Joining us from Karachi, anthropologist Arsalan Khan assesses the mood of a country on edge. Recent elections put the powerful Pakistani military on notice: the people will not be cowed. While the establishment regroups, a growing movement for change is alleging massive fraud.

In 1972, Ms. magazine published its first issue — featuring on its cover the Hindu goddess Kali depicted as an over-taxed housewife. And in India, an exploding national film industry was challenging ideas about gender roles and social norms. Two guests join us live to discuss the feminist landscape in print and at the movies.

Evgeniya Chirikova got a knock at the door of her home in Moscow from the FSB, Russia’s national security service. They wanted to take her children away. It only supercharged her activism. And, in Ukraine, a teenager struggles to stay sane and do her part for her country.

The biggest roadblock to democratic progress in the United States may be the U.S. Constitution itself. We turn to a political theorist and a constitutional law professor — and ask them what the heck Americans can do about it.

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Weird commas and all, historian Carol Anderson says the Second Amendment was drenched from the beginning in Black blood.

The U.S. occupation in Afghanistan may be over, but every indication is that America will continue to launch targeted strikes on security threats around the world. This time, Yale historian and legal scholar Samuel Moyn makes a plea for leaders to think about how to make peace before using force.

In a tattered corner of rural Kentucky, Eduardo Porter came upon a puzzle. The New York Times journalist saw that while Harlan County was benefiting more than most places from federal tax dollars, its overwhelmingly white residents distrusted the government and feared minorities. Why?

Nativist ideology in U.S. politics — and policy — is no Trump-era invention; it dates back to the country’s founding. Immigration scholar Erika Lee walks Will and Siva through America’s spotty record as a nation of immigrants, from the Naturalization Act of 1790, which barred nonwhite people from becoming citizens, to the Trump administration’s Muslim ban in 2017.