not at all balanced, even with the episode titles, like “will THIS a lose Biden the presidency”. Stop the clickbait and get back to having real, necessary conversations. Adding onto my review from earlier. I will be unsubscribing from this podcast. There are no actual liberal points of view—in covering the conventions, they basically say that Kamala hasn’t given an interview so no matter what she can’t be good, with no one offering any other opinion. Funny that some people are saying that this proves that NYT has a liberal bias—that’s not it at all. This proves to me that NYT is not showing both sides. I’m very sad to lose this podcast, it used to be good.

It’s hard for me to get through an episode. Ross is so sanctimonious and contrary for the sake of being contrary. They could get a conservative that expresses their view without coming across as condescending all of the time.

Seriously? The DNC felt like a “complacent convention” as assessed by Ross. I used to enjoy aspects of this podcast but I just can’t anymore. I had to turn it off right then and there. Instead of picking apart the nuances of the DNC, as well as Kamala’s speech, how about you address the simple fact that the choice in 2024 is between DEMOCRACY and AUTHORITARIANISM? The media has learnt nothing in 8 years. STOP continuing to normalize the choice given everything we now know.

It’s good to have different opinions and Douthat is definitely representing the “weird” political camp. But he doesn’t need this much airtime (it’s consistently about 1/2 the podcast every time). Also I wish they would actually check him on many of his half baked non-points.

You know how hearing Donald Trump’s voice is somehow physically repulsive? That is how I have grown to feel about Ross Douthat. Carlos is the star of this show. I will seek out other ways to listen to him because I think he’s fabulous! I very much appreciate Michelle and Lydia; they are measured, thoughtful, and always give me something new to think about. But at this point I just can’t listen to Ross anymore; he is dismissive, pretentious, full of sh*t, and yet empty at the same time. He adds nothing but gross vibes to the show. I am surprised the other hosts are still putting up with him.

I do like listening to this podcasts sometimes, but I often get a bit frustrated at their attitudes. Ross is pretty much always annoying because he criticizes the Democratic constantly while refusing to really reckon with the state of the other major party. Even the other more liberal hosts are a bit much. They just sound like they’ve been in their ivory towers too long and don’t really know what real life is for normal people. Listening to them can kind of feel like listening to a movie critic who feels like they have to be overly negative and nitpick just because they’re a critic. You don’t have to be a cynic about everything to have interesting opinions.

But these people are so insufferable, my thumbs became sentient and simply took on a mind of their own. No one reads long reviews so I will say simply: Ross = chode of epic proportions (lol). Listen elsewhere.