The comedian and actor Robby Hoffman, known for her role on the HBO show “Hacks” and her début Netflix comedy special, “Wake Up,” joins Tyler Foggatt at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival, in Seattle, for a conversation about social class and politics. Growing up as one of ten kids, Hoffman developed a world view that has never fit neatly into the left-vs.-right political dichotomy, and instead focusses her comedy on what she believes is the real defining divide in America: the rich versus the poor. “Classism is the conversation. The haves versus the have nots is the conversation. How much worse does it need to get for you to realize that’s what it’s all been about?” Hoffman says. She and Foggatt also discuss why Hoffman thinks Republicans and Democrats are often more alike than different, and why Donald Trump’s form of humor has given him a political advantage.

This week’s reading:

• “Chronicle of a Disaster Foretold,” by David Remnick
• “The Torture Chamber of British Politics Crushes Its Latest Prime Minister,” by Sam Knight
• “How the Trump Administration Pushed Judges to Deport Children,” by E. Tammy Kim
• “Who Is the Real Kevin Warsh?,” by John Cassidy
• “The Teen Believers in a Christian America,” by Eliza Griswold
• “J. D. Vance’s Contemptuous Conversion Memoir,” by Jessica Winter

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