The Daily · The New York Times

'The Interview': Rebecca Solnit Says the Left's Next Hero Is Already Here

March 7, 2026·39 min·3 clips

Rebecca Solnit reveals how the far right's fury proves feminism and queer rights have profoundly changed the world.

Rebecca Solnit opens by connecting her new book to her earlier work Hope in the Dark and A Field Guide to Getting Lost, noting that both were written against the cultural tendency to want certainty and control in a world that is never fully knowable. She argues that despair and amnesia go hand in hand: people who feel the world is only getting worse are typically people who lack historical context, who think in increments of months or a year rather than decades or centuries. Solnit reads the far-right backlash as confirmation of left progress rather than evidence of left failure, noting that the conservative fury over feminism, reproductive rights, queer rights, racial equality, and environmental regulation implicitly acknowledges how profoundly those movements have changed the world. She draws a geographic correction to US-centric despair, noting that while the US overturned Roe v. Wade, Catholic countries like Argentina, Mexico, Ireland, and Spain simultaneously expanded abortion rights, showing that the story depends on what scale you use. She explicitly rejects inevitability, arguing that recognizing the future does not yet exist is a tool against defeatism, because it means the present contains real choices rather than predetermined outcomes. She pushes back against fatalistic cynicism, which she frames as a false claim to knowledge that actually abandons real present-tense power. Marchese raises a George Shalaba essay about the value of conservative traditions in maintaining social trust, and Solnit responds by locating a different source of deep traditions in indigenous cultures, matriarchal societies, and pre-patriarchal stories that predate Christianity and offer an alternative foundation for stability. She returns repeatedly to the theme that hopeful people are not naive but are operating from a more accurate accounting of historical complexity, while pessimists often mistake a short-term bad data point for a comprehensive judgment about the direction of history. Solnit also discusses who the left's next hero might be, arguing that movements matter more than individual leaders and that there are many effective organizers already operating below media visibility.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Daily