Overview of We Can Do Hard Things
This episode centers on Anand Giridharadas’ book Man in the Mirror and uses the killing of Jordan Neely on a New York City subway as a lens for understanding America’s deepest political and moral fractures. The conversation argues that the incident was rapidly turned into a symbol by both the right and the left, revealing how fear, abandonment, dehumanization, and the collapse of shared civic trust shape modern American life. At its core, the episode asks: can we still see other people as fully human, especially when we feel unsafe, angry, or abandoned ourselves?
The Subway Killing as an “American Rorschach Test”
What happened
- Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old Black man in crisis, entered an F train and began yelling that he was hungry, thirsty, and ready to die.
- Daniel Penny, a former Marine, restrained Neely in a chokehold from behind.
- Neely was held after the train stopped and after most passengers had left, and he later died. The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide caused by neck compression.
Why it became so politically charged
- Before any trial or full fact-finding, the event was immediately transformed into a cultural and ideological symbol.
- On the right, Penny was cast as a heroic protector standing in for a state that had failed to keep people safe.
- On the left, Neely was framed as a neglected, vulnerable Black man destroyed by a society that criminalizes and dehumanizes the unhoused and mentally ill.
The deeper point
- Giridharadas argues the story became a mirror: what people saw in it revealed what they already believed about crime, race, public safety, urban life, and state failure.
- The episode emphasizes that the case cannot be understood only as a simple moral binary.
Jordan Neely, Daniel Penny, and the Gray Area Everyone Avoids
Jordan Neely’s life context
- Neely had experienced severe trauma early in life, including the brutal murder of his mother.
- He later developed schizophrenia and cycled through New York’s broken systems of shelters, hospitals, and the subway.
- He was also a Michael Jackson impersonator who brought joy and charm before his illness worsened.
The legal and moral complexity
- The prosecution’s case did not claim Penny acted with obvious malicious intent from the outset.
- Instead, it argued that Penny went too far and kept holding Neely long after the immediate threat had passed.
- Giridharadas highlights that this is one of the most difficult issues in public life:
- How do we respond to people in crisis?
- When does protection become cruelty?
- When does autonomy become abandonment?
The episode’s key ethical tension
- The conversation resists both extremes:
- The far-right impulse to remove or punish people in distress.
- The overly simplistic progressive instinct to say “just let them be free,” even when illness has made self-care impossible.
- The result is a call for a third path that acknowledges both dignity and responsibility.
Democracy, Abandonment, and the Collapse of Shared Reality
The central political idea
- Giridharadas argues that both sides of American politics share a common feeling: abandonment.
- People believe:
- no one is coming,
- the system is rigged,
- institutions are failing them,
- and they are on their own.
Why that matters
- When people stop trusting collective systems, they become more open to:
- vigilante logic,
- political violence,
- tribalism,
- and demagogues who promise clarity and strength.
- The episode suggests that democracy requires a different mental habit:
- curiosity,
- self-restraint,
- willingness to understand others,
- and refusal to reduce people into caricatures.
A broader warning
- The hosts and guest connect this subway case to a wider American pattern:
- hardening into camps,
- treating disagreement as moral evil,
- and using fear to justify dehumanization.
- The episode argues that if we cannot think together, we will keep asking to be ruled rather than govern ourselves.
Anand Giridharadas on His Writing Process
The friend who pushed him back toward curiosity
- Giridharadas shares that a friend, Sam, confronted him about becoming more rigid and more likely to judge than understand.
- Sam urged him to return to the older habit of trying to see the humanity of everyone in a story.
The lesson
- Giridharadas says the book emerged from that challenge:
- less “placard brain,”
- less slogan and certainty,
- more inquiry and openness.
- He sees this as both a personal correction and a civic need.
The takeaway from that intervention
- Being willing to be challenged is an act of love.
- Openness is not neutrality; it is the discipline of staying curious enough to understand complicated reality.
Key Takeaways
- The Jordan Neely case is not just a crime story; it’s a story about American fear, failure, and projection.
- Both the right and the left used the case to confirm their existing worldview.
- The real issue beneath the outrage is abandonment: too many people feel the state, the city, and the system cannot or will not protect them.
- Humane responses to public disorder and mental illness require moving beyond both punishment-first and hands-off ideologies.
- Democracy depends on the ability to see other people as fully human, especially when their behavior is frightening, messy, or hard to understand.
- The episode’s larger message: reclaim curiosity, reject dehumanization, and resist the temptation to reduce every conflict to a team sport.