The Gist

Dissing Dianne Feinstein

Why is a lioness of the Senate being spurned by the California Democratic Party?

Sen. Dianne Feinstein at the Capitol on Feb. 15 in Washington, D.C.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Listen to Episode 937 of Slate’s The Gist:

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On The Gist, President Trump’s latest poetry reading.

Last week on the show, we talked about the manifold reasons for optimism in the world. This week, Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker builds on that argument, adding that we’ve had a roughly 300-year run of steady improvements in technology, health, and civility. It just so happens that the only thing as constant as human progress is our tendency to focus on human shortcomings. Pinker’s latest book is Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.

In the Spiel, why it should be worrying that the California Democratic Party snubbed Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

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