Daum's latest book, The Problem with Everything, is, in part, about watching the culture change around her, something she calls "a moment of profound cognitive dissonance." Values that were once solidly the purview of the left—the importance of transgressive art and comedy, the need for due process, an almost pathological defense of free speech—have been abandoned by the very people who once defended them and co-opted by the political right. It's a shift that Daum is concerned about, to put it lightly. "There is no room for nuance right now. Instead, we see a lot of purity-policing and authoritarianism," Daum says. "The similarities between the Christian right and the woke left are pretty striking. Except the Christian right at least has the concept of redemption. The left doesn't have that." The Problem with Everything is about herself, but it's also about culture, politics, society, how we live now, and the ever stretching divide between older generations and younger ones. by Katie Herzog