How Is This Better?
We're constantly bombarded by grifters who claim to have all the solutions. From Donald Trump promising to "make America great" to tech bros who say they're making the world a "better place." Akilah Hughes has had enough. She's finally asking...How Is This Better?
Episodes
May 8, 2026 • 39 mins
After Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Erika Kirk tried to turn grief into political momentum. Instead, the internet turned the entire thing into a meme.
Akilah Hughes talks with journalist Kat Tenbarge about Erika Kirk’s chaotic rise inside Turning Point USA, the backlash to her grief tour, and her feud with Candace Owens.
This episode explores internet culture, conservative media, gender politics, and the efforts to capture the p...
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May 1, 2026 • 35 mins
What happens when fashion’s biggest night starts to look like a billionaire branding exercise?
This week, we examine the growing influence of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos on the Met Gala—and what it says about power, philanthropy, and who gets to shape culture in America.
With Rebecca Sananes and Meredith Lynch, Akilah unpacks the contradictions at the center of the event: a fundraiser dependent on extreme wealth, a cultur...
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April 17, 2026 • 28 mins
The American healthcare system is sick.
This week, Akilah talks with Abdul El-Sayed—physician, public health expert, and U.S. Senate candidate—about the structural problems at the heart of American healthcare, from medical debt to for-profit insurance.
They also unpack the growing gap between real public health expertise and the rise of political figures like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mehmet Oz, and what it says about trust, med...
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April 10, 2026 • 37 mins
Why have Democrats recently struggled to connect with working-class and rural voters – and what would it take to change that?
Akilah Hughes talks with journalist John Russell about class politics in America, the rise of Trump, and the missed opportunities that reshaped the political landscape.
Drawing on his reporting in Appalachia and across the country, Russell explains how economic frustration gets redirected into culture war ...
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April 3, 2026 • 33 mins
Mormonism is having a pop culture glow-up. But did it happen by accident?
In this episode, Akilah Hughes digs into the rise of Mormon influencers, the explosion of “MomTok,” and the broader cultural moment putting LDS aesthetics front and center. With reporting from New York Magazine’s Bridget Read, we explore how Mormon women helped shape modern influencer culture, and why that’s now paying off in a massive way.
Ex-Mormon podcas...
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March 20, 2026 • 35 mins
As younger generations continue to turn towards the internet for their content, what fate awaits for Hollywood?
Last Sunday, celebrities and renowned members of the Academy gathered together to celebrate the Oscars. The awards show is considered one of the touchstones of modern-day media culture, but how much impact does it really have? And what messages are the films we’re praising really sending?
In this episode of How Is This ...
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March 13, 2026 • 25 mins
AI-generated war footage is spreading across the internet faster than the truth.
As conflict escalates in Iran, social media platforms like X, Instagram, and TikTok are being flooded with AI-generated missile strikes, fake battlefield footage, and fabricated videos of captured soldiers. Some posts rack up millions of views before anyone can confirm whether they’re real.
In this episode of How Is This Better?, Akilah Hughes speaks...
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March 6, 2026 • 33 mins
Are we at war or not? According to Trump, he's scoring a 15 out of 10 "on the war front," and Department of War Secretary, Pete Hegseth, says the fighting in Iran has "just begun." Yet House Speaker Mike Johnson insists "we're not at war."
Instead of debating the political spin, Akilah wanted to sit down with the people who've been asked to fight American battles. On this episode of How Is This Better?, Akilah sits down with five...
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February 20, 2026 • 34 mins
People keep comparing ICE to the Gestapo. But is that the right historical analogy?
We we talk with public historian Ashley Baron aka @ashleytheebarroness who went viral making the argument that the comparison overlooks a home-grown analogy. We also speak with Claire Aubin who is a Nazi-era historian and host of the podcast, This Guy Sucked, to break down what the Gestapo actually was — and why the ideology behind it matters more ...
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February 13, 2026 • 20 mins
Homeownership used to be a starter pack for adulthood. Now it feels like a luxury good. This week, Akilah asks a question most of us have yelled at Zillow at least once: when did buying a house become a fantasy?
Business Insider's James Rodriguez joins to help explain how we got here and why the future might be… single-family homes you can never actually own.
Get unlimited premium wireless from Mint Mobile for just $15 a month at...
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February 6, 2026 • 16 mins
Your conservative uncle is wrong about Bad Bunny. So are Trump, all of MAGA, and the angry drunk guys who watch the NFL. They're mad because Bad Bunny will be performing the half time show at the Superbowl this Sunday, and he'll be singing in Spanish - you know, the language the songs are written in - and believe that that makes him fundamentally un-american.
Unfortunately, this is not a unique experience. Puerto Rico, where Bad ...
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January 30, 2026 • 55 mins
This is our last unedited bonus before we're back with a brand new episode next week! This week, we bring you the entirety of my conversation with Josephine Riesman who authored Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America. We talked about the parallels between wrestling and modern politics and had a blast doing it. Please enjoy and stay tuned for a new episode next week.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone....
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January 23, 2026 • 28 mins
Is it DEI to honor one of the greatest baseball players of all time? Our president seems to think so. Comedian Roy Wood Jr. weighs in on Trump's crusade to end diversity initiatives and tarnish Jackie Robinson's legacy.
Before we get back to new content, we thought we'd release some of our favorite conversations from 2025 in all their unedited glory.
For the full, edited episode featuring more conversations (and more of my comme...
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January 16, 2026 • 26 mins
Remember that conversation we had last year? The one with Adam Mockler, about the nightmare that is modern masculinity? Well, we have more where that came from.
Before we get back to new content, we thought we'd release some of our favorite conversations from 2025 in all their unedited glory. To watch the original cut down version of this video, you can click here: https://tinyurl.com/32e7xvnj
More bonuses in the coming weeks a...
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December 19, 2025 • 64 mins
As we all know, 2025 was the best year that any of us have ever had. Nothing went wrong, no evil was done, and things were generally really, really chill.
In reality, Akilah is joined this week by Ryan Broderick, host of COURIER’s Panic World, in order to review all of the political and pop culture chaos that went down over the past twelve months. Together they’ll try to answer the fateful question: was anything about this year b...
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December 12, 2025 • 28 mins
In a second-term Trump economy obsessed with the word “meritocracy,” Black women are being pushed out of the workforce at alarming rates — while the least qualified men fail upward. Akilah Hughes sits down with economist and author Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman to unpack her book, The Double Tax: How Women of Color Are Overcharged and Underpaid.
You can find Anna and her book at www.annagifty.com
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Intro
00:54 Blac...
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December 5, 2025 • 23 mins
You may have heard a lot about boycotting this year, especially when talking about Target or Amazon. Organized actions like these have been happening year-round, but are reaching peak intensity now that we’re well within the holiday season. One such boycott, called We Ain’t Buying It, aimed to draw attention to how giant retailers are using our money against our own interests: funding candidates like Trump and policies that endange...
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November 21, 2025 • 29 mins
What happens when a president decides America is done with space?
This week on How Is This Better?, Akilah Hughes digs into the Trump administration’s unprecedented plans to slash NASA’s budget.
Akilah sits down with Casey Dreier of the Planetary Society to unpack how America went from bipartisan support for space exploration to a full-blown dismantling of the country’s most beloved science agency—and why turning over the future ...
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November 14, 2025 • 31 mins
Hollywood (as we once knew it) may have collapsed, but a new form of “storytelling” is thriving in the rubble. This week on How Is This Better? Akilah Hughes investigates the rise of clipping—the 30–90 second chunks of movies and TV that Gen Z and Gen Alpha increasingly treat as the entire art form. With The Ankler's newsroom coordinator, Matthew Frank, we dig into how studios, independent clippers, and even teenagers are monetizin...
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November 7, 2025 • 30 mins
The First Amendment established the separation of church and state in America — but is that principle truly being upheld today? A powerful contingent on the right is working to erase that line entirely, pushing policies that fuse religion and government to advance a Christian nationalist agenda — from efforts to mandate the Ten Commandments in classrooms to reshaping laws around their ideology.
This week, host Akilah Hughes is joi...
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