Soviet America’s Sweethearts

If you ask friends about Red Scare, you get two types of responses. From those my age or thereabouts, ignorance (“What is it, a restaurant, a film?” replied one, a courageous best-selling author). Those who humor my urging to listen to it (it’s a podcast) are unimpressed. “Tedious gossip about people I don’t know and am not interested in,” said one after a 40-minute sampling. Millennials on the other hand often do know it. Younger journalists have insights into the differences between Anna and Dasha, their intellectual trajectories and influences. They also often admire the podcast’s impressive financial success: Red Scare is where two young women get together roughly once a week, drink wine, schmooze and giggle for 90 minutes about Page Six-type items, art world gossip, and politics, broadcast it on the internet, and net healthy six-figure incomes for their efforts.