It’s that time of the year, when podcasts like Political Theater do their year in review. It’s a helpful frame. But 2021 in retrospect looks a lot like 2020, an extension of something that started but did not finish. 

The bitter politics of 2020 crashed into the new year with an assault on democracy on Jan. 6 and hasn’t really let up. And the COVID-19 pandemic continues to define daily life. We look back at our most enlightening conversations of the year.

Show Notes:

• Political Theater goes to ‘The Circus’
• Just how long will the Capitol be a militarized zone?
• Maybe everyone just wants to move on – Roll Call
• From COVID-19’s first wave to now, what we have learned
• Late spring fever: Congress emerges from pandemic depths
• Making sense of Congress, one year into the pandemic
• Was the sad, messy end in Afghanistan inevitable?
• Infrastructure Week: No longer a punchline
• Joe Manchin: The man of the moment