The Gist

If aliens came to Earth looking for a dystopian novel that reflected the current political reality, would you recommend that they read The Handmaid’s Tale? Guest host Alexandra Petri considers this quandary with Mallory Ortberg, Slate’s Dear Prudence advice columnist. In the Spiel, it’s time to talk about United Airlines.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joe Swanberg and Jake Johnson have made a couple of can’t-miss indie films in the last few years, including Drinking Buddies, Digging for Fire, and the new poker comedy Win It All. The collaborators talk about improv, making a believable world on-screen, and Jake’s unusual leading man role on the Fox sitcom New Girl.  In the Spiel, Mike rounds up some news that fell through the cracks this week.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David Letterman was full of contradictions. He hated celebrity, but he hosted a talk show. He was playful, but he never seemed to be enjoying himself. In The Last Giant of Late Night, reporter Jason Zinoman explores the many facets of Letterman’s art, and how the TV landscape has suffered without him.  In the Spiel, the real stories behind the fall of Alabama’s governor, the Wells Fargo clawback, and one teenager’s quest for free chicken nuggets.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Slate’s Osita Nwanevu defended the actions of Middlebury College students to silence visiting speaker Charles Murray last month. If we consider some opinions to be beyond the pale of acceptability, who’s to say that the students were wrong in putting Murray’s past writings in that category? Nwanevu is an editorial assistant at Slate.  In the Spiel: If you really think about it, Bill O’Reilly is a lot like Bashar al-Assad. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What does President Trump want to achieve with Thursday’s escalation of force against Syria? Fred Kaplan considers all the angles, including this one: Ordering a strike against a single Syrian air base was one of the lesser military actions President Trump could have approved. Kaplan writes the War Stories column for Slate.  In the Spiel, like a clueless boyfriend in a zip-up sweater, Trump went to Jared.  Join Slate Plus! Members get bonus segments, exclusive member-only podcasts, and more. Sign up for a free trial today at slate.com/gistplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Chicago Cubs used to be the Susan Lucci of baseball. Now they’re looking more like Meryl Streep. As a fan, how do you become accustomed to winning? Scott Simon has written a memoir about his life as a too-devoted Cubs fan and how he’s adjusting to life as a winner. Simon is also the host of Weekend Edition Sunday from NPR. In the Spiel, we bid farewell to a beloved, deeply tender jerk.  Join Slate Plus! Members get bonus segments, exclusive member-only podcasts, and more. Sign up for a free trial today at Slate.com/gistplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In The Discovery, director Charlie McDowell imagines a world where the afterlife has been proven, and a man played by Jason Segel is trying to negotiate the emotional consequences. McDowell says he was out to make a kind of “grounded sci-fi,” in the vein of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. “It’s not focused on a futuristic look or society,” says McDowell. “It’s a backdrop for exploring the characters.” The Discovery premiered on Netflix on Friday.  In the Spiel, one question, and one question only, about chemical weapons in Syria.  Join Slate Plus! Members get bonus segments, exclusive member-only podcasts, and more. Sign up for a free trial today at slate.com/gistplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tabitha Soren is not a natural baseball fan. She got interested when her husband, Michael Lewis, was working on his book Moneyball. As Lewis became obsessed with teaching his readers another way to watch the game, Soren focused on showing people how to see the players in a different way: as fallible and broken people who sacrifice their bodies for a chance to play in the major leagues. The result is Fantasy Life, a 15-year span of photographs of a group of minor league draft picks for the Oakland A’s. In the Spiel, yeah, we’re having a hard time understanding this whole “unmasking” business, too. Join Slate Plus! Members get bonus segments, exclusive member-only podcasts, and more. Sign up for a free trial today at slate.com/gistplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Trump was the chaos candidate, but he’s finding little success as the chaos president. He’s turned off Democrats and the Freedom Caucus, failed to pass a new health care law, and faced blockades in the courts against his travel ban. We call up veteran GOP strategist Mike Murphy to discuss the impossible spot the White House is in, and why Democrats shouldn’t blockade Neil Gorsuch. Murphy’s podcast is Radio Free GOP. In the Spiel, checkin’ in with the Trump base. Join Slate Plus! Members get bonus segments, exclusive member-only podcasts, and more. Sign up for a free trial today at slate.com/gistplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After a long hiatus, the groundbreaking comedy show Mystery Science Theatre 3000 returns to piteously mock the worst movies ever made. Show creator Joel Hodgson and new head writer Elliott Kalan (The Daily Show) explain how to get some tiny pleasure out of cinematic garbage. The show returns on Netflix April 14.  In the Spiel, why Melissa McCarthy will never keep up with relentless self-parody artist Sean Spicer.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why does Russia find NATO so deeply offensive? Tom Nichols says it comes down to something quite human. NATO represents all of the successes that Russia couldn’t quite manage to achieve: “Part of the reason Russians hate NATO is because Russia just doesn’t have any friends in the world.” Nichols is a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College. He’ll be back on the show soon to discuss his new book, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters. In the Spiel, there was some damn fine inquiry on the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Our resident debunker of nonsense, Maria Konnikova, returns to take on the billion-dollar homeopathy industry. Why aren’t homeopathic remedies regulated in the United States? And what can their dubious history tell us about their effectiveness? Maria Konnikova is a contributing writer at the New Yorkerand the author of The Confidence Game.  In the Spiel, watching CNN go haywire for a pretty banal accident on Capitol Hill. Today’s sponsors: Green Mountain Coffee. Green Mountain Coffee is passionate about making a smoother-tasting cup. Try it today with $4 off, when you buy two boxes of most Green Mountain Coffee K-Cup pods at keurig.comwith code TRYGMC. Stamps.com. Buy and print official U.S. postage using your own computer and printer. Get a four-week trial plus postage and a digital scale when you go to Stamps.com, click on the Microphone at the top of the home page, and type in THEGIST. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two Whig presidents were elected by the American people—Zachary Taylor and William Henry Harrison. They lasted a grand total of one year and five months. The Whigs cracked up in the 1850s over intense policy divisions. Now, many historians are drawing parallels between the Whigs then and the Republicans now. Philip Wallach recently penned an essay for the Brookings Institution about what can be learned by the last major political party death in America. Plus, a visit to Vexillology Corner with Ted Kaye, who explains why you can’t cheat in your flag design by trimming the ends off. Kaye is the author of the book Good Flag, Bad Flag. In the Spiel, the greatest presidential broken promise in history. Today’s sponsors: Green Mountain Coffee. Green Mountain Coffee is passionate about making a smoother-tasting cup. Try it today with $4 off, when you buy two boxes of most Green Mountain Coffee K-Cup pods at keurig.comwith code TRYGMC. Harry’s. Get the close, comfortable shave you deserve. Sign up at Harrys.com/Gist

How much time did you spend on an anti-boredom gadget today? We watch entire seasons of television in a day, we scroll through infinite streams of social media, and we are transfixed by games designed as deftly as slot machines. Adam Alter says it’s time to consider measures that will help everyone to cut back. His book is called Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked. For the Spiel, your leggings have become a problem. Today’s sponsor: Betterment,an automated investing service that makes investing easy. For a limited time, sign up for Betterment and you may qualify for a free Canary home security system to help secure your home. Visit Betterment.com/gist for more details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alyssa Mastromonaco served as White House deputy chief of staff under Barack Obama. Her job was expansive—covering everything from interviewing James Comey to making sure the White House driveway was re-paved[AM1] . Now, she’s written a memoir, Who Thought This Was a Good Idea? And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House. In the Spiel, Republicans weren’t able to come up with a better plan than “Obamacare bad.” Failure was inevitable. Today’s sponsors: Green Mountain Coffee. Green Mountain Coffee is passionate about making a smoother-tasting cup. Try it today with $4 off when you buy two boxes of most Green Mountain Coffee K-Cup pods at Keurig.comwith code TRYGMC. Policy Genius. Shop and compare all the top-rated life insurance companies in one place. Go to PolicyGenius.com today to save more than 40 percent off other prices for life insurance. Join Slate Plus! Members get bonus segments, exclusive member-only podcasts, and more. Sign up for a free trial today at Slate.com/

Why does it feel like our political debate was brought to us by the National Lampoon? Sonny Bunch applies his powers of cultural analysis to the changing face of political conservativism. Bunch is executive editor of the Washington Free Beacon, where he also writes film criticism.  In the Spiel, Devin Nunes really messed this thing up, huh? Today’s sponsors: Control GX gray-reducing shampoo is the FIRST shampoo that gradually reduces gray. It reduces gray a little with each shampoo. It’s easy to use and provides subtle, natural-looking results. Green Mountain Coffee. Green Mountain Coffee is passionate about making a smoother-tasting cup. Try it today with $4 off, when you buy two boxes of most Green Mountain Coffee K-Cup pods at keurig.comwith code TRYGMC. Join Slate Plus! Members get bonus segments, exclusive member-only podcasts, and more. Sign up for a free trial today at slate.com/gistplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With hours to go before the official vote on Trumpcare, the bill is being altered to make sure moderates in Buffalo and Freedom Caucus members in South Carolina stay onboard. [MW1] Any chance this Frankenstein bill will fail? Slate columnists Jim Newell and Jordan Weissmann look at the costs and politics of the American Health Care Act ahead of Thursday’s consequential House vote. For the Spiel, let’s try to be fair to Donald Trump. Just for a moment. It’s going to be hard, but dammit we’ll try. Today’s sponsors: The Great Courses Plus, a video learning service that offers lectures on all kinds of topics. Get a free trial when you sign up by going toTheGreatCoursesPlus.com/gist. Rocket Mortgage from Quicken Loans.When it comes to the big decision of choosing a mortgage lender, work with one that has your best interests in mind. Use Rocket Mortgage for a transparent, trustworthy home loan process that’s completely online at QuickenLoans.com/gist. Join Slate Plus! Members get bonus segments, exclusive member-on

What did we learn from Monday’s public testimony of FBI Director James Comey? National security ace Ben Wittes says Comey’s statements were intriguingly “gentle,” though they should still distress the president. Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare and a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. For the Spiel, Neil Gorsuch talks about a pointless race he once did and quotes David Foster Wallace, but doesn’t talk about his judicial philosophy. Today’s sponsors: ZipRecruiter. Post your job listing to all the top job sites with a single click. Try it for free by going to ZipRecruiter.com/gist. Green Mountain Coffee. Green Mountain Coffee is passionate about making a smoother tasting cup. Try it today with $4 off when you buy two boxes of most Green Mountain Coffee K-Cup pods at keurig.com with code TRYGMC. Join Slate Plus! Members get bonus segments, exclusive member-only podcasts, and more. Sign up for a free trial today at slate.com/gistplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podc

Wendy Zukerman isn’t like some other science reporters in that she doesn’t traffic in false equivalencies. “If there’s a 95 percent consensus among scientists, you report the consensus,” says Zukerman. Her podcast, Science Vs., is on its second season. The topics this year range from immigration and climate change to acne and ghosts. For the Spiel, you know that new sound you’ve been looking for? Well, Mike’s got it right here. Today’s sponsors: Stamps.com. Buy and print official U.S. postage using your own computer and printer. Sign up for Stamps.com and get a four-week trial plus postage and a digital scale when you use promo code THEGIST. Blue Apron. Create delicious home-cooked meals with fresh ingredients delivered right to your door. Get your first three meals free when you go to BlueApron.com/gist. Join Slate Plus! Members get bonus segments, exclusive member-only podcasts, and more. Sign up for a free trial today at slate.com/gistplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoic

Slate senior legal correspondent Dahlia Lithwick walks us through the next steps for Donald Trump’s revised travel ban. Some judges may not use Trump’s campaign rhetoric in their rulings; however, “Every time Trump opens his mouth, he makes it harder,” says Lithwick. She also discusses next week's confirmation hearings of Neil Gorsuch. Besides covering the courts for Slate, Lithwick is the host of the Amicus podcast. In the Spiel, it’s Lobstar time. Today’s sponsors: Green Mountain Coffee is passionate about making a smoother-tasting cup. Try it today with $4 off, when you buy two boxes of most Green Mountain Coffee K-Cup pods at keurig.com with codeTRYGMC. Unpacked, a new Spotify original podcast that explores some of the planet’s hottest events. First up? Austin, Texas, for South by Southwest. Listen to Unpacked and all your favorite music on the Spotify mobile app for free now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices