What happens when a liberal and a conservative sit down — not to debate, but to think out loud together?

In this episode of Get Me to the Gray, Paula Lehman-Ewing speaks with Josh Lewis, a CPA, government auditor, and conservative writer behind Saving Elephants, about a core political divide: whether the systems we’ve inherited are capable of correcting harm, or whether they were built to benefit some while excluding others — and therefore need to be reimagined.

Paula approaches the conversation from the perspective that questions preserving institutions that have consistently failed marginalized communities. Josh argues from a conservative framework that imperfect institutions may still be the most durable tools for reform. Together, they explore urgency versus restraint, reform versus rupture, and who bears the cost of change.

Note: There will be no new episode next Tuesday due to our live Get Me to the Gray event in Denver. If you’re local, we’d love to see you there. Tickets are available at tinyurl.com/COJAEvents. The recording from that conversation will be released here in two weeks.

What do we do when the stories we tell about violence stop helping us solve it?

In this episode of Get Me to the Gray, Paula Lehman-Ewing sits down with criminologist David M. Kennedy to confront one of the most uncomfortable questions in public life: how do we reduce violence without falling into either punishment-for-punishment’s-sake or denial that harm is happening at all?

The conversation unfolds inside a tension most people avoid. On one side is the instinct to respond to violence with overwhelming force. On the other is the belief that structural change alone will eventually make violence disappear. Kennedy argues that both approaches miss what’s actually happening on the ground — and that the truth lives in the space between them.
To learn more about David Kennedy and focussed deterrence, visit nnscommunities.org.

This episode is about getting to the heart of what capitalism and socialism mean and how no true example of either actually exists.

In this episode of Get Me to the Gray, Paula Lehman-Ewing sits down with economist Doug Cardell for a candid, unscripted conversation that cuts through ideology and into reality. Together, they explore how capitalism and socialism are often treated as fixed, opposing systems—despite the fact that no true version of either exists in practice. What emerges is a conversation about power, implementation, and the gap between economic theory and lived experience.

Rather than debating labels, this episode examines how systems actually function, who benefits from the way they’re structured, and why so many political arguments get stuck before they ever reach substance. It’s a conversation about tension, assumptions, and what happens when ideas meet the real world.

Doug's book Why Socialism Struggles is now available for purchase, and you can learn more about him at DougCardell.com.

Welcome to Get Me to the Gray. This episode is the trailer.

Hosted by journalist and author Paula Lehman-Ewing, the show creates space for conversations many of us avoid—across deep disagreement, uncertainty, and difference. This isn’t debate or performance, but dialogue that stays in the room when things get hard.

Full episodes launch soon. Follow the show to be part of it from the beginning.