The Good Fight
Yascha Mounk
Subscribe
The podcast that searches for the ideas, policies and strategies that can beat authoritarian populism.
www.persuasion.community
Available episodes
Newest first
Oldest first
1 day ago
Why Erdoğan Won
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
May 27, 2023
Jason Furman on the Future of the World Economy
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
May 20, 2023
Will Humanity Survive AI?
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
May 13, 2023
Israel’s Democratic Crisis
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
May 6, 2023
William Deresiewicz on the “Excellent Sheep” of the American Elite
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Apr 29, 2023
Ed Luce on an America—and a World—Divided
Ed Luce is the US national editor and columnist at the Financial Times. He is also a member of the Persuasion board of advisors.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Ed Luce discuss the prospects for Trump (and Trumpism) in the near future; why America no longer feels like a “can-do” nation; and whether America can defend its values in the world while avoiding escalation with China.
The views expressed are those of the speakers, not those of Persuasion. The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Mounk: I've been looking forward to our conversation, but I have been slightly depressed about one thing and I want you to lift me out of my depression (or aggravate it, I suppose, as you choose). During the Trump years, there was a lot of fear about what might happen. But there was also hope that if we beat this guy decisively in 2020 we'll turn a corner.
But over two years into the Biden administration, the Republican Party is continuing to get more extreme. Trumpism is spreading through the party. Even his rivals are sort of pretending to be the smarter Trump, or a more effective Trump, or Trump-lite. And it doesn't look like the Democratic Party is seizing the strategic opening to actually become the dominant political party. Will we ever get out of this kind of existential mode of combat?
Ed Luce: This sense that it's always the next election, and that's when we'll finally end the fever, as Obama once described the Tea Party (which now seem like very tame sort of house pets compared to what what to where we are today), is probably a little bit of wishful thinking. A lot of my friends on the more liberal side of the spectrum have an expectation that if the nominee is Trump, then that's the best thing for Biden, because Biden will be beaten by a younger person. But I have to say, although they're probably correct, I feel extremely strong déjà vu from similar conversations in 2015, where people were saying, “Now, if only Hillary could actually get Trump as her opponent, then all will be fine!” And of course, we know what happened. I feel there's a little bit of that complacency visible today. I start with the premise in today's America, that elections, presidential elections are 50-50 events. Now, maybe they're 53-47 for a moderate sort of mainstream incumbent like Biden. But they're still too close to feel remotely comfortable.
I guess your question is how long that tail end risk will go on, whether a second Trump defeat (and a third, in terms of the popular vote) would end this cycle in American politics. And I very much doubt it. We're not going to go back to the party of Jeb Bush. The question is whether there are going to be more electable versions of Trump, which is why I think that the person to fear here would be Glenn Youngkin, who has all the same views—maybe pragmatically, maybe he doesn't deep down. But who really cares? It's what people articulate in public that we measure. Glenn Youngkin has all the same views, but he gives the appearance of being a suburban dad. He's reassuring. That's more the future of the Republican Party post-Trump if Trump loses.
Mounk: One of the things that I do worry about is a tendency to start with Trump, declare that he's a terrible threat to the institutions of his country, which I believe, and then sort of come up with various reasons why any alternative to him would be just as bad: DeSantis is just as authoritarian but more electable and Youngkin—I haven't studied him very closely—strikes me as somebody who might disagree on important policy grounds and have important divergences to that but wouldn't be a threat to the basic institutions of the American republic in the kind of way in which Trump clearly is and DeSantis possibly (perhaps, probably) is.
Do we get to a point where we're just not willing to accept any Republican candidate as legitimate?
Ed Luce: I sort of start from the premise that if you do not reject the stolen election theory of January 2021, which Glenn Youngkin and Ron DeSantis do not, then you have already shown yourself capable of challenging some of the basic norms of democracy. Now, that might be an expedient thing that they would quickly drop or try to make people forget in a post-Trump era. Maybe that's too unrealistic a benchmark to apply to any Republican with any ambition in today's still-Trump party. But I do consider it to be a pretty bad sign of where they're prepared to go. And then if you look at the fact that the Supreme Court [has heard on] a case that will determine the independent state legislature theory which would give legislatures the authority, unchallenged by local courts, to essentially pick alternative slates of electors. And if you look at the more sort of organized, beyond Trump, attempts to really manipulate the electoral system. I'm not that confident that this—what Tom Edsall calls minority authoritarianism—goes deeper than Trump. And I think Trump himself is, in some respects, a prisoner of Trumpism. Remember him trying to boast about what should have been his biggest bragging right, the vaccine, the single biggest accomplishment of his administration (not a long list, I admit, but a very significant item). He just stopped talking about it.
Mounk: There was an amazing moment, I think it was briefly after he lost office. He was talking about the vaccine in positive terms to a conservative audience, and he was booed.
Luce: He more than anybody knows how you measure the crowd, how you take its temperature. He took the temperature, and he hasn’t boasted about it since. Now, of course, he, like every member of the Murdoch family and every Fox News executive and anchor, have not just been double vaccinated, but triple, probably quadruple boosted by now. But it's remarkable that this singular accomplishment—which you can make a plausible argument would have been far more difficult to achieve at that speed in a Democratic administration—has been robbed from him. And there are others where Trump just sort of drops his line. That would suggest to me that the MAGA base is more autonomous from Trump than we might credit.
Mounk: In the early part of your remarks, it sounded to me like you were saying we might actually get to a kind of post-Trump politics, but now it sounds like you think that's very unlikely.
I think there's two parts of the story: the Trumpist Republican Party going to the extremes and the Democratic Party being so unappealing to the American electorate that, while they have won seven out of the last eight presidential elections in terms of popular vote and so on, they’ve always done so very narrowly. We're just not able to go beyond that narrow majority to the kind of victories which would force the Republican Party back to the negotiating table and force it to reform itself. If you're just completely out of office everywhere for a long time, eventually, you’ve got to move on. But the Republican Party hasn't needed to.
Luce: If you look at American history, modern-ish American history, where are the points at which there are such deep rebukes from the electorate that the party changes? You think of Hoover's Republicans being defeated by Roosevelt's New Deal coalition in 1932. You think of Barry Goldwater's defeat in 1964. And you think of McGovern and the whole sort of liberal, antiwar, peacenik Democratic direction being ended by that, leading to Carter and then, ultimately, Clintonism.
Those defeats were massive by American standards. In terms of public opinion, 60-40 kinds of elections. But in terms of the Electoral College, we're talking about sweeping the board. I think Goldwater won his home state of Arizona and five Deep South states. Dukakis, I think only [ten] states. Those kinds of defeats in American history do lead to quite big ideological realignments of the defeated party. I just don't see that scale of defeat possible in the next electoral cycle. This society is…
playlist_add
Apr 22, 2023
Timothy Garton Ash on Europe, Past and Present
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Apr 15, 2023
Ben Ansell on Why Politics Fail
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Apr 8, 2023
Murtaza Hussain on How Immigrant and Minority Voters are Misunderstood
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Apr 1, 2023
Matthew Goodwin on Why the Last Decade of Politics Has Been So Bizarre
Matthew Goodwin is Professor of Politics at the University of Kent. He is the author, most recently, of Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Matthew Goodwin discuss the left’s transition from a focus on the working class to college-educated professionals; how leaders like Tony Blair and Bill Clinton were able to broaden their electoral tents in the 1990s; and why the “cultural dimension” of politics isn’t going away.
The views expressed are those of the speakers, not those of Persuasion. The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: For the last few years I've been trying to think through the very significant change in the partisan alignment of the left and the right in most Western democracies, and perhaps particularly in Britain and the United States.
Why is it that 40 or 50 years ago, if I wanted to know who votes for Labour or the Conservatives, or for the Democrats or the Republicans, I could ask them straightforward questions about economics, the welfare state and taxation, and today, it feels like the answer to those kinds of questions doesn't correlate very clearly with whether you vote for Labour or Conservatives or Democrats or Republicans. What happened?
Matthew Goodwin: I think two things have happened. On the demand side of politics, we've seen the rise of what political scientists often call the “cultural dimension” in politics. Particularly from the 1980s onwards, we've seen the rise of globalization, high rates of migration, and ethnic and demographic change pushing through new issues relating to identity and culture which have become far more salient and are now expressed in the emerging debates over so-called “cultural war” topics but are really questions that are much more about “Who are we?” rather than “What do we have?”
But secondly, I think the supply side has changed as well. Some parties have simply been much better than others at appealing across those traditional party lines. If you look, for example, at Britain's Conservatives during the Brexit wars, if you look at Trump's Republicans, some conservatives have been very in tune with this unfolding realignment and they've been very adept at exploiting it and pulling it into politics. And some politicians, mainly on the left but not exclusively, have been, in my view, very bad at understanding how the tectonic shifts of politics have been changing. They've remained very wedded to this view, largely left over from the Industrial Revolution, that the foundation of politics is mainly about class and redistribution, and they have been very reluctant to enter into these new debates about identity and culture. Now that is beginning to change. You look at center-left leaders like Keir Starmer, and you look at how they change their positioning on issues like Brexit, patriotism, and defense; how Joe Biden has positioned himself on some issues, which are clearly designed to reconnect with working class, non-college-graduate voters that the Democrats have lost. You're beginning to see changes now on the supply side on the left. But, essentially, politics has become two-dimensional. It's not just left and right, it's now left and right and liberal and conservative. And that's pushed us into this new space. And it's created lots of opportunities for new insurgents, green parties, and populists. But it's also made it harder for the established parties to really respond to that.
That to me is essentially the story of the last 50 to 75 years in the politics of many Western democracies: we've left that first era of classic left and right politics, and we've entered into this new second era from the 1980s. And we're still living in that.
Mounk: One way of telling the story is to think about two “dilemmas.” The first dilemma was formulated by Adam Przeworski, an accomplished political scientist, when he pointed out that the Labour Party and the Democrats were trying to broaden their electoral tent from being mostly based on the working class to getting more and more of the vote in the professional managerial class.
What was the nature of that dilemma? And why do you think that to understand what's going on today, we have to think about a “second dilemma?”
Goodwin: In the 1980s, academics, politicians, and activists realized that the left was facing this very difficult dilemma between holding onto the traditional working class, which at that point, especially in democracies like Britain, was mainly white, and simultaneously reaching out to a more affluent, socially mobile and increasingly university-educated middle class. That tension really dominated left politics from the 1980s through to the 2010s. It still remains with us today, and those two groups have really been pushed apart not only by their economic experiences but by the fact that they hold fundamentally different sets of cultural values. We saw that in Britain, most noticeably during Brexit, when you have 150 Labour-held seats where voters decided to leave the European Union—were much more culturally conservative than many of their middle class, university-educated Labour MPs. And of course, you saw it with lots of areas that ended up flipping from Democrat to Republican in order to vote for Donald Trump.
That first dilemma still today remains very salient for left parties. But it's been joined by this second dilemma. One of my frustrations with my left progressive colleagues is that, historically, they've often argued that we can basically circumvent that first dilemma by doubling down on this notion that “demography is destiny;” that, basically, left parties can essentially not worry so much about the white working class because they are accumulating more and more support among groups that are on the rise—the graduate class, minority ethnic voters, and urban voters. Then you saw this in books like America Ascendant by Stanley Greenberg. You've seen it in arguments by prominent journalists. Jeremy Cliffe and others have talked about the “Londonization” of the country—that, actually, the future is with this newly ascendant emerging alliance of middle class graduates and minority voters, and that’s perhaps [even more true] in the United States. Ruy Teixeira was one of the leading voices arguing for this rising Democratic electorate.
Mounk: But his thesis has often been overstated and misunderstood by Democratic politicians and strategists, and in the pages of Persuasion, on this podcast, and in many other fora including The Liberal Patriot, he has now become the principal critic of this set of assumptions. Ruy is a very interesting figure in both helping this thesis get a larger audience but also in pointing out the flaws of a sort of simplistic reading of it that ended up being so influential in the world of Democratic politics.
Goodwin: And I should add that I'm a big fan of his work. What that narrative lost sight of—firstly, it exaggerated, as you say, the pace of social and demographic change. These groups were not growing as quickly as many people thought they were. And one of the reasons why Boris Johnson, for example, was able to win the largest majority for any Conservative since the days of Margaret Thatcher was because many of the sort of very strong ‘Remain’ voters who wanted Britain to stay in the European Union, who loathed everything about Boris Johnson, many of these university graduates and also minority voters concentrated in the same types of areas—in the big cities and university towns. And in the first-past-the-post system, you need to build that widespread support. You don't want narrow, concentrated support. So the narrative also overlooks the importance of geography.
But it also overlooks the growing divergence in the policy preferences of white graduate liberals, on the one hand, and minority working class voters on the other. They do look at a…
playlist_add
Mar 25, 2023
Martin Wolf on the Crisis of Democratic Capitalism
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Mar 18, 2023
Jonathan Greenblatt on Anti-Semitism
Jonathan Greenblatt is the national director of the Anti-Defamation League. Greenblatt previously served in the Obama White House as Special Assistant and Director of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. He is the author of It Could Happen Here: Why America Is Tipping from Hate to the Unthinkable-And How We Can Stop It.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Jonathan Greenblatt discuss the rising threat of antisemitism in the United States; the link between strong liberal democratic institutions and the safety of minority populations; as well as how to draw the line between antisemitism and legitimate criticisms of the Israeli government.
The views expressed are those of the speakers, not those of Persuasion. The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: Anti-Semitism is a topic that we’ve thought about for centuries, and, yet, it seems new to each political context; its contours always shift. What's different about an…
playlist_add
Mar 11, 2023
Frans de Waal on Chimpanzee—and Human—Politics
Frans de Waal is a Dutch-American primatologist and the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Primate Behavior in the Department of Psychology at Emory University. He is the author of, among other books, Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes and Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Frans de Waal discuss how primate empathy forms the basis for human morality; the precedent for diversity in human gender and gender roles that exists in non-human primates; and why, despite attempts to separate human behavior from human biology, you can’t have one without the other.
The views expressed are those of the speakers, not those of Persuasion. The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: Why should we study primates to understand human society and human behavior? What is it that we can understand about ourselves by studying these cognate species?
Frans de Waal: We are primates. We are s…
playlist_add
Mar 4, 2023
Matthias Matthijs on the Future of Europe
Matthias Matthijs is Associate Professor of International Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and Senior Fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Matthias Matthijs discuss Germany’s Zeitenwende and why the country has found greater success than its European peers in countering right-wing populism; the spoiler potential of the European right-wing from Giorgia Meloni to Viktor Orbán; and why, despite the long road ahead, Matthijs remains optimistic about the European project.
The views expressed are those of the speakers, not those of Persuasion. The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: My sense is that Europe has felt like a stagnant or even declining continent for a long time. It faces both a real security challenge with the war in Ukraine and, in a way, the obsolescence of its geostrategic geopolitical model of the last decades…
playlist_add
Feb 25, 2023
Vincent Lloyd on What Happens When “Antiracism” Goes Wrong
Vincent Lloyd is a Professor and Director of Africana Studies at Villanova University. His latest book is Black Dignity: The Struggle against Domination.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Vincent Lloyd discuss how his summer school seminar on black history was derailed by the language of “harm”; how well-intentioned efforts at contemplating past and present injustice can devolve into dogma and bullying; and how we might more effectively work to bring about racial justice.
The views expressed are those of the speakers, not those of Persuasion. The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Mounk: Your name came to my attention because three different people sent me an article that you wrote. I've since looked into your work, which is very interesting.
Tell me about this experience you had of teaching at the Telluride summer school, which is a very prestigious program for high school students to spend a summer studying texts and living together. I…
playlist_add
Feb 18, 2023
Rachel Kleinfeld on Why America Isn’t About to Have a Civil War
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Feb 11, 2023
Ro Khanna on the Progressive Case for Patriotism and Capitalism
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Feb 4, 2023
Richard Haass on Where America Went Wrong
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Jan 28, 2023
Matt Bennett on The Democrats’ Image Problem
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Jan 21, 2023
Charles Kenny on the Material Progress of the Developing World
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Jan 14, 2023
Bart Somers on Sustaining Diverse Cities in Tough Circumstances
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Jan 7, 2023
Tabata Amaral on Brazil’s Future
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Dec 24, 2022
Shadi Hamid on the Tensions Between Liberalism and Democracy
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Dec 17, 2022
The Revolt Against Iran's Theocratic Regime
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Dec 3, 2022
James Kirchick on America’s Enormous Progress on Gay Rights
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Nov 26, 2022
Danielle Allen on the Enduring Relevance of the Constitution
Danielle Allen is the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, where she also directs the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics. Her forthcoming book is Justice By Means of Democracy.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Danielle Allen discuss why the great American political texts of the 18th century can still inspire; how we can build a political system that invites more and more kinds of people to participate; and how such a form of "power-sharing liberalism" can reinvigorate our societies and promote human flourishing.
The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: The debate about liberalism, which used to be a kind of academic debate, has now become a much more urgent political debate. You have an interesting position in this debate as somebody who sees the flaws of liberalism and the need to reform it, but ultimately wants to defend it.
What are some of the things that traditional liberals got right, and wh…
playlist_add
Nov 19, 2022
Renée DiResta on How (Not) to Fix Social Media
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Nov 5, 2022
Russ Muirhead on the Enduring Appeal of Conspiracy Theory
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Oct 29, 2022
Sam Harris on Whether Religion Really Does Make Everything Worse
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Oct 22, 2022
Lis Smith on What Democrats Do Wrong
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Oct 15, 2022
Shashank Joshi on How the War in Ukraine Will End
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Oct 8, 2022
Why More and More Children are Cutting Off Their Parents
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Oct 1, 2022
Heather McGhee on Why Racial Progress is Not Zero-Sum
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Sep 24, 2022
Richard Reeves on Why Men are Struggling
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Sep 17, 2022
Robert Kagan on America’s Future, Foreign Policy Realism, and the War in Ukraine
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Sep 10, 2022
Chloé Valdary on How to be a (True) Antiracist
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Sep 3, 2022
Should Donald Trump Be Prosecuted?
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Aug 13, 2022
Coleman Hughes on How America Racializes its Citizens
Get full access to Persuasion at www.persuasion.community/subscribe
playlist_add
Aug 6, 2022
Sarah Longwell on 2024
Sarah Longwell is a Republican political strategist and publisher of The Bulwark. She is also host of the Bulwark podcast The Focus Group, which presents the broad takeaways from hundreds of hours of voter opinion focus groups across both the country and the political spectrum.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Sarah Longwell discuss which candidates from either party have a chance to break out in 2024; why neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris is the Democrats’ best choice; and how Democratic messaging can balance the existential stakes of the 2024 election with a positive vision of our economic future.
The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: You've been speaking with many focus groups over the last weeks and months about Donald Trump and the January 6th Committee hearings. Do you think that the hearings are having an impact on how Americans view him? And more broadly, how do most Americans now feel about Donald Trump?
Sarah Lo…
playlist_add
Jul 30, 2022
What an Overly Pessimistic View of America Gets Wrong
It’s not too late to sign up for the Persuasion Festival tomorrow! Come for a series of live group discussions, from Coleman Hughes on race to a panel on the state of mental health, and much more. Full lineup and registration here or by clicking the link below.
Eboo Patel is the founder of Interfaith America and the author of We Need to Build: Field Notes For Diverse Democracy. Patel also served as an advisor on faith to President Barack Obama.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Eboo Patel discuss why it’s so common for faith-based organizations to serve communities beyond their own; why Patel once embraced critical race theory but eventually moved beyond it; and the vital role of civil society organizations in the fabric of American democracy.
The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: You recently published an excerpt from your new book in The New York Times, which I thought expressed some of the spirit with which you approach…
playlist_add
Jul 23, 2022
Corey Brettschneider on Free Speech
Join us for our second annual Persuasion Festival next Sunday, the 31st! We’ll have virtual discussions on global illiberalism and on mental health, a fireside chat about misinformation, a live podcast recording with Coleman Hughes, and more. Lineup and registration here.
Corey Brettschneider is a professor of political science at Brown University, where he teaches constitutional law and political theory. He is the author of The Oath and the Office: A Guide to the Constitution for Future Presidents. He is also editor of the Penguin Liberty series, the most recent installment of which is devoted to great thinkers in the tradition of free speech.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Corey Brettschneider discuss why many Americans feel unable to speak their minds on key issues; the differences between a legal protection of free speech and a culture of free expression; and how we can build a culture that facilitates, rather than stifles, conversation on the issues which matt…
playlist_add
Jul 16, 2022
Spin Dictators
Sergei Guriev is a Russian economist. He serves as provost and professor of economics at the Instituts d'études politiques (Sciences Po) in Paris. From 2016 to 2019, he was the chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He is the co-author, with Daniel Treisman, of Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Sergei Guriev discuss why Russia’s economy failed to modernize over the last two decades; why sanctions on the Russian economy have not been as effective as hoped; and how to fight back against spin dictators (and other authoritarian leaders).
The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: There's a line that people go bankrupt very slowly, and then all at once. It strikes me there's a similar phenomenon with dictatorships and the way in which they quash the freedoms of people.
As somebody who's always been speaking out for liberal values, who…
playlist_add
Jul 9, 2022
David French on Abortion
David French is a columnist for The Atlantic and senior editor at The Dispatch. His books include Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation and The Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can't Ignore. French received a Bronze Star for service during Operation Iraqi Freedom and, as an attorney, litigated cases surrounding issues of religious and personal liberties. He is a member of Persuasion's board of advisors.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and David French discuss whether Donald Trump should be prosecuted for his actions on and before January 6th, 2021; the moral status of abortion; and why French, despite being a longstanding member of the pro-life movement, is not celebrating the demise of Roe v. Wade.
The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: How has your view of Trump's character, or your view of the extent to which he was complicit in an assault on democracy on January 6th, changed in the last month?
Dav…
playlist_add
Jul 2, 2022
Graeme Wood on January 6th, Saudi Arabia, and Interviewing Extremists
Graeme Wood is a staff writer for The Atlantic and a lecturer in political science at Yale University. He is the author of The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Graeme Wood discuss why the January 6th insurrection does not resemble other coups; his experience interviewing Mohammed bin Salman and being Richard Spencer's middle school lab partner; and the need for general interest journalists whose curiosity is not constrained by their identity.
The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: I've been a big fan of your writing and your work for a long time. We’re finally having you on the podcast to think together about the hearings of the January 6th Committee.
What do we actually know about what happened on January 6, 2020?
Graeme Wood: The main thing that we know is that many of the defenses, from the MAGA side, of what happened on January 6 are nonsense, which we kind of kne…
playlist_add
Jun 25, 2022
Do the Politics of Class and Race Stand in Tension?
Olúfẹmi Táíwò is a philosopher and an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. He is the author of Reconsidering Reparations, and his latest book is Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else).
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Olúfẹmi Táíwò discuss the difference between identifying the wrongs of the past and charting a road for progress, why we shouldn’t shy away from pursuing difficult political goals, and how we can better build movements around shared interests.
The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: I was drawn to your writing by your idea of “elite capture.” What do you worry about with elite capture in general, and what do you worry about in particular at this moment in the United States?
Olúfẹmi Táíwò: With elite capture itself, I worry there's a kind of path dependency: the longer the more entrenched elite and top heavy social institution…
playlist_add
Jun 18, 2022
Ian Bremmer on the Geopolitical Recession
Ian Bremmer, a renowned political scientist, is President and Founder of the Eurasia Group and GZERO Media. His latest book is The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats—and Our Response—Will Change the World.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Ian Bremmer discuss why Russia’s war on Ukraine has become more difficult to follow, the opportunities that crises offer for global cooperation, and how today's problems are shaping the institutions of tomorrow.
The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: At the beginning of the crisis with Ukraine, a lot of people were making the point which I think is a fair point—that everybody cares about Ukraine, but people don't care at all about Syria anymore, as with other conflicts.
I always had the fear that this was partially an optical illusion, because in the beginning we did care about Syria, but at some point, way into a very protracted, horrible, bloody war, we stopped caring. Is the same s…
playlist_add
Jun 11, 2022
What Went Wrong in Afghanistan
Yalda Hakim is a BBC World News correspondent and broadcaster. Born in Afghanistan and raised in Australia, Hakim has reported from Afghanistan for many years, often dealing directly with the Taliban. In recent months, she has also reported from western Ukraine. Her foundation offers academic and professional opportunities to Afghan girls.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Yalda Hakim discuss the dramatic changes the Afghan people have felt since the Taliban’s return to power, the parallels between Kyiv and Kabul, and the role of women in both conflicts.
The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: You've been reporting on Afghanistan for a very long time now. You were born there, though you left as a baby. Tell us what life was like in Afghanistan over the last two decades, and how the Taliban fits into that.
Yalda Hakim: In 2001, when the US-led invasion took place, Afghanistan had gone through a bitter civil war, which began aft…
playlist_add
Jun 4, 2022
🎧 Are America's Institutions Broken?
Sam Koppelman is a Democratic strategist who served as director of surrogate speechwriting on the Biden campaign. He is the author, with former Attorney General Eric Holder, of Our Unfinished March: The Violent Past and Imperiled Future of the Vote—a History, a Crisis, a Plan.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Sam Koppelman discuss the history of voting rights, how and whether to reform institutions from the electoral college to primary elections, and why Democrats are in such a weak position as they head into the midterms and 2024.
Yascha Mounk: You just published a book with Eric Holder on the history of voting rights. You cover not just the history, but also a description of the crisis and a plan.
First of all, why should people be worried about voting rights? This is not the 1960s. It's not 1870. Why is this something that readers should really worry about today?
Sam Koppelman: One of the things we did with this book was look back at the history of America, all…
playlist_add
May 28, 2022
🎧 Robert P. George on Free Speech, Philosophical Liberalism, and Conservatism After Trump
Robert P. George is an American legal scholar and political philosopher. The McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, George is considered one of the foremost conservative intellectuals in America, and advocates a theory of natural law consistent with Catholic belief. With Cornel West, he authored a statement on “Truth Seeking, Democracy, and Freedom of Thought and Expression.”
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Robert P. George discuss the political philosophy of John Rawls, why democratic republics can’t function without free speech, and what relevance the first principles of conservatism do or don't retain today.
The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: You've been writing and talking a lot about free speech and the threats to it on campus, but also in American public life more broadly. How would you describe the current situation and why should we care about it?
Robert P. George: The current situatio…
playlist_add
May 21, 2022
🎧 Adolph Reed, Jr. on Race and Class in America
Adolph Reed, Jr. is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. He has written widely about race and class and is the author, most recently, of The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives, which presents a granular look at the reality of life as he and others experienced it under Jim Crow.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Adolph Reed, Jr. discuss how the mainstream American conception of race has developed since the early 20th century, why and how much of the modern left has become “race-reductionist,” and what actions we can pursue to address both racial and economic injustice in the future.
The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: To start the conversation, I want to take a step back and get your sense of how the American mainstream view about race in intellectual circles has changed over the course of your lifetime.
Adolph Reed, Jr: That's an interesting one. I think it's changed. That change—w…
playlist_add
May 14, 2022
🎧 Thomas Piketty on Why the World Keeps Getting More Equal
Thomas Piketty is one of the foremost economists in the world, renowned for his work on wealth concentration and inequality. The author of the bestselling Capital in the Twenty-First Century, his latest book, A Brief History of Equality, focuses on the ways in which the world has become more equal over the course of the last centuries.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Thomas Piketty discuss why inequality has increased within rich countries over the course of the last few decades, how this fits into the broader history of equality, and what politicians need to do to afford greater affluence for all.
The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: I'm interested in the evolution of your thinking over the course of the last decade from Capital in the Twenty-First Century to your new book A Brief History of Equality.
Let's start at the beginning: what is the core argument of Capital, and what is the meaning of that famous slogan “r>g”…
playlist_add
May 7, 2022
🎧 David Wallace-Wells on Climate Change
David Wallace-Wells is one of the foremost journalists covering climate change. A writer at The New York Times and a columnist at The New York Times Magazine, Wallace-Wells is the author of the best-selling book The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. His New York Magazine article of the same name was the most read in the magazine’s history.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and David Wallace-Wells discuss why the worst scenarios for the future of climate outcomes have become less likely over the course of the last years; how much damage climate change is nevertheless likely to wreak; and what political, economic, and technological solutions might help humanity deal with this urgent challenge.
The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: You have written one of the best-selling books about climate change. Why should we be really concerned about climate change, in your opinion?
David Wallace-Wells: Today, where the climate seems re…
playlist_add
Apr 30, 2022
🎧 Jonathan Haidt on Why Public Discourse Has Become So Stupid
One of the world’s most influential social psychologists, a professor of ethical leadership at NYU's Stern School of Business, and a member of Persuasion's Board of Advisors, Jonathan Haidt is the author of The Righteous Mind and, with Greg Lukianoff, co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind. Haidt recently wrote a much-read feature in The Atlantic entitled “After Babel.”
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Jonathan Haidt discuss how we can make social media less toxic, what political and technological reforms might help fix the problem, and how we can empower the moderate majority to fight for its values.
The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: You've just written an interesting and—ironically—viral piece about the way in which our digital institutions have made everything in American life uniquely stupid over the last ten years, and why you're not very optimistic about that changing. Tell us the basic premise of t…
playlist_add
Apr 23, 2022
🎧 Yascha Mounk on Making Diverse Democracies Work
Yascha Mounk is a professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, a contributing writer at The Atlantic, and the founder of Persuasion. His new book, The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure, was published this week.
In this week’s conversation, Ravi Gupta and Yascha Mounk discuss why it is so hard to build diverse democracies, how we can overcome the deeply human instinct to discriminate against those unlike ourselves, and why he remains optimistic about the prospects of the “great experiment.”
This interview first appeared on The Lost Debate, a platform and podcast founded by Ravi Gupta. The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Ravi Gupta: You start The Great Experiment with this anecdote of going on German television. You got yourself into a little bit of a social media backlash. What happened?
Yascha Mounk: I started the book with being misunderstood because, of course, my e…
playlist_add
Apr 16, 2022
The Classics are for Everyone
Roosevelt Montás is Senior Lecturer in American Studies and English at Columbia University, where he was Director of the Center for the Core Curriculum from 2008 to 2018. He is the author of Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation.
In this week’s conversation, Roosevelt Montás and Yascha Mounk discuss how a copy of Plato he found atop a pile of trash as a child unlocked his future, the drawbacks of exclusively teaching material that is "culturally responsive," and how to put the ideals of liberal education into practice.
The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: You tell this moving story of how a set of books instead of offers changed your life. Tell us a little bit about your childhood and how you first came into contact with these books.
Roosevelt Montás: I was born in the Dominican Republic and came to New York in the mid 80s, as sort of the earlier part of a huge wave of emigrati…
playlist_add
Apr 9, 2022
🎧 Randall Kennedy on Racism, Critical Race Theory, and the Need for (Chastened) Optimism
Randall Kennedy is the Michael R. Klein Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He has written widely about race and its effect on American society and the law.
In this week’s conversation, Randall Kennedy and Yascha Mounk discuss how racism in American life has changed and the ways in which it hasn’t, why we should move towards a more fluid sense of individual identity, and why he remains optimistic about America.
The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: I've learned a lot from your work. I feel like one of the big questions to ask about the American legal and political system is how to combine the recognition of the group-specific injustices that have defined it for a really long time with the aspiration to a set of universal rules and norms that will actually treat everybody equally. How have you thought about this tension, and why do you tend to fall on the side of those who defend a form of human universalism (even though we recognize…
playlist_add
Apr 2, 2022
🎧 T. M. Scanlon on What We Owe to Each Other
T. M. Scanlon, one of the world's preeminent moral philosophers, was Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity at Harvard University until his retirement. In his seminal work, What We Owe to Each Other, Scanlon gives a liberal account of how to reason through what it takes to act justly in matters of morality as well as politics.In this week’s conversation, T. M. Scanlon and Yascha Mounk discuss the true meaning of tolerance, how to decide whether an action is morally right or wrong, and why the question of free will isn’t as important as you might think.
The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: Your most famous book is called What We Owe to Each Other. It's so famous, in fact, that it was heavily featured in a television show that many people will have seen called The Good Place.
As a moral philosopher, how do you think about what we owe to each other, and why is that question important for us to ask?
T.M. S…
playlist_add
Mar 26, 2022
🎧 Anne Applebaum on How to Fight Back Against Dictators Like Putin
Anne Applebaum is a staff writer for The Atlantic and a Senior Fellow of the Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. In her books — most notably Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine and Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe — she has chronicled the terrible human costs of past attempts by Russia to dominate countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
In this week’s conversation, Anne Applebaum and Yascha Mounk discuss the changing nature of Russia's dictatorship, what it would look like for Ukraine to win the war, and how democracies can defend their values in a world of resurgent authoritarianism.
The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: It's been a month since the beginning of the war. What is the state of war today, and how is that different from what we might have expected four weeks ago?
Anne Applebaum: We know exactly what the Russians expected four weeks ago. We know because the US Defense Department had a leak of some k…
playlist_add
Mar 19, 2022
🎧 How the War Might End
Radosław Sikorski is a Polish politician and journalist who is currently a Member of the European Parliament. He served as Defense Minister of Poland from 2005 to 2007, and as Foreign Minister from 2007 to 2014.
In this week’s conversation, Radosław Sikorski and Yascha Mounk discuss whether a unified Europe could play a real geopolitical role on the world stage in the future, reasons to be skeptical of the realist view that NATO or the West is to blame for the war, and the role of sanctioning Russia (and Russians) now and in the future.
The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: You were both Foreign Secretary of Poland and also served as Defense Minister. As we're recording this on Wednesday, March 16th, the war in Ukraine has been going on for a number of weeks. As of right now, how would you describe just the military situation in Ukraine?
Radosław Sikorski: We are actually talking exactly during President Zelensky’s speech to the join…
playlist_add
Mar 12, 2022
🎧 Russia, Today
On March 16, Persuasion is hosting a talk with journalist Matthieu Aikins on his book, The Naked Don't Fear the Water: An Underground Journey with Afghan Refugees. Aikins chronicles his journey, posing as a migrant, on the "smuggler's road" to Europe. Sign up here.
Yevgenia Albats is a Russian journalist, and editor-in-chief and CEO of the popular Russian independent magazine The New Times. The magazine has now been blocked by government censors for reporting on the war in Ukraine. Until last week, when the station was taken off the air, Albats was also host of a long-running radio show on Ekho Moskvy. The author of The State Within a State: The KGB and its Hold on Russia–Past, Present, and Future, she is a member of the Persuasion board of advisors.
In this week’s conversation, Yevgenia Albats and Yascha Mounk discuss the quickly-evolving nature of the Putin dictatorship, how ordinary Russians view the invasion, and the fate of the free Russian press in the face of a new wave of…
playlist_add
Mar 5, 2022
🎧 Lea Ypi on Freedom
Lea Ypi is a professor of political theory at the London School of Economics. She is the author of Free: Coming of Age at the End of History, about growing up in Albania, Europe’s last Stalinist outpost, and the political convulsions that followed its transition to capitalism.
In this week’s conversation, Lea Ypi and Yascha Mounk discuss childhood in the shadow of totalitarianism, the perils and pitfalls of post-communist states’ rapid transition towards capitalism, and how states can maximize freedom for their citizens.
This conversation was recorded on February 9th, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: You're a distinguished political theorist, and you've just written a memoir about growing up in Albania at the end of communism. What was your childhood like, and how do you think that should inform how we think about the world today?
Lea Ypi: When I grew up in Albania in the 1980s, the country…
playlist_add
Mar 1, 2022
🎧 George Packer on the War in Ukraine
George Packer is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he recently published a piece on Ukraine's meaning for the liberal world and American interests. In his books, from The Unwinding to Our Man, he has chronicled the disintegration of America’s social fabric and the polarization of its politics. His latest book is Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and George Packer discuss the dire choices facing the Ukrainian people, how the liberal democratic societies of the world can respond, and which historical analogues can help us navigate today’s uncertainty.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity. This conversation was recorded on Friday, February 25, 2022.
Yascha Mounk: We're recording this as Russian troops are closing in on Kyiv, as Putin has launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine. What do you think the lasting significance of this moment is going to be?
George Packer: It's very hard to know, sin…
playlist_add
Feb 19, 2022
🎧 Moisés Naím on The Revenge of Power
Moisés Naím is a Distinguished Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a member of the Persuasion board of advisors. He has served as Minister of Trade and Industry for Venezuela, Executive Director of the World Bank, and editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine. His latest book is The Revenge of Power.
In this week’s conversation, Moisés Naím and Yascha Mounk discuss how authoritarian powers have banded together to respond to the challenges of technology and decentralization, the proliferation of the “Three P’s” (polarization, populism, and post-truth), and the challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: You wrote a really influential book nearly a decade ago called The End of Power. Your sense at the time was that power is becoming easier to win, but harder to keep and harder to wield. Tell us about why you thought, at the time, that we were witnessing the “…
playlist_add
Feb 12, 2022
🎧 Jonathan Sumption on the Limits of State Power
Jonathan Sumption, Lord Sumption is a British judge, author and historian. He is a former Justice of the United Kingdom Supreme Court and a frequent public commentator.
In this week’s conversation, Jonathan Sumption and Yascha Mounk discuss the prospects for democracy in the English-speaking world, the value of judicial oversight, and the power of strong political conventions.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: You've written very interestingly about the state of democracy and the reasons we have to worry, from a historical perspective, about its future. Why should we be concerned about democracy, even in countries like the United Kingdom or the United States?
Jonathan, Lord Sumption: We should be concerned because it's in the oldest democracies that the greatest disillusionment with democracy has arisen, particularly the United States, but also very much in Europe, the United Kingdom, and France. We should be concerned because there'…
playlist_add
Feb 5, 2022
🎧 How (Not) to Save Refugees
Gerald Knaus is a social scientist and chairman of the European Stability Initiative. An expert on asylum and migration policy, he has been one of the most influential voices in reshaping Europe's refugee system since the 2015 crisis.
In this week’s conversation, Gerald Knaus and Yascha Mounk discuss the history of asylum; how to develop a more humane system of migration; and how the European Union can fight democratic backsliding in its member states.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: One of the topics on which your work is most well known is migration, and the problem of asylum in particular. As I see it, a challenge to the asylum system is that it was designed initially for relatively small numbers of political refugees, and now the mechanism is often used by a much larger number of desperate people who are coming to affluent countries and making claims for humanitarian asylum. But they also often create political situations which…
playlist_add
Jan 29, 2022
🎧 Javier Cercas on How to Deal With Your Nation’s Past
Javier Cercas is a Spanish writer and novelist. The author of, among others, Soldiers of Salamis and The Anatomy of a Moment, his fiction and nonfiction works explore the concept of historical memory and the complex history of modern Spain. He is also a regular contributor to the daily newspaper El País.
In this week’s conversation, Javier Cercas and Yascha Mounk discuss Spain’s transition from dictatorship to democracy, the movement for Catalonian secession, and how countries should approach their often complicated pasts.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: I'm a great fan of your work and I feel like my view of Spanish history is in large part influenced by your books. Tell us about how Spain managed to transition from the dictatorship of Franco to a modern democracy.
Javier Cercas: It is a very complex process, I think, and quite original, because history books say that the Civil War stretched from 1936 to 1939—but this is not…
playlist_add
Jan 22, 2022
🎧 Ramachandra Guha on the Crisis in the World’s Largest Democracy
Ramachandra Guha is an Indian historian, writer, and one of the foremost authorities on modern India. The author of India After Gandhi and Gandhi Before India, he is also a leading critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Guha is a member of the Persuasion Board of Advisors.
In this week’s conversation, Ramachandra Guha and Yascha Mounk discuss the history of Indian pluralism, the rise of Hindu nationalism, and the prospects for preserving liberal democracy in India.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: I'd love to get a sense of what the state of Indian politics is today. Narendra Modi, at this point, has been in office for one and a half terms. To what extent is India, the great democratic success story of the post-war era—perhaps the most surprising democratic success story of the post-war era—in danger today?
Ramachandra Guha: It's in crisis. I won't use the word danger, because that is…
playlist_add
Jan 15, 2022
🎧 The Conservative Case for Philosophical Liberalism
Harvey Mansfield is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. One of the old guard of American conservative thought, he has taught at Harvard since 1962, and counts among his former students Andrew Sullivan, Francis Fukuyama, and Bill Kristol.
In this week’s conversation, Harvey Mansfield and Yascha Mounk discuss the nature of American liberalism, Donald Trump’s effect on conservatism, and Alexis de Tocqueville’s enduring relevance.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: How do you think conservatives should think about liberalism and liberal democracy?
Harvey Mansfield: They should hold to it. I would just make some general observations. I like our good old, tried-and-true liberalism that comes from John Locke and his [view on], on the one hand, toleration, which is good for intellectuals, and on private property, which is good for businessmen. Already you s…
playlist_add
Jan 8, 2022
🎧 Fiona Hill on the Working Class, Populism, and Russia
Fiona Hill is the former Senior Director for Europe and Russia at the National Security Council under President Trump and a key witness in his first impeachment trial. She is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. In her latest book, There Is Nothing For You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century, she describes her journey from the post-industrial north of England to the world of academia at Harvard and the corridors of power in Washington, D.C.
In this week’s conversation, Fiona Hill and Yascha Mounk discuss the resonance of populism for working class voters, remaining true to principle in the Trump administration, and the future of Great Power conflict.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: Your book tells the story of how a working class girl from the north of England ends up getting into positions of influence and authority an ocean away, in the United States. What is the relevance of that to how you experience a…
playlist_add
Dec 18, 2021
🎧 Michael Ignatieff on How To Stay True to Liberal Values in Politics
Michael Ignatieff, a renowned author and academic, is the former Leader of Canada’s Liberal Party. While Ignatieff was serving as Rector of Central European University, the university was pushed out of Budapest by the Hungarian government.In this week’s conversation, Michael Ignatieff and Yascha Mounk discuss the rise of illiberal conservatism, the pitfalls of liberalism, and how to find consolation in trying times.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: You've been an active politician in Canada. You have experienced the rise of authoritarian populism in Central Europe as the Rector of Central European University. You're also one of the great theorists of how democracies can stand up for each other and the meaning of democracy.
When you look at the world at the moment, how worried should we be?
Michael Ignatieff: It's a good question. It's such an uneven pattern. I think you can look at the world, for example the Scandinavian countries…
playlist_add
Dec 11, 2021
🎧 Jeannie Suk Gersen on the Importance of Due Process
Jeannie Suk Gersen is the John H. Watson, Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a contributing writer at The New Yorker. She writes widely about the law and its impact on society.
In this week’s conversation, Jeannie Suk Gersen and Yascha Mounk discuss the value of robust debate in law school classrooms, the perils of eroding due process in the name of progress, and the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: There's a debate about the role of the Socratic method at the moment and you're a defender of the importance of it. What is the “Socratic method” in law schools—and why do you feel that it's an important thing to preserve?
Jeannie Suk Gersen: The Socratic method is a method of teaching that's very common in law school. Essentially, it came about in the 19th century, mainly at Harvard Law School, because it was seen as a way to engage students in actual thinking in real time, instead of t…
playlist_add
Dec 4, 2021
🎧 John McWhorter on Why Woke Ideas Harm Minority Communities
John McWhorter is an author, a member of the Persuasion Board of Advisors, a Columbia University linguist, and a columnist for The New York Times. His latest book, Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America, argues that we must understand wokeness, quite literally, as a religion.
In this week’s conversation, John McWhorter and Yascha Mounk discuss the nature of today’s social progressivism, whether it constitutes a religion, and how we can actually help to reduce racial disparities in the United States.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: What is the unifying principle of the body of thought that is, for lack of a better word, called “woke”?
John McWhorter: There’s a certain kind of person who feels that we should focus our intellectual, moral and artistic endeavors on battling power differentials, especially where white people are the ones in power. To the extent that you are not on board with that being the ve…
playlist_add
Nov 27, 2021
🎧 Garry Kasparov on Resisting Authoritarianism
Garry Kasparov, the former World Chess Champion, is the founder of the Renew Democracy Initiative and chairperson of the Human Rights Foundation. He is a member of the Persuasion Board of Advisors.In this week’s conversation, Garry Kasparov and Yascha Mounk discuss how he came to oppose the Soviet regime, why he quickly recognized the dangers posed by Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, and what to make of illiberal tendencies on the left.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: Garry, one of the things that really strikes me is that you were right on the big thing at every critical juncture. You were right about the Soviet Union. You were right about Putin. You were right about Trump. You may even be right about some of the transformations in America today.
How did you start getting interested in politics? You were a champion chess player. The incentive was to shut up about politics, to become a stooge of the regime like some other chess play…
playlist_add
Nov 20, 2021
🎧 Michael Powell on Race, Class, and Free Speech
Michael Powell is a reporter for The New York Times, covering issues including free speech, education and identity politics. His reporting takes him from the campuses of elite universities and private schools to the halls of the ACLU.
In this week’s conversation, Michael Powell and Yascha Mounk discuss whether the left has cooled on free speech, what’s lost in the national discussion about critical race theory, and how establishment institutions across the United States are being transformed.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: Every time we get a story about an attack on liberalism, in part from the right but also from the left, it is dismissed by partisans as just some crazy story, an extreme example — “this really isn't a broad phenomenon going on in the country”, etc. Do you think all of the stories that you've been writing about add up to a bigger picture?
Michael Powell: I think the answer is almost certainly yes. About s…
playlist_add
Nov 13, 2021
🎧 Andrew Yang on Why Democrats Are in Crisis
Andrew Yang is a popular commentator and former presidential candidate. In his latest book, Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy, he advocates for economic reforms like Universal Basic Income and political reforms like ranked-choice voting.
In this week’s conversation, Andrew Yang and Yascha Mounk discuss how today’s political campaigns are run, why Democrats struggle to connect with voters, and whether or not third parties can be part of the solution.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: We're recording this a couple of days after the election in Virginia, and other places around the United States. What's your overall assessment of those elections and what's going on politically right now?
Andrew Yang: Joe Biden won Virginia by 10 points a year ago. His proxy, Terry McAuliffe, a real establishment figure, just lost to a Republican that no one had heard of a few months ago. You can think of this as an establishment Democrat v…
playlist_add
Nov 6, 2021
🎧 Noam Chomsky on Identity Politics, Free Speech, and China
Join us for our November book club! Award-winning novelist and Persuasion advisor Elif Shafak will join us next Tuesday, November 9th at 1pm Eastern to discuss her latest book, The Island of Missing Trees, with Yascha Mounk. Register here.
Noam Chomsky, professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has for many decades been one of the most prominent critics of U.S. foreign policy.
In this week’s conversation, Noam Chomsky and Yascha Mounk discuss the theory of universal grammar, whether identity politics can be left-wing, and how the world should treat an ascendant China.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: I want to start our conversation by asking you about the core of your scientific work. What is the idea of universal grammar, and what does that tell us about how we should think about human nature?
Noam Chomsky: Humans have a special trait common to all humans but, as far as we know, unique to the…
playlist_add
Oct 30, 2021
🎧 Peter Singer On How To Reduce Suffering
Peter Singer, the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, is one of the most influential philosophers of the past fifty years. A leading exponent of utilitarianism, he has often explored how individuals can improve the lot of those in need with their own choices.
In this week’s conversation, Peter Singer and Yascha Mounk discuss what utilitarianism gets right, whether the effective altruism movement is effective, and why freedom of inquiry is crucial to improving the world.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: What's the case for being a utilitarian and seeing the world through utilitarian eyes?
Peter Singer: I think utilitarianism—far from being a kind of dry economic science or anything like that—is actually a reforming impulse. That goes back a long way before Jeremy Bentham, but was certainly made explicit by Bentham. Bentham and [later] utilitarians have been against slavery, they've been for women's right…
playlist_add
Oct 23, 2021
🎧 Ross Douthat on the Trouble with Experts
Ross Douthat, a columnist for The New York Times, has long advocated for a brand of reform conservatism that stands in stark contrast to Trumpism. His latest book, The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery, chronicles his long struggle with Lyme disease.In this week’s conversation, Ross Douthat and Yascha Mounk discuss why the expert consensus sometimes fails, when to listen to outsiders, and whether the failures of the establishment help to explain the rise of populism.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: You've just written a book which astounded me, because it shared the fact that you have been very sick for a number of years, and I, as a regular reader of your column, had absolutely no inkling. One of the interesting things about this was your slow discovery of the limits of an establishment consensus, and finding yourself having to rethink what the consensus view is.
Ross Douthat: It’s a very interesting thing, in my cas…
playlist_add
Oct 16, 2021
🎧 Francis Fukuyama’s Defense of Liberalism
Francis Fukuyama, one of the most important living political scientists, is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute. His writing spans from the origins of society in earliest prehistory to the rise of modern democracy and the identity wars of the 21st century. His new book, Liberalism and Its Discontents, a defense of the values of free societies, is scheduled for release in April 2022. In this week’s conversation, Francis Fukuyama and Yascha Mounk discuss how neoliberalism has gone awry, the excesses of individualism on both the right and the left, and how to rejuvenate liberalism.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: I've just read a draft of your next book. Though there have been many defenses of liberalism in the last few years, there haven't been any so far which I felt made the thoughtful but also full-throated defense of liberalism that we need. But in my opinion, your book succeeds.
What is this tradit…
playlist_add
Oct 9, 2021
🎧 Caitlin Flanagan on Free Speech and America’s Future
Caitlin Flanagan, a staff writer at The Atlantic, is one of America's most incisive essayists. In her articles about a wide range of topics including modern motherhood, the politics of higher education, and the state of the abortion debate, she skewers consensus views with her trademark wit.
In this week’s conversation, Caitlin Flanagan and Yascha Mounk discuss her coming-of-age in 1960s Berkeley, the evolution of freedom of speech, and whether America has a future.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: I didn't know that you grew up in Berkeley at the height of the Free Speech Movement. Tell us a little bit what that was like and how it informs how you see the world today.
Caitlin Flanagan: I was born in Berkeley in 1961. I was there as a small child, and my father was at the university. My father, like most Berkeley professors at that time, wasn't from California. My parents came from other places because there was this huge expansion…
playlist_add
Oct 2, 2021
🎧 Kwame Anthony Appiah: Rethinking Identity
Kwame Anthony Appiah is a British-Ghanaian philosopher, the Ethicist columnist for the New York Times Magazine, and one of today's deepest thinkers about the nature of identity. His scholarly writing, journalism, and novels help us to envision a world in which our professed categories enrich rather than impoverish—or, in his terms, a world which reveres “universality plus difference.” In this week’s conversation, Kwame Anthony Appiah and Yascha Mounk discuss neutrality as a liberal ideal, the limits of identity politics, and the merits of race-abolitionism.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: Much of your deepest thinking in the last years and decades has been on various questions of identity. What is this weird concept that we didn't really talk about a century ago, but now seems to stand at the core of so much culture and political thought?
Kwame Anthony Appiah: It's one of the most interesting and important facts about this con…
playlist_add
Sep 25, 2021
🎧 Elizabeth Bruenig on Religion, Liberalism, and Wokeness
Elizabeth Bruenig is a staff writer at The Atlantic and a Catholic socialist who writes on topics as varied as capital punishment and mothering two children while in her twenties. Her work is uniquely marked by her ruby-red Texas upbringing, the elite professional world she now inhabits, and her deep sense of morality, which draws from both Christian theology and left-wing politics.In a wide-ranging conversation, Elizabeth Bruenig and Yascha Mounk debate the importance of dialogue across moral perspectives, whether wokeness bears any resemblance to theology, and how religious conviction can give rise to an authentically liberal defense of free speech.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: You're in a really interesting political space in the United States. You're an outspoken leftist. You, if I'm remembering correctly, strongly advocated for the election of Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries in 2020. And at the same time, you're one…
playlist_add
Sep 18, 2021
🎧 Why Americans Fight Over History
Matthew Karp is a contributing editor for Jacobin magazine and associate professor of history at Princeton University. An expert on the Civil War era and slavery, his writing poses a challenge to a right too sanguine about the darkest corners of America’s past, and a left too eager to embrace despair about the arc of history.
In this week’s conversation, Matthew Karp and Yascha Mounk discuss the "1619 Project,” the politics of history from Juneteenth to the Confederacy, and why an accurate conception of the past is key to shaping a better future.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: How have Americans traditionally thought about their history?
Matthew Karp: There’s a Gore Vidal zinger about this, right? “We learn nothing, because we remember nothing.” That's a common theme in a certain kind of liberal discourse—self-flagellation about America's ignorance of the past. I feel like every country has its own version of that. His…
playlist_add
Sep 11, 2021
🎧 "You Just Won't Understand!"
Rachel Fraser is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford and an expert in feminism and the philosophy of knowledge. In her work, she thinks through how our social identities might help to shape how we see the world—and how that diverges from popular notions according to which the oppressed have special political knowledge unavailable to everyone else.
In this week’s conversation, Rachel Fraser and Yascha Mounk discuss how our identities shape our perception of the world, whether the oppressed have greater insight into the political world, and to what extent it is possible to communicate our experiences to members of other groups.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: You do really important work in epistemology, and I have a set of questions about “standpoint epistemology.” As I understand it, there’s a way of thinking where one says, “Look, I have a set of experiences [as a man], you have a set of exper…
playlist_add
Sep 4, 2021
🎧 Are We Too Divided to Be Patriotic?
Samuel Goldman, associate professor of political science at the George Washington University, is an intellectual historian and political commentator. In his new book, After Nationalism: Being American in an Age of Division, he criticizes traditional notions of patriotism while trying to lay out how members of modern nations can preserve some form of pride of country.
In this week’s conversation, Samuel Goldman and Yascha Mounk talk about different notions of patriotism and debate whether strong participation in local institutions is the key to restoring a healthier political climate.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: You just wrote a book that's very surprising in many ways. You are conservative—you're certainly not a Trumpian conservative—yet this is a book that in some ways criticizes or undermines the idea of American patriotism, and argues that there's really not a very coherent logic to, or justification for, it. Is that broa…
playlist_add
Aug 28, 2021
🎧 Why We Need a Sane Republican Party
Ambassador Eric Edelman was Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in the George W. Bush administration and served as the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and Finland. A strident critic of former President Donald Trump, he is among the foremost voices of the “Never Trump” movement.
In a wide-ranging conversation, Ambassador Edelman and Yascha Mounk discuss the trajectory of the Republican party and Donald Trump’s political future, Turkey’s illiberal slide under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the fragility of democratic norms worldwide.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: One of the things you've been doing very courageously is to stand up to the current powers-that-be within the Republican Party. [As] one of the key voices of the Never Trump movement, where do you think the hope for a sane Republican Party stands?
Eric Edelman: Let me back up for a second and address the question that I think underlies [that] line of inquiry, which…
playlist_add
Aug 21, 2021
🎧 How (Not) to Think About Race
Kmele Foster is a heterodox writer who hosts The Fifth Column podcast. He recently joined with David French and Thomas Chatterton Williams, members of Persuasion's Board of Advisors, to write in the New York Times opposing laws which seek to ban discussion of critical race theory from American schools.
In this week’s conversation, which was recorded with a live Zoom audience as part of the Persuasion festival, Kmele Foster and Yascha Mounk discuss the fixation on race in current political discourse, why it obscures important truths, and how to form relations with one another that recognize both human individuality and our shared experiences.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: You have a slightly unique position because you're a critic of critical race theory. And you are one of the coauthors of an op-ed in The New York Times, criticizing the banning of the teaching of critical race theory in many state legislatures. Tell me, first of a…
playlist_add
Aug 14, 2021
🎧 How to Boost Innovation
Alex Tabarrok is a professor of economics and co-author, with Tyler Cowen, of the blog Marginal Revolution. A strident critic of institutional failure during the pandemic, Tabarrok has applied his libertarian perspective to a wide range of topics, including public health, regulation and the law, criminal justice, and entrepreneurship.
In this week’s conversation, Alex Tabarrok and Yascha Mounk discuss the failure of American institutions to respond to COVID-19, the cost of insufficient economic innovation, and the possibility of building a more agile and resilient American society.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: You were really one of the first people to warn about the severity of COVID, and the fact that many of our political institutions were getting the response to COVID wrong. How should the last year update our view on what’s working and what’s not working in our societies?
Alex Tabarrok: It was worse than I thought, and…
playlist_add
Aug 7, 2021
🎧 An Iranian in America
Roya Hakakian is an Iranian dissident, poet, and writer. She has long been a fierce critic of the regime. But in her latest book, A Beginner’s Guide to America, she sets her sights on her new country, setting out to explain why the citizens of liberal democracies should value their political systems despite their flaws.
In this week’s conversation, Roya Hakakian and Yascha Mounk discuss Iran’s democratic prospects, the state of democracy around the world, and why the benefits of freedom are often lost on those who have always enjoyed them.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: Why should we continue to believe in the promise of America?
Roya Hakakian: Well, what else is there? I know that that is not a very compelling argument, but we have yet to come up with a better promise or alternative. But I don’t like to approach this in a pessimistic way. What I tried to do in the book [A Beginner's Guide to America] was to actually disguis…
playlist_add
Jul 31, 2021
🎧 Saving Meritocracy
Adrian Wooldridge, the political editor of The Economist, has written on topics as diverse as Alan Greenspan, the history of radicalism in British psychology, and the evolution of the modern Republican Party. In his latest book, The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World, he seeks to counter recent attacks on the ideal of meritocracy.In this week’s conversation, Adrian Woolridge and Yascha Mounk discuss the hidden radicalism of the meritocratic ideal, China’s embrace of meritocracy, and the West’s misguided rejection of it.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: We’re in a strange moment where it’s become very fashionable to attack meritocracy. There’s been a spate of books saying meritocracy is a problem. I had Michael Sandel discuss his book about that about a year ago on the podcast. What do you want to contribute to that conversation?
Adrian Wooldridge: Well, first of all, the notion that meritocracy is…
playlist_add
Jul 24, 2021
🎧 Why Is Crime Rising?
Patrick Sharkey spent years studying the causes of the national decline in crime that took place from the 1990s to the 2010s. A professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton and the author of Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence, he warned that it would prove unsustainable to rely on aggressive policing and mass incarceration to keep the peace in America’s cities. Now, he is ideally placed to answer why violent crime has surged in the past year and what to do about that.
In this week’s conversation, Patrick Sharkey and Yascha Mounk discuss the recent rise in violent crime, how this trend hits disadvantaged communities the hardest, and why neither defunding the police nor returning to the old model of keeping the peace offers a real solution.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: There’s been a lot of public debate in the last weeks and months about whether the great dec…
playlist_add
Jul 17, 2021
🎧 Inside the Insurrection
Sabrina Tavernise is a national correspondent for The New York Times. She covered the Iraq War for the Times, where in 2005 she was one of the first people to document ethnic cleansing, and has reported on life in post-Soviet Russia for a variety of publications. She was a first-hand witness to the storming of the U.S. Capitol.
In this week’s conversation, Sabrina Tavernise and Yascha Mounk discuss Tavernise’s experience in the Capitol on January 6, the roots of violence and civil war around the world, and why peace is elusive once violence becomes the norm.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: You are, I think, the only human being I know who stormed the Capitol on January 6, not as part of the great Trumpist attempt to “Stop the Steal,” but as a journalist. Tell us about the day and your experiences.
Sabrina Tavernise: January 6 was a very strange day, as it turned out, but it didn’t really start that way.
I was caught off gu…
playlist_add
Jul 10, 2021
🎧 Disaster is Political
Niall Ferguson is an internationally-renowned historian whose interests span from WWI to Henry Kissinger to the history of money. His most recent book, Doom—completed at the height of the COVID crisis—attempts to rethink the distinction between “man-made” and “natural” disasters. Ferguson examines the historical record from Vesuvius to viruses and concludes that societies are guilty of repeated misjudgments and delusions, but he avoids ascribing any immutable pattern to the unpredictable trajectory of disasters. He is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard.In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Niall Ferguson discuss the dangers of bureaucratization in disaster-management, debate populism and the threat from China, and examine the common threads linking catastrophes throughout history.
This transcript has been condensed and l…
playlist_add
Jul 3, 2021
🎧 The Pursuit of Happiness
Arthur Brooks is a leading authority on the science and philosophy of happiness. In his books—most recently, Love Your Enemies—and his regular contributions to The Atlantic, he urges us to act smarter in our pursuit of the good life. Combining insights from social science with wisdom from ancient sages, his unique blend of practical advice and philosophical depth serves as the perfect antidote to what he calls our “culture of contempt.” He holds professorships in the Practice of Public Leadership and Management Practice at Harvard, and was formerly the president of the American Enterprise Institute.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Arthur Brooks discuss the biological and circumstantial origins of happiness, debate the necessity of transcendence, and explore Stoic philosophy’s relevance for today’s polarized politics.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: Arthur Brooks, welcome to the podcast.
Arthur Brooks: How…
playlist_add
Jun 26, 2021
🎧 What Binds Us Together
George Packer is one of the nation’s most eloquent writers and most perceptive observers. In his books, from The Unwinding to Our Man, he has chronicled the disintegration of America’s social fabric and the polarization of its politics. In his latest book, Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal, Packer argues that the country is now being torn apart by four competing narratives: Real America, Smart America, Just America, and Free America.
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and George Packer discuss the nature of historical progress, ponder the long-term impact of the Trump presidency, and debate whether a rebirth of civic patriotism can help unite the country.
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk: I guess the first question I have is: Where does the presidency of Donald Trump, which thankfully has now been over for about a third of a year, leave us? Where should it leave our faith in or fears for America?
George Packer:…
playlist_add