The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comMatt is a political journalist. He’s been a senior contributor for The Daily Caller and a columnist for AOL’s Politics Daily, and he’s currently a senior columnist at The Daily Beast. He also hosts his own podcast and YouTube show, “Matt Lewis & The News." In this episode we discuss his new book, Filthy Rich Politicians.For two clips of our convo — on the perception of insider trading in Congress, and how Palin paved the way for Trump — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Matt’s upbringing in rural Maryland with a father who worked as a prison guard; listening to early Limbaugh religiously; his defense of working-class populists but not their victimhood; their support for Trump despite his opulence and contempt for the poor; Trump as “deliciously funny” (especially compared to DeSantis); the fake populism of Ted Cruz; how members of Congress are 12 times richer than the average voter; the exorbitant wealth of Dem leadership; the suspicious stock trades of the Pelosis; the influence peddling of Hunter and Jared; how neither party challenges the grift on their side; George Santos; the Kennedys and FDR as aristocrats with policies for the poor; Obama cashing in after his presidency; even Bernie becoming a millionaire after his book; moratoriums on lobbying for ex-members of Congress; public financing for campaigns; rich foundations embracing “white supremacy”; how Palin and Kamala and Boris didn’t grow into the office; and why DeSantis looks great on paper but is struggling against Trump.Browse the Dishcast archive for another conversation you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Lee Fang on the tensions within the left, Josh Barro defending the Biden administration, and Michael Moynihan on general kibitzing. Please send any guest recs and pod dissent to [email protected].

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comJean Twenge is a writer and researcher who focuses on generational differences. She’s a psychology professor at San Diego State University and the author of seven books, most notably iGen. Her new one is Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents. Our conversation focused mainly on how fucked up Gen Z is, and why.For two clips of our convo — on why Gen Zers are safer but feel more traumatized than ever, and why teens are having much less sex — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: growing up in a diversifying Dallas; attending the free-speech haven of the University of Chicago; how tech is creating generational divides more quickly; the tipping point of 2012 when it came to smartphones; helicopter parenting; how free-range parents are worried about child protective services; how young adults are more childlike than ever, and less rebellious; the “slow-life strategy”; how Gen Z is less religious but more chaste; why teen depression doubled between 2011 and 2019, especially among girls; the increase of self-harm and attempted suicide; the decrease of debate among friends; the tolerance of Gen Z on race and sexual orientation; the amnesia when it comes to gay history and oppression; the quadrupling of girls identifying as boys between 2014 and 2021; the bullying of girls by girls on social media; how we need more feminism when it comes to body image; women making massive gains in education and employment but reporting less happiness; how Trump’s sexism affected young women; and why 40 percent of Gen Z sees the Founding Fathers as villains.Browse the Dishcast archive for another conversation you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Matt Lewis on ruling-class elites, Lee Fang on the tensions within the left, Josh Barro on the Biden administration, and Michael Moynihan on general kibitzing. Please send any guest recs and pod dissent to [email protected].

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comDave is a political reporter. He’s worked for The Washington Post, Slate, Bloomberg Politics, and he’s currently at Semafor. He’s also a contributing editor at Reason. In 2017 he wrote a book called The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock, and he’s also a Daily Dish alum.For two clips of our convo — on how the MSM doesn’t talk like ordinary people, and the role of Biden’s age in the next election — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: growing up in Delaware; going to high school in England not far from my hometown; the UK vs US media when it comes to objectivity; writing about Labour and anti-Semitism; voting for Ralph Nader before turning libertarian; his “pathological” travel as a reporter; coding his own blog in the early blogosphere; not wanting to be a Helen Thomas in the press corps; his memories of covering Obama, Gretchen Whitmer, Sharice Davids, Michael Moore and others; taking Trump seriously in 2015; having a nose for what the GOP base finds compelling; the party’s broken promises on immigration; Reagan’s amnesty; the MSM’s bias and arrogance on immigration; how Mexican-American Dems often use the term “illegals”; Jesse Singal’s intrepid coverage of trans kids; “platforming is not privileging”; Dave’s focus-group of normie friends from his hometown; gender reveal parties; the protest of the NYT’s trans coverage “causing harm”; Hunter Biden’s love-child and the White House not acknowledging her; Trump’s three marriages; Kamala’s dismal popularity; Rathergate; the Tom Cotton op-ed controversy; the right-wing media bubble; the unwillingness of the MSM to integrate conservative voices; January 6th; the depressing prospect of a Biden-Trump sequel; and Dave discussing prog rock and his favorite band, King Crimson.Browse the Dishcast archive for another conversation you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Jean Twenge on the key differences between the generations, Matt Lewis on ruling-class elites, and Lee Fang on how public policy is shaped by moneyed groups. Please send any guest recs and pod dissent to [email protected].

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comErick is a radio host and writer. He was an old-school blogger at RedState, serving as editor-in-chief, and he later became a political contributor for CNN and Fox News. Today he hosts the “Erick Erickson Show” on WSB Radio in Atlanta and runs a popular substack of the same name. He’s also in Reformed Theological Seminary working toward a PhD in theology.For two clips of our convo — on why evangelicals see Trump as a savior figure, and the severity of Trump’s looming case in Georgia — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Erick growing up in Dubai; his family hosting parties for US sailors; moving back to the “insanity” of Louisiana; finding a permanent home in Georgia; his early career as an election lawyer; leaving his firm to become a blogger; his near-death experience on a plane; his near-death illness; his wife’s remarkable survival with a rare cancer; his personal candor with blog readers and radio listeners; the nasty and threatening encounters that he and his family had to endure because of his criticism of Trump; the fluke of Trump getting three SCOTUS picks; the court decision that finally overturned Roe; the resulting political challenge the GOP faces on abortion; the Hobby Lobby case; the role of Ukraine in 2024 election; Tim Scott as a happy warrior; Trump’s bitter campaign of retribution; the curious inability of DeSantis to gain more traction; Trump’s boxes of documents; the nihilism of the illiberal right; Erick’s optimism that the GOP will right itself; Hispanic and black voters moving to the right; and Erick urging his fellow Republicans to think more locally when it comes to politics.Browse the Dishcast archive for another conversation you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Dave Weigel on all things politics, Jean Twenge on the key differences between the generations, and Matt Lewis on ruling-class elites. Please send any guest recs and pod dissent to [email protected].

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comDr. Tabia Lee is an educator and consultant. She was the faculty director for the Office of Equity, Social Justice, and Multicultural Education at De Anza College until she was fired for her heterodox views on DEI. (Her GoFundMe is here.) She’s also a cofounder of Free Black Thought.For two clips of our convo — on teaching kids as individuals, and the wrong way to ask for pronouns — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Lee as a gifted-and-talented student; her mentoring kids as a kid; graduating high school in two years; critical thinking as a core value; intellectual humility and curiosity; Lee teaching public school in LA; California voters banning affirmative action in 1996; how teacher ideology clouds the classroom; humanism over identity politics; Lee as a pioneer of pronoun use in the early Internet; “inquiry-based” teaching and holistic instruction; the race of students being just one of many factors; not focusing on stereotypes; the moral certitude of DEI; the need for viewpoint diversity; the “neo-reconstructionism” of Kendi and DiAngelo; the dangers of teaching as activism; the abandonment of SAT and other standardized testing; the wasteful spending in public education; and the attacks that Lee faced as a heterodox DEI director.Browse the Dishcast archive for another conversation you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Erick Erickson on the showdown between Trump and DeSantis, Dave Weigel on all things politics, Jean Twenge on the key differences between the generations, and Matt Lewis on ruling-class elites. Send your guest recs and pod dissent to [email protected].

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comDavid is an extraordinary investigative reporter, a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker, and an old acquaintance. Several of his stories and books have been adapted into major motion pictures, including The Lost City of Z, Old Man and the Gun, and Killers of the Flower Moon. His new book is The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder — and the film rights have already been acquired by Scorsese and DiCaprio.For two clips of our convo — on the hell of sailing around Cape Horn, and the horrors of scurvy — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: the bygone era of analog journalism; the hacks of Grub Street; David’s ability to write vividly about gore — despite his fear of blood in real life; the intricacies of sailing an 18th century ship; the crazed search for treasure and glory; the role of Lord Byron’s grandfather on the HMS Wager; the racial, class and age diversity of the crew; the incompetence of the captain; the catastrophe of running aground; the drama of mutiny; the tension of feuding camps; the mix of gallantry and brutality; the all-consuming despair of starvation; the ravages of disease; the upholding of civilizational norms even at the ends of the earth; how new leaders emerge under desperate circumstances; the beneficence of the indigenous people called “savages”; the arrogance of hindsight; the court-martials faced by the broken men when they returned to England; reuniting with family members who think you’re dead; and how nautical language has endured in common phrases today.Browse the Dishcast archive for another conversation you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Tabia Lee on her firing as a DEI director and Matt Lewis on ruling-class elites. Please send your guest recs and pod dissent to [email protected].

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comDeneen is a writer and academic. Based at the University of Notre Dame, he is Professor of Political Science and holds the David Potenziani Memorial College Chair of Constitutional Studies. His books include The Odyssey of Political Theory and Why Liberalism Failed, and his new one is Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future.For two clips of our convo — on his book using Marxist analysis in defense of conservatism, and whether the government should give you money to stay home with kids — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Patrick’s Irish-Catholic upbringing in the oldest town in CT — “an idyllic New England town” that became a “shell of itself”; his unexpected route to academia; working-class Rutgers vs elite Princeton; how society needs meritocracy — but it’s irrelevant when it comes to morality; Disraeli and noblesse oblige in the UK; migration and Brexit; “woke capitalism’s patina of social commitment”; the tribal wars of the Reformation; the Hobbes/Lockean settlement; how Locke shifted property from inheritance to a set of skills; the cruelty of the growth economy; usury; the absence of any common good in Succession; the donor class of both major parties; the geographic and class sorting of Americans into separate bubbles; Michael Sandel and “thickness”; Uganda’s anti-gay laws; and whether we should bring back Sabbath laws.Browse the Dishcast archive for another conversation you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Tabia Lee on her firing as a DEI director, David Grann on an 18th-century mutiny that’s a “parable for our own turbulent time,” and Matt Lewis on ruling-class elites. Please send your guest recs and pod dissent to [email protected].

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comBen is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Semafor, a global news company. He was an old-school blogger at Politico and others, the first editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News, and the media columnist for the NYT. His new book is Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral. I wrote what he called a “savage and delightful” review of his book, but we remain friends and went at it cordially.For two clips of our convo — on the addictive power of blogging, and Ben’s tough call over publishing the Steele dossier — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: his early career on the cop beat and in Eastern Europe; getting hooked on blogs after 9/11; his kid throwing his Blackberry in the toilet; the launch of the Daily Dish and its “mass intimacy”; the MSM (and me) “massively screwing up” the Iraq invasion; Ben covering marriage equality due to the Dish; the blog functioning as “Twitter before Twitter”; the Green Revolution in Iran; the Palin debacle and Trig; the torture program; why the Dish left the Daily Beast; the emotional turmoil of ending the blog; the “under-news” of Gawker; its indifference to to gay men’s privacy; the role of Jezebel; the redemption of Nick Denton and “20 percent nicer”; Gawker killed by Hulk Hogan and Peter Thiel; Buzzfeed and sponsored content; the Shitty Media Men list; Americans’ contempt for the MSM; Steve Bannon; how social media is perfect for right-wing populists and woke mobs; Substack reviving the spirit of blogging; the fall of Buzzfeed News and Vice; Semafor’s embrace of dissent; and Ben’s thoughts on my “savage and delightful review” of his book.Browse the Dishcast archive for another conversation you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Tabia Lee on her firing as a DEI director, Patrick Deneen on a post-liberal future, and David Grann on an 18th-century mutiny that’s a “parable for our own turbulent time.” Please send your guest recs and pod dissent to [email protected].

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comWhere are we in the war between the West and Russia in Ukraine? We asked Sam back to help us figure it out. He’s a tutor in the Department of Political Science at Oxford and a member of the Royal United Services Institute in London. He’s an expert on Russia’s wars in Chechnya and Syria, and he’s been to Russia and Ukraine many times in the course of getting his International Relations DPhil. His forthcoming book is Putin’s War on Ukraine: Russia’s Campaign for Global Counter-Revolution. I learned a lot in this conversation and so will you.For two clips of our convo — on whether Russia or Ukraine is winning, and the EU’s surprising response to the war — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Putin’s Pyrrhic victory in Bahkmut; the unexpected support for Ukraine from Meloni; the bromance between Boris and Zelensky and now Rishi; the odd airing of dissent within Russia; how Putin is spinning his failures; Lavrov’s propaganda that Hitler was partly Jewish; how Ukraine is now a proxy war for the West; Russia’s self-fulfilling prophecy of Ukraine joining NATO; Prigozhin bad-mouthing the Kremlin; the possibility of his Wagner Group going rogue; the Russian far right and Dugin; the prospects of a Ukrainian offensive; the chance Zelensky could take back Crimea; the dangers of the war spilling into Russia; the increased risk of nukes as the war grinds on; how Putin could save face in a ceasefire; the stretched limits of US support for Ukraine; how electing DeSantis or Trump could affect that support; Putin exploiting the culture wars; the wild card of war breaking out in Taiwan; and the election next year in Russia.Browse the Dishcast archive for another conversation you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Ben Smith on going viral, Tabia Lee on her firing as a DEI director, Patrick Deneen on a post-liberal future, and David Grann on an 18th-century mutiny that’s a “parable for our own turbulent time.” Please send your guest recommendations and pod dissent to [email protected].

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comJohn is an animal advocate and social media professional (@JohnOberg). He has served as the director of new media for The Humane League and the director of communications for Vegan Outreach, but now he’s an independent advocate funded by individual donations. He’s also a powerlifter — not something you usually associate with vegans. In this episode he tries to convince me to give up meat.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or on the right side of the player, click “Listen On” to add the Dishcast feed to your favorite podcast app — though Spotify sadly doesn’t accept the paid feed). For two clips of our convo — on whether humans are evolving into vegans, and dispelling the notion that all vegans are scrawny — pop over to our YouTube page.Other topics: the profound influence that John’s mother had on his advocacy from a very young age; their lonely protest against deer culling; vegan stereotypes and gay stereotypes; the cruelty of animals to other animals in nature; the greater sentience of some creatures over others; the horrific conditions of factory farming; Ag-Gag laws; how to provide protein to people without killing animals; “the protein myth”; the Impossible Burger and other food recs from John; the proliferating types of non-dairy milk; incentivizing corporations to make vegan options; and meeting people halfway with veganism rather than demonizing them. Browse the Dishcast archive for another discussion you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Sam Ramani on Ukraine, Ben Smith on going viral, Tabia Lee on her firing as a DEI director, and Patrick Deneen on a post-liberal future. Send your guest recs and pod dissent to [email protected] quick bit of fan mail for Chris Stirewalt:Just wanted to say your conversation with Stirewalt was f****n’ great! Entertaining, funny, and really educational. Loved it.Another fan focuses on this segment:Listening to Chris talk about goat porn and golden showers on Ted Cruz almost made me pee my pants! Absolutely hilarious.A listener dissents:I had to stop listening once it became clear that you and Chris seem to be of the opinion that the legacy media share equally with the 30-year-old disinformation industry in cleaving the American voters into hateful camps. While you did recognize that Rush was a pioneer in taking advantage of the abrogation of the Fairness Doctrine to voice his BS, you also blithely acknowledged that he was “talented entertainer.” Let’s face facts: Adolph was full of hateful bile that led to the eventual destruction of Germany along with millions of innocents but the guy was really entertaining. The legacy media, for all of its faults and biases, is not equivalent to the collective disinformation industry. Wokeness does not equal lies, character assassination, conspiracy mongering, calls for the overthrow of the “deep state,” civil war, summary execution of suspected drug dealers, ad nauseam. Criticize the legacy media all you want, but don’t equate them with Fox and its many copycats as part of the critique. Whataboutism is tiresome and lazy.If you want my view of the different kinds of media bias at play — and why the right is worse — this piece is a good overview. I make many distinctions. From a baseball fan:Are my ears playing tricks on me or did I just hear Chris Stirewalt attribute “Hit ‘em where they ain’t” to Pee Wee Reese? If I did hear this, it’s the worst piece of fake news this 72-year-old guy has heard on the Dishcast. Apparently that quote by Willie Keeler is commonly misattributed to Reese. Here’s one more clip from the Stirewalt pod — on why the cult of Trump is so strong:Staying on the topic of Trump, a reader dissents:I was not planning to send you a second scathing email in two weeks, but here we are. Your latest column on Trump was surreal. “Guys, a wildfire is about to burn down all these houses. This is bad! But you must admit, the fire is beautiful! Look at the gracefully leaping orange-golden flames. Such flair and energy! It speaks to something deep inside me, I remember sitting by a campfire as a kid …“But yes, the fire is bad, so we must fight it using this beat-up old fire truck. God, I hate the truck! It’s ugly and rusty, the paint is peeling, the engine makes a weird grinding noise, there’s a coffee stain on the driver’s seat. The truck is boring, just sitting there like a lump. No entertainment value at all! In a direct contrast between the fire and the truck, there will surely be some people who simply favor the shiny and pretty over the dull and old!“Anyway, uh, we ought to stop the fire before it burns down all these houses, so let’s get inside this crappy truck, which I hate, and go fight the fire… even though the fire is lovely and exciting and fun to look at…” (you gaze into the flames, their reflection dancing i

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comChris is a political analyst and author. He worked at Fox News for more than a decade until they fired him in the wake of the 2020 election, when he was part of the election team that accurately called Arizona for Biden. He’s now the politics editor for NewsNation and a contributing editor for The Dispatch. His new book is Broken News: Why the Media Rage Machine Divides America and How to Fight Back. He’s also a blast.For two clips of our convo — on how the unbundling the news corrupted it, and why Trump voters can’t quit him — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Chris’ upbringing in West Virginia; working as a sports writer alongside “crabby profane smokers”; transitioning to local TV; my young days on Fleet Street; loud newsrooms and gossip at the pub; the benefits of news being bundled and magazines stapled; the unbundling force of the Internet; how blogs challenged and checked legacy journalists; covering the Iraq War; the demonization of the Clintons; some history of The Daily Dish (e.g. Palin); the perverse incentives of seeing stats on posts; how hatred drives the most traffic; losing readers to keep principles; the shift to social media; the loss of any gatekeeping; the roots of online tribalism; why Canadians and African-Americans are often the best comedians; Steve Kornacki’s The Red and the Blue; Russiagate; Trump’s rape case; Alvin Bragg’s blunder; Murdoch and Ailes; Shep Smith’s integrity; the social costs of political dissent; how cable news is designed for personality cults; Carlson and his firing by Fox News; Peretti and Denton; Ben Smith’s new book; and the 2024 election.Browse the Dishcast archive for another discussion you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Ben Smith on going viral, Tabia Lee on her firing as a DEI director, John Oberg on veganism, and Patrick Deneen on a post-liberal future. Send your guest recs and pod dissent to [email protected].

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comNigel Biggar is an Anglican priest, academic and writer. Formerly the Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Oxford, he now directs the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics & Public Life and chairs the board of the UK’s Free Speech Union. The author of many books on ethics, his controversial new one is Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning.For two clips of our convo — debating what makes an empire worse than others, and whether the British started or just exploited the wars in their colonies — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: writing his book as a response to revisionism; the 1619 Project; the difficulty he had getting it published; the various motives of British colonialism and its slow development; how anti-slavery stemmed from the Enlightenment and Christianity; the colonists who fled poverty and religious persecution; the Irish Famine; the contempt and fear and racism toward native peoples; the natives who welcomed trade and protection; whether plagues were intentional or unavoidable; non-European empires and human sacrifice; the ubiquity of slavery throughout history; the unique evil of the transatlantic trade; maroons who kept slaves of their own; Zionism; the colonists who prized foreign cultures; the hypocrisy of British subjects in America exploiting natives; the Indian MP in the 1890s; Indians fighting alongside the British in WWII; the decolonized who embraced the liberal institutions of the Brits; the Chinese who fled communism for the colony of Hong Kong; the diversity of Boris’ cabinet; and the historic triumph of Rishi Sunak. Browse the Dishcast archive for another discussion you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Tabia Lee on her firing as a DEI director, Chris Stirewalt on Fox and the MSM, Ben Smith on going viral, John Oberg on veganism, and Patrick Deneen on a post-liberal future. Send your guest recs and pod comments to [email protected].

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comMark is a journalist, political scientist, historian of ideas, and a longtime friend since my twenties, when we studied political thought together. He has taught at NYU and the University of Chicago, and he’s currently a professor of humanities at Columbia. His many fine books include The Once and Future Liberal, The Reckless Mind, and The Shipwrecked Mind, and his forthcoming book is Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know. In this episode we focus on his essay, “On Indifference,” and the introduction he wrote for Thomas Mann’s Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man. It was a fantastic conversation. For two clips of our convo — on whether political indifference is unjust, and the political consequences of the decline of novel reading — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Mark’s working-class upbringing in Detroit; “falling in with Jesus freaks” as a teenager; making it to Harvard; absorbing Thomas Mann and The Magic Mountain; Isaiah Berlin; the rivalry between Sartre and Aron; Orwell’s willingness to break ranks; The Lord Chandos Letter and walking away from writing; the moral hysteria after Trump’s election; Mark signing the Harper’s letter; the lack of perspective among young people who feel oppressed; how the most “privileged” are often the most depressed; rising levels of loneliness among teens; the dwindling of connections with extended family; the impact of the Internet and Covid on interacting with bodies; the importance of facial expressions; the need for silence and meditation; the problem of tourists using phones and drones; Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus; slowing the pace of capital for the sake of community; Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option; the cultural impact of Vatican II; the reaction to wokeness in France and Italy; and my 2016 essay, “My Distraction Sickness and Yours.”Browse the Dishcast archive for another discussion you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Nigel Biggar on his qualified defense of colonialism, Tabia Lee on her firing as a DEI director, Chris Stirewalt on Fox News, Ben Smith on going viral, John Oberg on veganism, and Patrick Deneen on a post-liberal future. Send your guest recs and pod comments to [email protected].

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comSusan is a philosopher and writer focusing on the Enlightenment, moral philosophy, metaphysics and politics. She was professor of philosophy at Yale and Tel Aviv University, and in 2000 assumed her current position as director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam. She’s the author of nine books, including Evil in Modern Thought, Moral Clarity and Learning from the Germans. Her new book is Left Is Not Woke. We hit it off from the get-go.For two clips of our convo — on why being an “ally” is misguided, and the Nazi philosopher who influenced woke thought — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: the tension between universalism and tribalism in her Jewish upbringing in Atlanta; her mom’s work desegregating schools amid night calls from the Klan; Susan joining a commie commune; making it to Harvard as a high-school dropout; the legacy of Kant; Montaigne on how the West could learn from other cultures; the views of Voltaire, Rousseau, Wittgenstein and Rawls; the dialogue between Socrates and Thrasymachus on justice and power; the cynical faux-sophistication of postmodernists; the impact of Foucault and Carl Schmitt on wokeness; truth and reason as mere instruments of power; the woke impulse to deny progress; evolutionary psychology; Jesus rejecting tribalism; the Enlightenment rebuking clerical authority but respecting religion; Anthony Appiah and universalism within African and Indian cultures; anti-colonialism; the Iraq War and the hypocrisy of a liberal democracy using torture; the transition from Obama to Trump; and the Afropessimism of Ta-Nehisi Coates and others.Browse the Dishcast archive for another discussion you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety). Upcoming guests include Mark Lilla on liberalism, Nigel Biggar defending colonialism, Tabia Lee on her firing as a DEI director, Chris Stirewalt on Fox News, Ben Smith on going viral, and John Oberg on veganism.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comBob is a foreign affairs and travel journalist, and a scholar of the classics. For three decades he reported for The Atlantic and wrote for many other places, including the editorial pages of the NYT and WaPo — and TNR back in my day. He holds the Robert Strausz-Hupé Chair in Geopolitics at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and is a senior adviser at Eurasia Group. He’s the author of 21 books, including The Coming Anarchy, Balkan Ghosts and Asia’s Cauldron. His new book is The Tragic Mind.For two clips of our convo — why anarchy is worse than tyranny, specifically in Iraq, and the question of whether Taiwan is worth going to war over — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Bob’s working-class upbringing; his global travel as a young reporter; his complex views of humanity after visiting Soviet Europe and the Balkans; Reagan’s talent and good fortune; H.W.’s record of averting disaster; the optimism and hubris of the US after the Cold War; the series of US victories in the ‘90s — ending in Iraq and Afghanistan; the evil of Saddam; Obama’s love of Niebuhr and his overcompensation on Russia and China; Biden’s deft balancing act in Ukraine; how the Afghan exit actually benefitted the US against Russia; Greek tragedy vs. Shakespearean tragedy; Sophocles and Oedipus; the Christian understanding of tragedy; Hobbes and his Leviathan; Zionism as the lesser of two evils; Spengler’s Decline of the West; American decadence and the poison of social media; and Bob’s clinical depression after the Iraq invasion.Browse the Dishcast archive for another discussion you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety). Upcoming guests include Mark Lilla on liberalism, Susan Neiman on how “left is not woke,” Tabia Lee on her firing as a DEI director, Chris Stirewalt on Fox News, Nigel Biggar on colonialism, and John Oberg on veganism (recorded already but I’m sampling a variety of plant-based meats to comment on when the episode is released). As always, please send your guest recs and listener feedback to [email protected].

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comMichael, an old friend and acquaintance, is a writer and academic. He’s taught at Harvard, Johns Hopkins and UT-Austin. He’s been an editor or staff writer for The New Yorker, Harper’s and The New Republic, where I published him often, and he now writes frequently for the NYT and Financial Times. Michael also co-founded the think tank New America. The author of many books, his most recent is The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite, and his forthcoming book is Hell to Pay: How the Suppression of Wages is Destroying America.For two clips of our convo — on how big donors have stymied populists, and how Biden is better at Trumpism than Trump — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Michael’s upbringing in Texas; his ancestors who were indentured servants; the ways white Southerners dealt with desegregation better than the North; how white immigrants learned to be American from black Southerners; why Robert Conquest’s The Great Terror was the most important book Michael ever read; the evils of Soviet and Chinese communism; Krauthammer’s “The Unipolar Moment”; neoliberals getting the WTO and NAFTA; the collapse of unions; the rise of woke capitalism; Michael’s longstanding worries over free trade and mass immigration; the 2008 financial crisis; the disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan; the dangers of elite consensus; Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot as forerunners to Trump; the populist success of Santorum and Huckabee; the corrupt mayors James Curley and Marion Berry; the Cathedral culture of the MSM; the potential of DeSantis to dethrone Trump; and Biden’s prospects in 2024.Heads up that we just published a new transcript of our discussion with John Gray on the dusk of Western liberalism. It was a classic episode. Browse the Dishcast archive for another you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety).

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comJon is the chief national correspondent for Yahoo News and the host of “The Long Game” podcast. His first book was Camelot’s End: Kennedy v Carter and the Fight that Broke the Democratic Party, and his new book is Testimony: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Failed a Generation. You can also follow Jon’s writing on his substack, Border-Stalkers, and on his website, jonwardwrites.org.For two clips of our convo — on the joys of being evangelical Christian, and the sexual struggles of male evangelicals — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Jon growing up in the Jesus Movement in the '70s and '80s; speaking in tongues; the insecurity of evangelicals toward mainstream culture; Catholic hymns vs the music of evangelicals; Catholicism as anti-subjective and anti-emotional compared to evangelicalism; when the Southern Baptist Convention tolerated abortion; the evangelical and Catholic alliance after Roe v. Wade; Paul Weyrich; Reinhold Niebuhr; Frederick Buechner; structural sin; Calvinism and predestination; Saint Francis; the indifference of Jesus toward gender roles; same-sex marriage and the Mormon settlement over it; Garry Wills; James Carroll’s Constantine’s Sword; Kevin Hasson’s The Right to Be Wrong; how Christians should embrace political loss; Christianism and Trump; and the crosses wheeled out on January 6.Heads up that the Dish is taking Holy Week off as our spring break. See you back on the pod the Friday after the Good one. Happy Easter and Passover!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comHannah is an award-winning journalist with 15 years at the BBC. She is currently the Investigations Producer at Newsnight — the BBC’s flagship program for news and current affairs — and before that she was in BBC Radio, producing and reporting documentaries. She just published her first book, Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children. Twenty-two publishers turned down the book in the UK, it has no US publisher, yet it’s already a Sunday Times (of London) bestseller.For two clips of our convo — on the unfounded activist claims of trans-kid suicide, and the dramatic shift toward girls getting hormones with little oversight — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Hannah first encountering the trans issue as a new mother; the Dutch story of the very first patient to receive puberty blockers and hormones; Jesse Singal’s pioneering journalism; the destruction of Ken Zucker’s career and clinic by activists; the old standard of “watchful waiting” swept aside; the whittling away of the Dutch protocol; Tavistock keeping very little data on patients; the vast majority of medicalized kids being gay or lesbian or bi; the hushed dissent at Tavistock over gay kids being misdiagnosed as trans; the bullying and self-hatred of gay kids; the troubled homes of patients; conflating gender dysphoria with other mental-health problems; and a few specific stories of trans and detrans kids. She is fair and measured throughout. If you have bought the line that concerns about child transitions are entirely from the bigoted right, Hannah Barnes is an antidote.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comJames is a Roman Catholic priest, theologian and writer. His life’s work has been the application of the thought of René Girard — the French theoretician of desire and violence — to the understanding of basic Christianity. He has also stood up for truthfulness about gays and lesbians in the life of the Church; and has been a good friend for many years. Among his many books are The Joy of Being Wrong, Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay, and Jesus the Forgiving Victim — an introduction to the Christian faith. One of my current projects is a book on Christianity and its future; and James has been a big influence on my thinking. We range a lot here. For two clips of our convo — on an exasperated but loving God, and the evolutionary role of homosexuality — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: the deep Etonian background of James and his family; his Tory MP father; his evangelical mother who believed in conspiracy theories; young James realizing he was gay and believing God rejected him for it; Lord Montagu and the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1967; Kameny’s role in the US; how childhood alienation can be a creative spark; James at age 12 falling in love with a Catholic boy; his conversion to Catholicism without becoming a reactionary; Original Sin; the depressing parts of the Old Testament; the passages of love in the New Testament; Augustinian teleology debunked by Darwin; the views of Socrates, Buddhism, Aquinas and Luther; collective guilt over slavery; Catholic vs. Protestant colonialism; James adopting a Brazilian child; the AIDS crisis; and political topics like Brexit, Trump and the coup in Peru. Browse the Dishcast archives for a discussion you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety).

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comCathy is a libertarian journalist and author. She’s currently a staff writer at The Bulwark, a columnist for Newsday, and a frequent contributor to Reason magazine. She has written two books: Ceasefire!: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality, and Growing Up In Moscow: Memories of a Soviet Girlhood. We talk about how her life under totalitarianism informed her views on the war in Ukraine, and the authoritarian illiberalism in the US. She cheered me up a bit.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or on the right side of the player, click “Listen On” to add the Dishcast feed to your favorite podcast app — though Spotify sadly doesn’t accept the paid feed). For two clips of our convo — whether Russians actually support the war in Ukraine, and the gaslighting from liberals over woke extremism — pop over to our YouTube page.Other topics: how Soviet indoctrination of Cathy started in elementary school; the closet dissidents in her family; the members who were sent to the Gulag; Cathy reading banned books and hearing jokes against the Soviet leader; dissidents like Solzhenitsyn who became strong nationalists and imperialists; today’s horrors of the Wagner group and trench warfare; possible end-games over Ukraine; the US partisan flip over Russia; CRT in Florida schools and elsewhere; DeSantis and illiberal government overreach; the pushback from FIRE; Chris Rufo; the wokeism in red states; mandatory DEI statements; and Cathy’s optimism toward the woke threat based on her living through the fall of Soviet totalitarianism. Next week is the vegan activist John Oberg who will try to convince me to give up meat. Browse the Dishcast archives for a discussion you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety). As always, send your feedback and guest recommendations to [email protected]’s a listener on last week’s convo with philosopher John Gray on the threats to Western liberalism:Really enjoyed your conversation — or should I say, your conversational tango — with John Gray. The urge to explain, teach and to understand propelled both of you forward. How interesting to listen as you figured out when to break into the other’s conversational riffs (waiting for the occasional breath). There was not a hint of competition — “hey, it’s now my turn!” — the sort of thing you hear in quasi-debates with ideological foes (necessary though they may be). There is much pleasure, downright fun, in exercising good, free, spirited talk.I have been reading John Gray for years, and you can even call me a fan. I love to read him even if he writes the same book or essay, thematically speaking, year after year, updated to suit the events of the day. He insists on telling us in acres of print that we shouldn’t be fooled by the illusion of progress. Things haven’t gotten much better, morally speaking. We humans concoct one belief after another to make us feel better, or superior. Be it worshipping sky gods or Karl Marx (or Ayn Rand), we fragile creatures are always trying to imagine what we’re most definitely not. Gray does a good job of stripping us of our sense of agency. Reading him over the years I often want to fling his books out the window and take to bed.So I’ve wondered over the years why I still keep reading him and subjecting myself to his scolding critiques of our collective nonsense. Is it masochism? There’s plenty of that going around. You both end up by invoking, inadvertently, the Nike swish slogan, “Just do it!” Forget optimism or pessimism. They don’t do any good. Just get on with it, Gray tells us. Be buoyed by the spirit of conversation.Another listener touches on Trump:Great conversation as always. I even begrudgingly appreciate the scrambling that I must do to look up people, words, ideas, and events to fully engage in your valuable work.On your point that Trump “was a weapon used to bludgeon the people that were not listening to them” (around the 48 minute mark): after nearly four decades of the working-class’s frustrations for being ignored on a bipartisan basis, Fox News, conservative talk radio, and associated media must be mentioned. They collectively acted as both an accelerant and misdirector of the long simmering and justifiable anger. Only then could President Trump become the chosen weapon. Senator Sanders could also have been the weapon — an absolutely more appropriate but likely less effective weapon.Another suggests a future guest:I was struck by what you wrote here: “We’ll air a whole host of dissents to my Ukraine column next week, when I’ll also be discussing the topic with dedicated war-supporter, Cathy Young, on the Dishcast.” Young doesn’t need me to speak on her behalf, but I suspect what she really supports is victory for Ukraine and a just peace, not the kind of occupation that Ukrainians (like Estonians and so many others) remember too

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comJohn Gray is a political philosopher. He retired from academia in 2007 as Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics, and is now a regular contributor and lead reviewer at the New Statesman. His forthcoming book is The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism. I regard him as one of the great minds of our time, and this is one of my favorite pods ever. For two clips of our convo — how smug liberalism led to Trump and Brexit, and why we shouldn’t treat religion as intellectual error — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: the Judeo-Christian roots of liberalism; why Catholics never supported eugenics; the genius and licentious life of Michael Oakeshott; how Thatcherism and Reaganism turned into “inverted Marxism”; John’s loathing of the “indifference to economic casualties” (e.g. Hillary’s “deplorables”); his opposition to Fukuyama; Blair and the Iraq War; the liberal case for border control; the dangers of producing too many elites; Silicon Valley’s obsession with eternal life; anti-wokeness in France; how Trump predicted Germany’s bind over Russian energy; the disintegrating support for the war in Ukraine; reporting on the Holodomor; Fox News and Dominion; and how the gains of Western civilization could ultimately be saved by non-Westerners.Next week is Cathy Young to discuss Ukraine and what do to about CRT in public schools. Browse the Dishcast archives for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety). If you missed last week’s transcript with Glenn Loury, it’s here for the reading.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comAurelian is a political scientist and professor at Indiana University in Bloomington. His two most recent books are A Virtue for Courageous Minds: Moderation in French Political Thought and Faces of Moderation: The Art of Balance in an Age of Extremes. His forthcoming book is Why Not Moderation?: Letters to Young Radicals. If you think you know what moderation is, Aurelian will surprise you. Not mushy; not vague; not the median: it’s a political temperament and philosophy with its own distinctive heritage. We talk of Raymond Aron and George Orwell, Albert Camus and Michael Oakeshott, Isaiah Berlin and Adam Michnik. And why we need these kinds of thinkers today.For two clips of our convo — on whether the right or left is more of a threat to moderates, and why moderates oppose the notion of salvation — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Aurelian growing up in communist Romania near Ukraine; his five key principles of moderation; the French philosopher Raymond Aron and his rivalry with Sartre; Camus and Orwell as men of the left whom leftists hated; Isaiah Berlin and pluralism; Tocqueville, Judith Shklar, and Montaigne; relativism vs. skepticism; Keynes, and how liberty and equality are not incompatible; Machiavelli and the role of luck in politics; Oakeshott, politics as the art of improvisation; Adam Michnik’s courage in dark times; Plato on when moderation is not a good thing; MLK’s critique of moderates, Flight 93 elections, the Benedict Option, the cancel culture of the right, Oscar Wilde and the need for relaxed humor in politics. Yes, it was a lot. But we had a lot of fun as well.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comJill is a journalist and lawyer. She has been a columnist for The Guardian, a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, and an old-school blogger at Feministe. She’s the author of OK Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind and The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness. Currently a columnist for CNN, Jill also runs her own substack and writing retreats around the world. For two clips of our convo — on the state of feminism and gender equality, and whether freedom brings more gender differences — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: to what extent gender differences are biological or cultural, testosterone and the aggression of men, bonobos, when trans ideology reinforces the gender binary in kids, a non-zero-sum feminism, why men want quickies while women are more picky, the dating differences between gays and lesbians, the need for parental leave, child custody law, the abortion debate, pro-life women, a human life vs. personhood, individual rights vs. democracy, the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth, contraception, porn, and the recent spike in depression among teen girls. Just a few topics. Nothing controversial.Browse the entire Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy. (The first 102 episodes are available in their entirety, but for all the other full episodes, you’ll need to become a paid subscriber.)

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comNicholas Wade is a journalist with a long, distinguished career at the New York Times, the magazine Nature, and the journal Science. He’s the author of many books, including A Troublesome Inheritance, The Faith Instinct, and Before the Dawn. Last year he became one of the few mainstream journalists to seriously consider the lab leak theory, so in this episode we focus on his querulous and disturbing tract, Where Covid Came From.For two clips of our convo — whether Fauci had any role in the events that led to Covid, and the media’s cowardice over covering the lab leak theory — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: RNA and coronaviruses, the eerie structure of SARS-CoV-2, the shockingly lax security at the Wuhan lab, the NIH money that went to Wuhan, the Chinese grant proposal to the DOD, unpacking the Orwellian euphemism “gain of function,” the alarming behavior of the Chinese government in the fall of 2019, the implausibility of the wet market theory, the PR behavior of science journalists, Fauci’s distrust of the masses, the polarization of Trump’s “China virus” comments, the left’s lockstep resistance against lab leak (with notable exceptions like Jon Stewart), what the new GOP House could find with subpoenas, and a brief discussion of Wade’s controversial book A Troublesome Inheritance — namely the ongoing interplay between human genetics, culture and the rest of the environment.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comAfter working as a hairstylist for over a decade, Ben got a creative writing degree from Columbia University and started contributing to publications such as Newsweek and The Washington Examiner. Raised in a Christian cult, he’s close to publishing a memoir, Cis White Gay, about his liberation from what he calls the Church of Social Justice. You can also read Ben on his substack. I find his story a fascinating glimpse into our fast-changing world.For two clips of our convo — why women bond with gay hairdressers, and what queer theorists and Iran’s theocrats have in common — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Ben’s upbringing in a Christian cult while being a “super effeminate girly kid,” his OCD through praying, his escape into alcohol at age 12, his parents’ divorce and leaving the church, his codependency with his mother, being tormented as a “f****t” at his public high school, his drug addiction as a teen and dropping out of college, his 17-year sobriety, his marriage to a man, his activism for gay and trans rights, getting a college degree in his 30s, and the brutal woke bigotry he experienced at Columbia. Browse the entire Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety). Next week is Nicholas Wade on the lab leak theory. If you haven't already, subscribe to the Weekly Dish to get full episodes and the full written version every Friday in your in-tray: https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comRod is an old-school blogger and author living in Budapest. He’s a senior editor at The American Conservative and has written several bestsellers, including The Benedict Option and Live Not by Lies. He’s currently writing a book about bringing the enchantment back to Christianity in a time of growing secularism. He was enchanted himself after taking LSD in college, putting him on the path to Christianity — something he hasn’t talked about in public until now. We’ve been sparring online for a couple of decades, while remaining friends. For two clips of our convo — Rod coming to terms with his father being in the KKK, and breaking from the Catholic Church after learning of suicides by sex-abuse victims — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: television as a way for Rod to escape the racism of the rural South, his struggle for his father’s acceptance, meeting gay kids for the first time in boarding school, his youthful indiscretions of drinking and casual sex, his family rejecting him after moving home for his dying sister, reconciling with his dad, his friendly correspondence with a gay meth addict, his current divorce and moving to Budapest, and Rod believing that homosexuality and transness are “disordered” — and my profound disagreement with him on both counts. It’s one of the most revealing episodes we’ve had yet.Peruse the Dishcast archives for another episode you might enjoy — more than one hundred at this point. The podcast is part of The Weekly Dish on Substack. To subscribe and receive the weekly emails and full offerings, including the entire episodes, go here: https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comThe man himself. Taibbi is an investigative reporter in the Gonzo tradition who had a long career at Rolling Stone magazine, where he won the 2008 National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary. He’s written several bestselling books, including Griftopia and The Great Derangement, and now runs a wildly successful substack, TK News. Almost every less-talented hack hates him.For two clips of our convo — how the MSM condescends to its audience, and what the Twitter Files achieved — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Matt’s madcap stories reporting in Russia, him ditching a newspaper job to play pro basketball in Mongolia, the Substack refugees of 2020, being biased and balanced, woke-checking over fact-checking, reporting uncomfortable truths, the insularity of Ivy League journos, lauding Wayne Barrett and Mike Kinsley, dinging Jon Chait and Rachel Maddow, the misguided coverage of trans kids, the Atlanta spa shootings, the reckless overreactions to Trump, Russiagate, and taking psychedelics for a gay leather event. Good times. Peruse the Dishcast archives for another episode you might enjoy — 102 and counting. The podcast is part of The Weekly Dish on Substack. To subscribe and receive the weekly emails and full offerings, go here: https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Glenn is an academic and writer. At the age of 33, he became the first African-American professor of economics at Harvard to get tenure, and he’s currently the Merton P. Stoltz Professor of Economics at Brown University, as well as a Paulson Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His longtime podcast, The Glenn Show, is now on Substack, where he regularly appears with John McWhorter. He’s currently writing a memoir of his incredibly colorful life, The Enemy Within, which we talk about at length.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or on the right side of the player, click “Listen On” to add the Dishcast feed to your favorite podcast app). For two clips of our convo — how the insistence on the permanence of “white supremacy” hurts African-Americans, and how we are all hypocrites to some extent — pop over to our YouTube page.Other topics: Glenn’s upbringing on the South Side, his forebears’ migration from the segregated South, his parents dealing with him as a prodigy, dropping out of college with a newborn, rebounding to MIT and Harvard, being ostracized by the black cognoscenti, his drug addiction, his conversion to Christianity, his loss of faith, falling out with the neocon right, the racial wealth gap, and affirmative action.The Dishcast is part of The Weekly Dish on Substack. To subscribe and receive the weekly emails and full offerings, head here: https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Back for a second pod appearance, Nick is a reporter at the Washington Post covering immigration and DHS, and before that he was a foreign correspondent based in Mexico City and Havana. This time we discuss not just the unending border crisis but the spiraling fentanyl emergency, which Nick and his colleagues just covered in a must-read seven-part investigation. I know few people as honest and transparent as Nick on what’s actually happening at the border.For two clips of our convo — on how the Biden administration is erasing the meaning of asylum, and how fentanyl should be seen foremost as a poison — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: the overwhelmed court system, Title 42, the polarized and paralyzed Congress, the thankless role of Mayorkas, Obama’s record on immigration, Trump’s damage, the ineptitude of Kamala Harris, the effect of social media on migrants, many mind-blowing facts about fentanyl, its contamination in other drugs, Big Pharma, and what parents should tell their children. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Carl Trueman is a Christian theologian and ecclesiastical historian. He’s currently a professor of biblical and religious studies at Grove City College, as well as an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He’s the author of many books, but in this episode, we discuss The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self (a condensed version of which just came out: Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution). It’s been a hit on the paleocon right.For two clips of our convo — on our disagreement over the nature of gayness, and whether gay marriages adversely affect straight marriages — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Augustine, Aquinas, Martin Luther and the printing press, Pascal, Calvin, Rousseau, mimesis vs. poiesis, Darwin, Freud, the Frankfurt School, postmodernism, Charles Taylor, contraception, Reagan and no-fault divorce, reactionaries, and sodomy. Yeah, sodomy. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Alyssa writes about mass culture, parenting and gender for the Washington Post’s “Opinions” section. Previously she was the culture editor at ThinkProgress, the TV columnist at Women and Hollywood, a columnist for the XX Factor at Slate, and a correspondent for The Atlantic. Check out her crowd-sourced collection of 99 children’s books, which we discuss on the pod.For two clips of our convo — on whether social justice should be a centerpiece of children’s books, and how to get kids hooked on books again — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Dr. Seuss, Watership Down, The Famous Five, the Narnia books, Tolkien, Charlotte’s Web, Animal Farm, the complexities of Cate Blanchett’s Tár, the misfires of Billy Eichner’s Bros, rewatching Game of Thrones, Alyssa’s takedown of She Said, and the rise of homeschooling among black families. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Kyle Harper is an historian who focuses on how humanity has shaped nature, and vice versa. He’s a Professor of Classics and Letters at the University of Oklahoma and the author of several books, including The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire, and his latest, Plagues Upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History. His mastery of the science is only matched by the ease of his prose. If I were to nominate a book of the year, it would be this one (alongside Jamie Kirchick’s Secret City).For two clips of our convo — on the zombie bloodsucking fleas of the Black Death, and on how Covid doomed the careers of Trump and Boris — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: the bubonic plague’s role in the fall of the Roman Empire, the Black Death, flagellants and anti-Semitism, the plague in 17th century London, the Spanish flu, the AIDS crisis, Thucydides, Camus’ La Peste, “The Roses of Eyam,” monkeypox, lab leak, and the uprising over China’s ghastly Covid policy. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Robert is a writer-at-large for the New York Times Magazine and a contributing writer for National Geographic. He is the author of several books, including Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush, and his new one is Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind. He’s a friend and a prodigiously productive reporter who truly seems intent in finding out the truth — rather than spinning some ideological tale. And he was there on January 6.For two clips of our convo — on the MAGA supporters falling away from Trump, and on the rise of Majorie Taylor Greene — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: the midterms, Trump vs. DeSantis, the epistemological collapse within our media bubbles, Tea Party hatred of moderate Obama, the growing diversity of GOP voters, our disagreement over the impact of CRT in schools, George W. Bush and the One Percent Doctrine, and the sheer careerism of GOP politicians. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Damon is a political writer who recently launched his own Substack, “Eyes on the Right.” He’s been the editor of First Things and a senior correspondent at The Week, and he’s the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test. Back when we were both at Newsweek / Daily Beast, he edited my essays, so we’ve been friends for a while. We also both belong to the camp of conflicted moderates.For two clips of our convo — on the impossibility of predicting politics, and on the question of whether DeSantis can dethrone Trump — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: the mental illness of our mothers, Leo Strauss and his acolytes, Socrates, the state of liberal democracy, Robert Bork, Harvey Mansfield, the essential need for doubt, how we both misjudged the red wave, Kari Lake, Biden’s shortcomings and which Democrat could replace him in 2024. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Fareed is the host of the CNN show “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” which has been on the air since 2008. He’s also a columnist for the Washington Post and the author of several bestsellers, including In Defense of a Liberal Education, The Post-American World, and his latest, Ten Lessons For a Post-Pandemic World. He’s also been a friend since 1983.For two clips of our convo — on the silver linings of British colonialism, and how the war in Ukraine could end — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: the remarkable immigrant story of Fareed’s family, colonial racism in India, Churchill, David Cameron, the rise of Rishi Sunak, falling in love with America, Burke, the rapid pace of migration and free trade, the threat from China, the Cold War, and Fareed’s mentor Sam Huntington and the “Clash of Civilizations.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Kathryn is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she won a National Magazine Award and a Pulitzer Prize for “The Really Big One,” about a future earthquake that will wreak havoc on the Pacific Northwest. She’s also the author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error, and in this episode we discuss Lost & Found, a memoir about falling madly in love while her father lay dying.For two clips of our convo — on how modern society avoids suffering, and how weddings can be a metaphor for America — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: the familial impact of the Holocaust, immigrant resilience, love at first sight, how deep differences enhance a marriage, the assimilation of gays and lesbians, how Americans deal with trauma, and the pitfalls of writing a memoir. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Chris — an old friend and, in my view, one of the sharpest right-of-center writers in journalism — returns to the Dishcast. A senior fellow at the Claremont Institute and contributing editor to the Claremont Review of Books, his latest book, The Age of Entitlement, is a constitutional narrative of the last half-century that is indispensable — especially for liberals — in understanding the roots of our polarization. We discussed the book last year. This time on the pod, Chris has just returned from Europe and discusses the rapidly shifting politics there.For two clips of our convo — on how one-child families could be the downfall of Putin’s war, and how Biden is co-opting Trump on border policy and China — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Meloni and the US media meltdown, Truss, Remainers vs. Leavers, Boris, the energy crisis, possible off-ramps for the war, Russian dissenters, and the waning of American exceptionalism when it comes to religion. Good times. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Yoram Hazony is a philosopher, Bible scholar, and political theorist. He founded the Shalem Center, a research institute in Israel, and he’s currently president of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem and serves as chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation in DC. The author of many books, including The Virtue of Nationalism, his most recent is Conservatism: A Rediscovery. He is one of the most compelling writers in the “post-liberalism” camp on the right. I think you’ll find I challenged him on everything. For two clips of our convo — on how wokeness is a threat to civic religion, and how Trump can be a tool to reclaim Christianity — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: woke neo-Marxism, the creative tension of the Constitution, Reaganism, Netanyahu, and thinkers including Burke, Hume and Jefferson. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Frank is a longtime writer at the NYT — ranging from White House correspondent to chief restaurant critic to op-ed columnist, and now also a journalism professor at Duke. In his early days at the Detroit Free Press, he was a war correspondent, chief movie critic, and religion writer. We’ve known each other for many years, gay writers of the same generation. His latest book is the bestselling memoir The Beauty of Dusk: On Vision Lost and Found, about aging and optimism after Frank began to go blind.For two clips of our convo — on the opportunities that can be found in suffering, and on the wisdom found in cringey cliches — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics we touch on include: the AIDS crisis, losing my best friend to the disease, the marriage movement, the alphabet people, psychedelics, Frank's dog, and the marvelous adaptations of blind people. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Richard Reeves is a senior fellow at Brookings, where he directs the Boys and Men Project. He’s also been the director of Demos — the London-based political think-tank — an adviser to Nick Clegg in David Cameron’s coalition government, and a Guardian journalist. His latest book is Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It. (For more, follow his new substack.)I’m fascinated by the challenges of modernity for the weaker sex (men), and Richard has grappled with the questions more calmly than most. For two clips of our convo — on how boys are less resilient than girls, and on the racialized sexism against African-American men — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics we touch on: the cartoonish masculinity of MAGA, the need for male teachers, the huge gains of black women, the gender pay gap(s), the class gaps of marriage, deaths of despair, sex-segregated sports, and the pathologizing of male sexuality. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

As you’ll tell from my brief new intro to this 2006 conversation, my voice right now is so eviscerated I can’t speak at all. Silenced at last! So here is a very early experiment I did with kinda-podcasting, when I took a microphone to Hitch’s place and let the tape roll. A blast from the grave in some ways.We mainly debated the nature of religion and the global war on terrorism. For two clips — on the divinity of Jesus, and whether the Golden Rule is actually “cruel and stupid,” as Hitch put it — pop over to our YouTube page. The audio quality is a little rough, but a transcript of the two-hour conversation is available here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Louise Perry is a writer and campaigner against sexual violence. This year she co-founded a non-partisan feminist think tank called The Other Half, where she serves as Research Director. Her debut book is The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century, where she takes on casual sex, porn, BDSM, dating apps and prostitution, all from a post-liberal perspective. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Matthew Rose is a scholar of religion. He’s currently Senior Fellow and Director of the Barry Center on the University and Intellectual Life — a project of the Morningside Institute — and he previously taught at Villanova. He’s written for magazines such as First Things and The Weekly Standard, and his newest book is A World After Liberalism. It’s an examination of five far-right thinkers, from Julius Evola to Sam Francis, who are proving increasingly influential in post-liberal conservatism in America.It’s the first of several episodes in which I hope to explore more deeply the radical alternatives to liberal democracy being touted on the right. Think of it as a balance to my focus this past year on the illiberal alternatives being touted on the woke left. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

How to think about DeSantis? We decided to ask Dexter Filkins, who recently wrote this super-smart profile of the man for The New Yorker, which the Dish discussed here. Dexter is an award-winning journalist best known for covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the New York Times. His book, The Forever War, won the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award. He’s the best in the business, a native of Florida, and a longtime friend of the Dish. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Sohrab is a founder and editor of Compact: A Radical American Journal, and he’s a contributing editor at The American Conservative. He spent nearly a decade at News Corp. — as the op-ed editor of the New York Post and as a columnist and editor with the WSJ opinion pages in New York and London. His books include From Fire, by Water: My Journey to the Catholic Faith and The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos. A new voice for a new conservatism, I tried to talk him through how he got to this place — politically and spiritually.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or on the right side of the player, click “Listen On” to add the Dishcast feed to your favorite podcast app). For two clips of our convo — on whether the free market is actually a tyranny, and how many liberals actually reject democracy, e.g. Brexit — pop over to our YouTube page.Sohrab’s appearance this week is a good excuse to publish a transcript from David French, his great nemesis in conservative circles. Here’s a clip from David’s Dishcast:A reader wrote last week:I know the Sohrab episode isn’t out yet, but judging by his Twitter presence, it’s going to be a real barnburner of sophistry. His latest quips regarding foreign policy are ones that I find to be ignorant, especially his quips at Yascha Mounk. I know you’ve already shot the episode, but I’d suggest you check out the book, The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization. I think it really puts into perspective what American military might has brought to the world (absent, obviously, some of the more glaring blunders), and it might give context, rather than rhetoric, to Sohrab’s arguments.We clashed a little, but I also gave him space and time to explain his own strange journey to this brand of neo-reactionism. In my view, his biography tells you a lot about his need for moral and political “absolutes.” In my book, that makes him close to the opposite of a conservative.If you’re sympathetic to Sohrab’s arguments, send us a comment for next week’s edition: [email protected]. On last week’s episode of the Dishcast, a listener writes:Terrific interview with Larry Summers. Though my politics are thisclose to Summers’, he floated two whoppers in his talk with you.1) His suggestion that the United States and other liberal democracies can “build their ways” out of right-wing authoritarianism with more housing, infrastructure and health care is simply not true. Not even close. The evidence is very clear that the driving force behind right-wing illiberalism is demographics and left-wing illiberalism is culture. Under investment in macro-economic indicators is a problem, to be sure, but it has nothing to do with illiberalism.2) The United States is decidedly not an exporter of inflation. The US dollar is at historic highs, which means foreigners are investing in America and in dollar denominated assets, because Joe Biden’s America represents the “nicest house in a bad neighborhood,” when measured by jobs growth, business investment, private consumption and personal savings.Summers is right that the America Rescue Plan was too generous. But he seems reluctant to consider the historic relevance of the post-WWII era when American inflation was 14% in 1947, 8% in 1948 and -1% in 1949. As in the post-pandemic era, aggregate demand in the late 1940s rebounded a lot faster than supply, and consumers worldwide bid up the prices of scarce goods, services and raw materials.Summers responds:On the reader’s first point, it’s an interesting hypothesis, but my guess is if there were more and better blue-collar jobs, more affordable housing, and more prosperity, there would be less raging populism.On the second point, I don’t agree. The demand from the US has contributed to global bottlenecks. The strong dollar means weak other currencies which adds to their inflation. I have thought much about the post-WWII period, and I doubt it is a good parallel. There was the effect of removing price controls. There were very different expectations under the gold standard and given the recent depression.I agree with my reader on the core cultural question of left over-reach. I suspect Larry does too — but it’s not a subject he’s comfortable with, especially since his Harvard cancellation. Another reader looks to the deepening tribalism on the right:Perhaps you missed it, but I haven’t seen the Dish comment on the Texas GOP platform yet. This surprises me, since the Dish is, in my view, the most important defender of classical liberalism on the web. The platform of the largest state Republican Party in the country can be found here. From the AP’s summary:Approved by 5,000-plus party delegates last weekend in Houston during the party’s biennial convention, the new platform brands President Joe Biden an “acting” commander-in-chief who was never “legitimately elected.” It may not matter who the president is, though, since

He’s in the news again this week — after persuading Joe Manchin that the climate and healthcare bill he’s pushing isn’t inflationary. Larry Summers has had a storied career, as the chief economist of the World Bank, the treasury secretary under Clinton, and the director of the National Economic Council under Obama. He also was the president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006 and remains there as the Charles W. Eliot University Professor. You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or on the right side of the player, click “Listen On” to add the Dishcast feed to your favorite podcast app). For two clips of our convo — on how the US government spent way too little during the Great Recession and way too much during the pandemic, and how we can help the working class cope — pop over to our YouTube page.The episode has a lot of thematic overlap with our recent discussion with David Goodhart, author of Head, Hand, Heart: Why Intelligence Is Over-Rewarded, Manual Workers Matter, and Caregivers Deserve More Respect. Here’s a new transcript. And below is a clip from that episode on how our economy overvalues white-collar brain power:Back to inflation talk, here’s a dissent:I’ve been reading your blog for a little over a year now, and listening to Dishcast, which is great. I’ve noticed a few things, however, that I would like you to perhaps respond to, or at least consider. First, what you refer to as “wokeness” on the left is, I agree, an obnoxious problem that has been exacerbated by social media. But I think your recent guest Francis Fukuyama has it mostly correct in his new book, Liberalism and Its Discontents, when he identifies illiberal trends on the political left as being more of an annoyance, or at the very least, far less of a threat to the republic than illiberal trends on the right. Second, I completely disagree with this rather lazy salvo from you: “Biden’s legacy — an abandonment of his mandate for moderation, soaring inflation, an imminent recession, yet another new war, and woker-than-woke extremism — has only deepened it.” It simply is not the case that Biden has not, especially when forced to, hewed towards moderation. Yes, he is attempting to respond to a leftward shift in the Democratic Party by trying to govern more from the left, but this is simply a reflection of political reality. In addition, much of his agenda has been batted down, but more on that in a moment. Next, inflation and an imminent recession have a lot more to do with what the Fed has done over the last four decades — and definitely since the financial crisis of 2008 — than with Joe Biden. On this theme of a highly financialized economy nearing the end of the neoliberal era, I recommend Rana Foroohar on Ezra Klein’s latest podcast, where she talks about the popping of the “Everything Bubble.” Asset-value inflation, deindustrialization, a perverse focus on shareholder value rather than investing in Main Street or even R&D, and an utter lack of policy solutions, have caused this. In addition, as Foroohar herself says, the changes we need to make in our economy are going to be, in the short-to-medium term, inflationary. This means policymakers have to start making policy that actually helps both people and infrastructure, which means spending money. Unfortunately, the garden has gone untended for so long that we’re teetering on the brink of becoming a really shitty country if we don’t take more aggressive action. In addition, with regard to an upcoming recession, Noah Smith wrote on his Substack recently that Keynesian economics would suggest that a quick recession now in order to stomp out inflation would be better in the long run than milquetoast attempts to curb it by raising interest rates too slowly. The idea is that recessions — especially fast and somewhat shallow ones — can be weathered, but inflation that goes on for too long leaves lasting scars on the economy. (Smith identifies the Volker recessions as probably permanently damaging the Rust Belt.) Personally, what I worry about more on the left is not “woke-ism,” but the trendy socialist/ironic/weird outlets like Jacobin or Chapo Trap House, which seem to be doing their damndest to convince younger, more impressionable and less educated people that the whole country is fucked; it’s designed to be fucked because capitalism is fucked; and only its imminent collapse will allow for problems to be solved through revolution/redistribution. Believe me, that sentiment is becoming a real problem, and the people who buy into it are every bit as ideologically rigid, illiberal, and closed to inquiry as those on the rabid right.Next up, listeners sound off on last week’s episode with Fraser Nelson, the British journalist who sized up the prime minister race. The first comment comes from “a long-time libertarian in Massachusetts”:I’ve been reading the Dish for about a year and finally subscribed thanks to your fascinating interview with Fraser Nelson. I was

Fraser is a Scottish Catholic highlander who now edits (brilliantly) the Spectator in London. Deeply versed in Tory politics, and sympathetic to Boris, he seemed the ideal person to ask to explain what’s been going on in Westminster, what went so wrong under PM Johnson, and who is likely to replace him. It’s a one-stop guide to contemporary British politics in a mild Scottish accent.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or on the right side of the player, click “Listen On” to add the Dishcast feed to your favorite podcast app). For two clips of our convo — on how Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss compare to one another, and what Fraser calls the “absolutely electrifying” effect of Kemi Badenoch — pop over to our YouTube page.A good complement to this episode is the one I had last year with Dominic Cummings, the brilliant strategist behind Brexit and the rise of Boris. Here’s the transcript. Here’s a clip about Dominic’s break from Boris:To continue the debate over my recent column on Trump and Boris, a reader writes:Here’s a dissent: You are right about Trump. You are wrong about Johnson.Lying comes naturally to Johnson. It’s not just to get out of trouble. He lies about everything. Max Hastings knew this and presciently forecast it would all blow up. It has.Let’s turn to Brexit. First take the term “elites.” This glib, trash term is overused, over-hackneyed and should have no place in your lexicon. Unless very carefully defined, it is completely meaningless. I know as many lawyers and city types who voted for Brexit as did Remain, and likewise for gardeners, carpenters, plumbers etc. The British public was conned, lied to and persuaded there was a problem of the EU’s doing. To be fair, there were problems, some of which can be laid at the EU’s door, but for too many years, blame deflection was the name of the game. Most of the problems the country faced were homegrown. Now look at what has happened: we have a stuttering economy, low growth and haven’t yet introduced the checks at our borders we are supposed to, as it will cause even more chaos — Jacob Rees-Mogg has admitted as much. That’s what happens when you erect major trade barriers with your neighbours and largest market. We can debate immigration as much as you like, but the problem has got worse, and as you correctly pointed out, the numbers have increased.Now let’s look at the so-called Conservative Party. Under Johnson, one-nation conservatism died. He killed it. It was replaced, deliberately, by a populist, divisive style of rule, not dissimilar to Trump’s, quite happy to bend or break laws and conventions in order to further its agenda. Its leading persona was Boris Johnson, and to the eternal shame of the Conservative Party, precious few demurred. The problems the country now face stem directly from Brexit: a plethora of unfulfillable promises built on lies. There are still many who think Brexit was a good thing, but there is a growing and significant majority that now recognises it isn’t working and was a mistake. It’s happened, and Keir Starmer is right to say that the next step should be to improve relations with the EU and to see what can be made to work, starting with the Northern Ireland Protocol (putting a border down the Irish Sea was, you’ll remember, a promise Johnson swore he would never do. And then promptly did “to get Brexit done”). All the deceit involved drives me mad, but the Labour Party, by electing a no-hoper and no-brainer in Jeremy Corbyn, made winning a majority inevitable (and remember FPTP didn’t require a significantly higher number of votes to achieve this).It might be too early to write off the Conservative Party, much as I would like to, despite having voted for them most of my adult life. But they are tainted, out of ideas, and despite the diversity you applaud, not impressive. I fear the next few months may prove as entertaining as the last few years.One aspect that you haven’t touched on is the role of the media. It is staggering to see the degree of partisanship on display. The Telegraph, Mail and Express appear to be living in an alternative universe where truth and fantasy commingle without differentiation. And why did the Times, which I read along with the Guardian, pull the blow-job report? This, along with the Londongrad money saga, is for another day. By the way, I am pleased you quoted Marina Hyde. Her sassiness, razor-sharp intellect and acerbic wit are spot-on.We will have her on the Dishcast soon enough. Here’s a reader in London:Sure, there was mounting frustration about Boris Johnson’s lying — not just the lying, but the fact that he invariably had to follow with “oh yes, come to think of it …” But voters, as opposed to MPs, think politicians lie all the time anyway, so I don’t think the cut-through is as great as might be supposed. I think the great point lost in all this is that Boris got his landslide because of Brexit and the increasing frustration with his inability to gra

Peter is a political activist, most famously as a pioneering member of ACT UP — the grassroots AIDS group that challenged and changed the federal government. He founded both the Treatment Action Group (TAG) and the educational website AIDSmeds.com. An old friend and sparring partner, he also stars in the Oscar-nominated documentary “How to Survive a Plague.” Check out his memoir, Never Silent: ACT UP and My Life in Activism.You can listen to the episode — which gets fiery at times — in the audio player above (or click the dropdown menu to add the Dishcast to your podcast feed). For two short clips of my convo with Peter — on how he and other AIDS survivors turned to meth, and Peter pushing back on my views of critical queer theory in schools — pop over to our YouTube page. There’s also a long segment on just the monkeypox stuff. If that episode isn’t gay enough for you, we just posted a transcript of the episode last year with Katie Herzog and Jamie Kirchick. Both of these Alphabet apostates were on Real Time last month — here’s Jamie:Katie appeared alongside this clapped-out old bear:Come to think of it, two more Dishcast alums were on the same episode of Real Time last month — Michael Shellenberger and Douglas Murray:Oh wait, two more in June — Cornel West and Josh Barro:We now have 20 episodes of the Dishcast transcribed (check out the whole podcast archive here):* Bob Woodward & Robert Costa on the ongoing peril of Trump* Buck Angel & Helena Kerschner on living as trans and detrans* Katie Herzog & Jamie Kirchick on Pride and the alphabet people* Dominic Cummings on Boris, Brexit and immigration* Caitlin Flanagan on cancer, abortion and other Christmas cheer* Glenn Greenwald on Bolsonaro, woke journalists and animal torture* Jonathan Haidt on social media’s havoc* Yossi Klein Halevi on the origins of Zionism* Fiona Hill on Russia, Trump and the American Dream* Jamie Kirchick on the Lavender Scare* John McWhorter on woke racism* John Mearsheimer on handling Russia and China* Roosevelt Montás on saving the humanities * Michael Moynihan on Afghanistan and free speech* Charles Murray on human diversity* Jonathan Rauch on dangers to liberalism* Christopher Rufo on critical race theory in schools* Michael Shellenberger on homeless, addiction and crime* Cornel West on God and the great thinkers* Wesley Yang on the Successor IdeologyA Dishcast listener looks to last week’s episode and strongly dissents:I enjoyed your interview with Matthew Continetti. Unfortunately, an exchange at the end reminded me of why I had to reluctantly tune you out for years: your hero worship of Obama. I respect and admire the way you call out the failures and excesses of both sides, including those of mine (the right), which I acknowledge were glaring even before Trump. During the Obama years, however, it was hard not to cringe when I watched you tear up on Chris Matthews’s show and compare him to a father figure. I also recall you yelling at SE Cupp and aggressively pointing a finger at her on Bill Maher’s show for daring to compare the foreign policies of Obama and W Bush:It’s hard to imagine anyone with that kind of emotional response being objective, and sadly, you never were during his presidency.You argued with Continetti that Obama was a middle-of-the-road pragmatist, when nothing could be further from the truth. He came into office with the economy reeling in a banking and housing crisis, and he took the Rahm Emmanuel approach of never letting a crisis go to waste. Even before his inauguration, he begin planning to rush through major legislation on healthcare, climate, and education. These may be worthy goals, but they are not the actions of a pragmatist who wants to govern by addressing the problems of the moment. He then outsourced the stimulus bill to Pelosi, which was a pork-filled bonanza with almost nothing even remotely stimulative. He refused to incorporate any Republican ideas into the healthcare legislation and arrogantly said to McCain that “the election’s over” when McCain voiced some opposition. Obama then lied in selling the bill to the American people by saying you would be able to keep your plan and your doctor in all cases.When Obama lost his congressional majority, he resorted to gross lawlessness, taking executive actions that exceeded his constitutional authority on everything from carbon emissions to insurance company appropriations to immigration, including on measures that were recently voted down by Congress or (as Continetti noted) he previously acknowledged he lacked the constitutional authority to do. He even flouted his ability to do this — knowing the media would cover for him — by saying he had “a pen and a phone.”Obama was one of the more divisive presidents in history. Every speech followed the same obnoxious shtick of chiding Republicans for playing politics and claiming that he alone was acting in the national interest. We saw this again, even post-presidency, during the funeral of John Lewis.

Matthew is a journalist who worked at The Weekly Standard and co-founded The Washington Free Beacon, where he served as editor-in-chief. Currently he’s a contributing editor at National Review, a columnist at Commentary, and a senior fellow and the Patrick and Charlene Neal Chair in American Prosperity at the American Enterprise Institute. We discuss his wonderful book, The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or click the dropdown menu to add the Dishcast to your podcast feed). For two clips of my convo with Matthew — on whether the GOP is destroying the Constitution, and debating how conservative was Obama was — pop over to our YouTube page.A listener looks back to last week’s episode:I enjoyed your discussion of friendship with Jennifer Senior, particularly your observation that a friend is someone we don’t want to change. It reminded me of one of my favorite quotes by Friedrich Nietzsche: “Love is blind, friendship closes its eyes.”And here’s some insight from Jesus on the subject:Another listener grumbles:Another woman talking about friendship? How novel. How about finding some guys to talk about it? Because it sure is tough for straight men to find new friendships. The old ones fall apart for much the same reason that women's do, but the straight male psyche seems particularly resistant to making new ones. The Dishcast, in fact, recently aired an episode with Nicholas Christakis that covered quite a bit about the nature of friendship between straight men. Much of it centers on taking the piss out of each other:Another listener remarks on the part of my convo with Jennifer about the evolving nature of newsrooms — basically that they’re boring now, ensconced in Slack:I agree about the dead quiet in newsrooms these days. I started out in broadcasting in the early ‘80s, with a stint at NPR in the late ‘80s early ‘90s. People would shout and yell and ask questions on spelling, grammar and facts about previous stories, all while rushing to meet the deadlines. Then a few years ago, I worked in a major public radio newsroom and it was dead quiet. The editor sitting behind me would type a question to me via top-line message and I’d just turn around and answer him. It was a major sin! So boring! Thankfully now I work for a small nonprofit newsroom and I’m the head of our tiny audio division. Sadly COVID made our newsroom virtual, but oh how I miss those early, pre-internet newsrooms with people arguing and talking and joking with each other.Here’s what Jennifer and I have to say:Another listener wants more:I just finished last week’s Dishcast with Jennifer Senior. I just wanted you to know how much I enjoyed your conversation. It made me wish I were friends with you both! But at the outset of the show, you said you wanted to talk about her recent essay on Steve Bannon. Unfortunately, the end of the episode came and you’d not broached the topic. I read the piece and it was fascinated, so I wanted to hear more. Please have her back!We do have repeat offenders on the pod, like David Wallace-Wells and Jamie Kirchick, so stay tuned. After the Continetti convo this week, here are a few requests for more conservative guests:Sometimes I feel like you’re a friend of mine, since I’ve been reading you for so long — God, since the ‘80s. The thing is your intellectual honesty, and changing your mind when facts change. So please, please, get Rod Dreher on to talk with you! We love it when you talk to someone who’s in the same area but looking in another direction. What Dreher is going through is just beyond the pale — embracing a strongman authoritarian regime and calling it conservatism. It’s the same as the left embracing CRT and calling it liberal. Yep. I just need to summon up the emotional energy for him. Another asks:Have you ever considered getting Ben Shapiro on? I think he might be a more fun guest than Ann Coulter (even though I enjoyed listening to your interaction with her), and he’s honestly more capable of learning (i.e. I’m hoping it’d be a educational interaction for him).Always open to your guest recommendations — and your commentary on the episodes: [email protected] dissents. First up, from one of the readers who most frequently criticizes the Dish’s coverage of crime:Last week you highlighted Scott Alexander’s column on the 2020 murder spike, calling it “devastating.” In fact, it’s wildly off-base. I’m sure Scott is a smart guy, but he’s wading into an incredibly complex subject with very little respect for or understanding of the work of others.His argument rests on timing. Murders began spiking around the launch of Black Lives Matter protests — the “structural break” mentioned in the Council on Criminal Justice’s report he cites — so, he says, it follows that one caused the other. This is a version of the “Ferguson Effect” theory, and it’s fared very poorly in the academic literature — though you wouldn’t kno

Jennifer Senior was a long-time staff writer at New York magazine and a daily book critic for the NYT. Her own book is the bestseller, All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood. She’s now a staff writer at The Atlantic, where she won a 2022 Pulitzer for “What Bobby McIlvaine Left Behind,” a story about 9/11. But in this episode we primarily focus on her essay, “It’s Your Friends Who Break Your Heart.”You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or click the dropdown menu to add the Dishcast to your podcast feed). For two clips of our convo — on why friends with different politics are increasingly rare, on how Jesus died for his friends — pop over to our YouTube page. A new transcript is up in honor of what we are still learning about Trump’s attempted violent coup: Bob Woodward and Robert Costa on the perpetual peril of Trump. Below is a segment of that convo — probably the most significant one we’ve had on the Dishcast yet:Turning to the debate over abortion in the ashes of Roe, a reader dissents:I’m having a hard time understanding why you’re so misleading about abortion rights in the US compared to other nations, and naive about protection of the other rights under the 14th Amendment. Germany allows abortions up to 12 weeks for any reason, but what’s remarkable about Germany is not the 12-week mark, but that Germany offers pre-natal care, child care, employment guarantees, etc. that make it much easier for a woman if she chooses to go through with her pregnancy. The US doesn’t have anything like this. And even with the new right in America pretending to hop on board the social insurance train, passing any laws in a conservative-majority Congress that would provide more social services to pregnant women would deliberately NOT address or protect the right of a woman to control her own fertility — that is, to decide to have a child or not. In other words, the interests of a woman’s bodily autonomy and reproductive control would be denied. That makes women, on the whole, unable to live freely in society. But we don’t have to hop over to Europe to run a comparison. Canada protects abortion rights for any reason, with most clinics providing the procedure up to 23 weeks. This aligns with the (previous) fetal viability cutoff that Roe protected. And recently Mexico decriminalized abortion entirely, which paves the way for full, legal abortion rights.The US is now the regressive anomaly, not the progressive outlier you insist we are. And your idea that abortion can just be decided via democracy is cute — maybe that would’ve been true in the past — but SCOTUS could care less about the legislative process. You only have to look at their recent gun decision to realize that. You should make these things clear when you discuss abortion, instead of conveniently obfuscating the context and facts.As far as your confidence that the other rights under the 14th Amendment — gay marriage, access to contraception, etc. — will stand firm, I’m not sure why. Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney-Barrett evoked stare decisis in their confirmation hearings, and this turned out to be a shameless lie from all of them. With the conservative majority in place, they could then take up the Dobbs case and use it to overturn Roe entirely — stare decisis be damned.Alito left the door open to address Obergefell, etc. in his draft opinion, so why would you think Thomas taking it a step further is just him “trolling”? The majority of Americans wanted Roe left in place; its provisions were the compromise that balanced the interests of the woman with that of the fetus that you incorrectly thought was lacking. (Listen to Ezra Klein’s podcast with court expert Dahlia Lithwick to understand why that is). Yet despite its popularity, Roe was struck down. The majority of Americans support gay marriage. But the conservative court has publicly stated now that they don't care about what Americans want or think. Alito and Thomas have clearly said what they're willing to go after next. Kavanaugh playing footsie with the idea that those other rights are safe is just another lie that you are too willing to fall for, as I was too willing to think they wouldn't, in the end, touch Roe.As far as healthcare access in Germany, Katie Herzog made that point during our “Real Time” appearance last Friday:From a “Real Time” watcher:I disagree with you on quite a few issues, but appreciated your level-headed commentary on Bill Maher’s show. You’re one of the only people I saw today who forcefully made the point that the SCOTUS decision still allows for action by Congress — it’s a crucial point that has been totally lost in this discussion.From another fan of Bill’s show:I appreciated your take pointing out that the US is the only country that has made abortion rights a constitutional right, and I do understand your argument that this is something that needs to be decided through the democratic process. But I’m wondering if perhaps, on a deeper