John McWhorter – Feeling the "Joy" at the DNC

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1:28 John heads back to the linguistic woodshed

3:55 Glenn’s nascent retirement plan

4:23 Glenn and John’s late summer reading

11:58 The “joy” of the Democratic National Convention

17:47 Ground News ad

20:11 The oratorical panache of the Obamas

25:37 John: What’s the point of all this performative joy?

30:16 Keywords from the DNC: “Weird”

34:17 Keywords from the DNC: “Freedom”

41:48 Keywords from the DNC: “Joy”

44:25 Keywords from the DNC: “Fight”

46:03 ACTA ad

47:52 Glenn’s distrust of Kamala’s candidacy

52:42 Why Glenn puts the “Hussein” in “Barack Hussein Obama”

56:04 RFK Jr’s endorsement of Donald Trump

1:04:51 Coming soon: Breakfast with the Lourys

Recorded August 25, 2024

Links and Readings

Percival Everett’s novel, James

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

James Baldwin’s essay, “Everybody’s Protest Novel”

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s memoir, Between the World and Me

Alex Haley’s novel, Roots: The Saga of an American Family

Barack Obama’s DNC speech

Michelle Obama’s DNC speech

Oprah Winfrey’s DNC speech

John’s NYT column, “The Hidden Grammatical Reason That ‘Weird’ Works”

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