871: The Thing About Things

America loves winners—now more than ever. But how do you get to a win in 2025 America? We watch someone trying to score a win in a game whose rules are being made up as she plays.  Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Ira talks to producer Diane Wu about an informal survey she’s done with the staff of This American Life about a phrase Ira says a lot that includes the word “winners.” (8 minutes)Act One: Two people see one of President Trump’s first executive orders and get excited, and then get to work. (30 minutes)Act Two: We follow the progress of one woman as she builds up, from scratch, a whole movement based on one of Trump’s executive orders. (19 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Three stories about the strange power inanimate objects can hold over us. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Nunzio gets caught in a kind of servile relationship—with a scooter. (8 minutes)Act One: Ted was six when he first picked up a rock from the Petrified Forest National Park. Nearly 50 years later, he really wishes he hadn’t. Aviva DeKornfeld talked to him. (15 minutes)Act Two: Heavyweight host Jonathan Goldstein leaps in to help a family, who are not entirely sure they want or need his help, get rid of their stuff. (31 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Thirteen parole board members decide whether or not one man should be released from prison. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Henry Dee has been locked up for most of his life, nearly 50 years. Now, he’s up for parole. Reporter Ben Austen tells the story. (19 minutes)Part 1: The parole board members puzzle through the pros and cons of releasing Henry Dee from prison and cast their votes. (26 minutes)Part 2: Reporter Ben Austen continues the story. (8 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.

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What happens when people create alternate versions of themselves and release them into the wild? Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks about a recent experience being interviewed and the realization that he was being asked about another version of himself. (4 minutes)Act One: Reporter Evan Ratliff creates an AI version of himself and then sets it loose on the world. This story was adapted from Evan's podcast, Shell Game. (43 minutes)Act Two: Emmanuel Dzotsi explores the phenomenon of people lying on first dates to project a better version of themselves. Plus, he gets into a very personal example from his own life. (8 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.

When Zohran Mamdani won the primary race for New York mayor, the Democratic establishment's lukewarm response echoed the treatment of another charismatic, unconventional candidate decades earlier. This week, we bring you the story of Harold Washington, the greatest politician you've probably never heard of, and the backlash that ensued when he became Chicago's first Black mayor. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: As New York City’s Democratic establishment attempts to resist the candidacy of Zohran Mamdani, we look back at another mayoral candidate who upset the established political machine. (7 minutes)Act One: A history of the brief mayoral career of Harold Washington and its lessons for Black and white America, as told by people close to him. (39 minutes)Act Two: Ira revisits interviews with Chicago voters from the 1997 and 2007 rebroadcasts of this episode. In 1997, ten years after Harold Washington’s death, not much had changed in Chicago. By 2007, attitudes had begun to shift slowly, and another Black politician from Chicago was on the rise — Barack Obama. Ira also speaks to David Axelrod, an advisor to both Harold Washington and Barack Obama. (10 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Stories of people who try simple mind games on others, and then find themselves way in over their heads. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Host Ira Glass interviews Lori Gottlieb about the time she sent a letter to a writer in a magazine, a letter packed with white lies. (5 minutes)Act One: Lori Gottlieb's story continues. One complication led to another, and before long, the writer seemed to be lying to her. Or maybe he wasn't. It was hard to tell. Years later, she still isn't sure what happened. (8 minutes)Act Two: A group called Improv Everywhere decides that an unknown band, Ghosts of Pasha, playing their first ever tour in New York, ought to think they're a smash hit. So they study the band's music and then crowd the performance, pretending to be hard-core fans. Improv Everywhere just wants to make the band happy—to give them the best day of their lives. But the band doesn't see it that way. Nor does another subject of one of Improv Everywhere's "missions." (31 minutes)Act Three: Scott Carrier and his family live in the same Salt Lake City neighborhood as Elizabeth Smart, the fourteen-year-old whose 2002 kidnapping made international news. Though Smart's picture was plastered everywhere throughout Salt Lake City and thousands of volunteers searched for her, her captors brazenly brought her back to the very neighborhood from which she'd been taken. They walked freely through the streets with her in broad daylight, yet no one recognized her. Scott talks with his neighbors and his son Milo—who had attended grade school with Smart—about what was going through their minds that prevented them from seeing what was right there in plain sight. (12 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.

A group of immigration judges, who almost never speak to the press, describes the dismantling of our immigration court system from the inside. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Zoe Chace gives an eyewitness account of what has been happening at 26 Federal Plaza, an immigration courthouse in New York City. (5 minutes)Act One: The judges walk us through how different their jobs have become in just the past few months, because of sweeping policy changes by Trump’s Department of Justice. (26 minutes)Act Two: It gets extremely personal for the judges. Also, the story of one person who got pushed through the new immigration court system this summer. (23 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Things are different on college campuses this year. We see inside the drama, with students and staff. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: We go to orientation at Arizona State University and meet international students who are trying to make friends. (6 minutes)Act One: The president of the Black Student Union at the University of Utah fights to keep the B in BSU. (30 minutes)Act Two: A definition of antisemitism, canceled classes, and angry professors at Columbia University. (16 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Small human plans that run into much larger obstacles. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Angela's dad, an accountant, made a spreadsheet to prepare for their family trip to a national park. But there are things you never think to put in a spreadsheet. (7 minutes)Act One: A young couple, excited to start a new chapter in their lives, is suddenly put on a very different trajectory. (30 minutes)Act Two: A sixteen-year-old plans out a prank, and a complete stranger from Honduras ends up in a million-dollar deal. What could go wrong? (25 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.