Episoder
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Anderson doesnât need an introduction, but heâs a broadcast journalist who has anchored Anderson Cooper 360° for more than two decades. Heâs also a correspondent for 60 Minutes and the host of a podcast centered on grief, âAll There Is.â He invited me on the pod after the death of my mother this summer, and this Dishcast episode is the extended version of our conversation, which covers my experience of the AIDS crisis and the deaths of my parents and my beagle, Bowie. I was not expecting to talk about my AIDS memories, so forgive me for some choking up.
For three clips of our convo â on Anderson losing his brother to suicide, how he coped by seeking out warzones, and coming out of the closet on the Dish â head over to our YouTube page.
Other topics: the two of us meeting at the downtown DC YMCA three decades ago; Anderson reading passages from my 1990 piece âGay Life, Gay Deathâ'; my best friend Patrick who died of AIDS; my HIV diagnosis in 1993 that derailed my Green Card; my constant fear of deportation; the medieval tortures of AIDS; my photographer friend going blind; the program that paired gay men with patients; the men outed to their parents by AIDS; the deeper closet that black men faced; patients being pariahs among other gays; the partners excluded from hospitals and funerals; the clinical depression I fell into after HIV meds saved my life; my brief thought that God might be evil; how my faith sustained me; survivorâs guilt; the survivors who escaped into meth; the happy-sad music of Pet Shop Boys; the AIDS quilt and Roy Cohn; the gallows humor of Diseased Pariah News; the amnesia around the plague; Virtually Normal; throwing myself into the marriage fight; the queer activists who opposed that fight; speaking at churches; ACT-UPâs rage; the suffering of Christ; Obergefell; the ordeal of my 10-day silent meditation; Anderson losing his father at age 10 and closing down; his motherâs struggle with alcohol; the last time he saw his brother alive; the taboo of talking about death; putting seniors in nursing homes; the decline of religion; Camus; my momâs mental illness; my parentsâ contentious marriage; their divorce after 49.5 years; losing my dad to a ghastly accident in early Covid; my momâs dementia; her prolonged and agonizing death; the mixed blessing of being so close to her; the heroic sacrifices of my sister; the death of Bowie; the power of venting grief; the powerful act of simply being present with mourners; Andersonâs worries about his gay status reporting in dangerous places; a gay photographer killed by a mob in Somalia; and helping Tim Cook out of the closet.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety â subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Reihan Salam on the evolution of the GOP, John Gray on the state of liberal democracy, David Greenberg on his new bio of John Lewis, Christine Rosen on humanness in a digital world, and Mary Matalin on anything but politics. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com
Damon is a political writer with a must-read substack, Notes from the Middleground. Heâs been the editor of First Things and a senior correspondent at The Week, and heâs the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test. Back when we were both at Newsweek / Daily Beast, he edited my essays, so weâve been friends for a while. We also both belong to the camp of conflicted moderates â and look like doppelgĂ€ngers. The poor guy gets mistaken for me sometimes.
Damon was on the Dishcast right after the 2022 midterms, so heâs back to discuss the results of this election. For two clips of our convo â if we should be more afraid of Trump this time around, and the effect of woke culture on men â head to our YouTube page.
Other topics: Trump going from an âabsolute jokeâ to a world historical figure; his uncanny instincts; how he activated an ignored demographic in 2016; telling Jeb Bush that his brother didnât keep us safe; Wâs wars; neocons like John Podhoretz; Trumpâs gains with Hispanic and black voters; the backlash against elites; South Park Conservatives; the end of Reagan Republicans; how Trumpâs first win felt like a fluke; his smart team this time; Covid lockdowns and BLM; MeToo excesses and DEI; the immigration surge under Biden as a gift to Trump; liberals who see borders as immoral; the hideous talk about Springfield and migrant crime; the leftâs âracismâ slur; the Hispanic backlash over âLatinxâ; legal immigrants opposed to illegals; the 1924 and 1965 laws; how asylum law takes sovereignty from citizens; the threat of Stephen Miller; deportation camps, violent protests, and martial law; how Dems could flatter Trump to tame him; Obamaâs progressivism restrained by realism; Niebuhr; how skepticism over Ukraine is deemed âpro Putinâ; how Ukraine didnât move the electorate; the âfascismâ debate; Harris and Trump both running ads on both sides of Israel/Gaza; the gaslighting over Bidenâs decline; inflation and fuzzy memories of Trumpâs economy; Harris courting Haley voters with Liz Cheney; her not-terrible but tepid run; âopportunity economyâ and other blather; how her abortion strategy didnât work; her cowardice with the press and new media; Trumpâs success with podcasts; how he became a funny grandpa figure; barstool conservatives; his trans ads in the final stretch; and Vance as the future heir.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety â subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Anderson Cooper on grief, Reihan Salam on the evolution of the GOP, David Greenberg on his new bio of John Lewis, Christine Rosen on humanness in a digital world, and Mary Matalin on anything but politics. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
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Manglende episoder?
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com
Musa is a sociologist and writer. Heâs an assistant professor in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University. His first book is We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite. He also has a great substack, Symbolic Capital(ism).
For two clips of our convo (recorded on October 9) â how âelite overproductionâ fuels wokeness, and the myth of Trumpâs support from white voters â head to our YouTube page.
Other topics: raised in a military family; a twin brother who died in Afghanistan; wanting to be priest; his stint as an atheist; converting to Islam; how constraints can fuel freedom; liquid modernity; going to community college before his PhD at Columbia; becoming an expert on the Middle East; getting canceled as a professor because of Fox News; his non-embittered response to it; engaging his critics on the right; my firing from NY Mag; the meaning of âsymbolic capitalismâ; how âwhite privilegeâ justifies the belittling of poor whites; deaths of despair; the dilution of terms like âpatriarchyâ and âtransphobeâ; suicide scare tactics; fairness in sports; books on wokeness by Rufo, Kaufmann, Caldwell, and Hanania â and how Musaâs is different; Prohibition and moralism; Orwellâs take on cancel culture; the careerism of cancelers; the bureaucratic bloat of DEI; âdefund the policeâ; crime spiking after June 2020; the belief that minorities are inherently more moral; victim culture; imposter syndrome and affirmative action; Jay Caspian Kangâs The Loneliest Americans; Coates and Dokoupil; Hispanic and black males becoming anti-woke; Thomas Sowell; and the biggest multi-racial coalition for the GOP since Nixon.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety â subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Damon Linker on the election results, Anderson Cooper on grief, David Greenberg on his new bio of John Lewis, Christine Rosen on humanness in a digital world, and Mary Matalin on anything but politics. Sadly Peggy Noonan canât make it on the pod this year after all. We tried! And a listener asks:
Is Van Jones still coming on the show? You said he was going to, and now his upcoming interview hasnât been spoken about for the last few episodes.
He said he would but his PR team put the kibosh on it. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
Our episode with Sam Harris last week was a smash hit, driving more new subs than any other guest in a while. A fan writes:
I always really like your conversations with Sam Harris. You always seem to bring out the best in each other.
A listener dissents:
On your episode with Sam Harris â besides the fact that it was an âinterviewâ of you, not him â your insistence that Harris and Biden havenât done anything about immigration needs more investigation. For example, see this new piece in the NYT:
The Opinion video above tells the little-known story of how Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris worked behind the scenes to get the border crisis under control. I found that they acted strategically, out of the spotlight, since the earliest days of the administration. They even bucked their own party and fulfilled Republican wishes, though theyâve gotten little credit for it. Their hard work finally paid off when illegal crossings dropped significantly this year.
Sam said toward the end of the episode, âI hope we havenât broken the Ming vase here. ⊠We both want a Harris presidency. ⊠Itâs the least bad option.â I listen to Kamala all the time, and your rants against her are warranted and should be done, but honestly, the two of you have done more to smash the bloody vase than carry it!
I tried to make it through that NYT op-ed video. Itâs an absurdist piece of administration spin. There was nothing to stop Biden enforcing his 2024 executive order in 2021. He didnât because his core policy is expediting mass migration, not controlling it. As for Harris, itâs not my job to be her campaign spokesman. I know a lot of legacy journalists seem to think itâs their job to push her over the finishing line. But that has never been my thinking. Iâd like both Trump and Harris to lose. But if I had to pick one, it would be Trump. The idea of four years of Harris is soul-sucking.
Sam is also putting the episode on his own podcast, so the conversation was intended to be a two-way âinterviewâ â though the Dishcast in general is always meant to be a conversation. On the following clip, a listener writes:
Youâre absolutely right. But this is so obvious, and the fact that Harris canât articulate what would clearly be advantageous to her indicates she is incapable of clearly articulating positions. Sheâs turned out to be the same horrid candidate she was in 2019. Unfortunately.
Another writes about that clip, âAs a prosecutor she makes a great case against voting for Trump, but she doesnât have the defense attorney skills needed to make the case for herself.â This next listener has an idea for a Sister Souljah moment:
Sam asked you what Harris could do in the final stretch, and you both agreed that she needed to show some independence from Biden and also distance herself from the craziness of the woke left. I want to point you to my latest Substack post, which points out an opportunity she currently has to do both in one press conference.
In the past couple of weeks, the Biden Justice Department has sued the Maryland State Police, the Durham Fire Department, and the South Bend Police Department over âracially disparateâ employment tests. They are testing skills such as literacy, basic math, and the ability to communicate, all in the context of doing the actual job. The DOJ is calling it discrimination because black people do worse on the test than white people. There is also a physical test where you have to prove you have the minimum level of fitness to do the job, and the DOJ calls that sexist because fewer women are able to pass.
This is obviously complete insanity. Anyone but the wokest of the left understand that these jobs require standards, and that implementing any objective standards is likely to have a disproportionate impact on race and gender.
While Maryland and Durham quickly settled the suits and signed consent decrees, South Bend is fighting it. South Bend is, of course, the hometown of former mayor Pete Buttigieg. Harris could schedule a campaign event in South Bend with Mayor Pete where she defends the South Bend police and pledges that a Harris administration will drop this suit and not prosecute any similar cases. This could be a âSister Souljah moment,â as Sam called for. It would also show independence from Biden, since his DOJ has been filing these suits. It could bring the last few undecideds over to her side.
Dream on, Iâm afraid. This kind of race discrimination and abandonment of objective standards in hiring is at the heart of Harrisâ leftism. She hasnât renounced it. Au contraire.
Hereâs another clip from the Sam pod:
Another listener writes:
I happen to subscribe to both the Dishcast and Samâs podcast, so I know you both well. Iâm so surprised that you two canât understand the appeal of Trump to one half of the country. Letâs be honest and clear: Trump voters care LESS about preserving the system as-is (the peaceful transfer of power) than about RESCUING the nation from the cancer of woke. It is almost completely cultural.
Trump supporters despise the anti-white, anti-male, anti-Christian hatred that has been so deeply ingrained into our daily lives. We all live in terror for wrong thought and wrong speech. We feel disgust for being called racist, misogynist, xenophobic â with the knowledge that woke progressives control the apparatus of power in our media, corporations, entertainment, and education. It is cancer when our entire body politic has been so thoroughly invaded by this malignant force.
We are sick of this cancer. Sick. Sick. Sick. Kamala is a shill of this force. Her tepid disavowals (and convenient pivot to the center) are not genuine. We know who she is. She protects and metastasizes this cancer into every touchpoint of our lives. Sam says she is âno woke Manchurian candidate,â but he is wrong. Even if he IS right, why should we trust her when she so clearly made her wokeness clear in 2019? We shouldnât.
The left is cancer. Trump is radiation. No one wants cancer and no one wants the radiation, but thatâs where we are.
I feel you. I do. Itâs what makes this election so painful for me.
Another listener comments on âthe subject of why the Democrats and Harris canât say what the majority of Americans want to hear on issue after issueâ:
Isnât the fundamental problem very simply that the Overton window of the Democratic Party doesnât allow it? Harris may know that Americans want to hear a defense of fracking, but can a Dem really speak in favor of fracking at a San Francisco dinner party and expect to be invited back? Can a Dem really speak against the trans activist position? Against DEI? Against abuse of asylum rules at the Southern border? Of course not. Those are not acceptable positions in Dem activist and donor circles. Contra what Michelle Goldberg tried to say when she was on your podcast, or what Rahm Emanuel told Sam Harris, the activist position sets the limits of acceptable discourse among Democrats.
All of us who live in NPR-listening land know this. I would never say what I actually think about gender revolutionaries at a social gathering in my left-liberal community, because itâd be the last social event Iâd ever attend. It might be safe to talk about the need for some actual policing these days â that issue might get a few cautious nods â but everyone in the room would be nervous, because who knows if one of these guests weâve never met before who works at a nonprofit is going to turn out to be a social justice activist and trot out âsystemic racismâ and the carceral state and all the rest of it.
Maybe Rahm and Michelle are right that most Democrats donât actually buy most of far-left activist thinking, but that doesnât mean itâs okay to disagree. And remember, most Democrats are riddled with guilt about everything: climate change, systemic racism, patriarchy, theft of land from Indigenous peoples ⊠itâs all our fault, isnât it? So we need to be humble, check our privilege, and listen to the activists and their moral truths.
By the way, I listened to your podcast with Sam only a week after finishing Tom Hollandâs Dynasty â about Caesar Augustus and his heirs through Nero. I know comparisons between America and ancient Rome can get tiring, but holy s**t: an elite appealing to the masses not as one of them, but as their tribune? Check. Entertainment value winning the day every time over serious speeches by humorless patrician elites? Check. Amusing the plebs by publicly humiliating the most esteemed senators, reducing them to flattery and groveling? Check.
Iâm not saying Trump is knowledgeable enough to copy a Caesarâs playbook intentionally, but he seems to have stumbled on a remarkably similar (and similarly effective) approach.
I have explored the Roman parallels myself. One more listener on the episode:
The conversation with Sam Harris was really what we need right now: insightful and often humorous in light of the grave situation we face. Itâs not Trump Iâm afraid of; itâs everyone else. If Trump does not win, I fear there will be violence â and he wonât even have to call for it this time. Whether itâs business or politics, the leader sets the tone, and Trumpâs tone is angry and permissive of trampling perceived enemies. I donât think itâs a stretch to predict self-formed Trump militias springing up as a pretense to defend election integrity, hunt down illegal migrants, or generally âkeep orderâ where another organization has failed to do so. I pray that Iâm wrong.
Another thing to consider is that if Trump loses, we wonât be rid of him. Heâs controlled the Republican Party and influenced the culture wars for the last four years, and we wonât see that end
Sam brought up Nixon, and itâs something Iâve been thinking a lot about in the Trump years. Watergate â the foolish break-in itself â was nothing compared to what Trump has said and done since 2016, but the scandal took down the president because the public perceived that the presidentâs behavior was reprehensible to the office. Nixon KNEW he lied and had enough integrity to actually resign over it. I was a kid then and can remember how appalled people were by Watergate and thought of Nixon as a disgrace. How things have changed in 50 years.
Iâm also worried about leftist violence if Trump wins. Another writes, âI thought your episode with Tina Brown was tremendousâ:
Sheâs an exceptionally astute and admirable woman. I immediately took out a full year to her new substack. It was touching to listen to the account of her model marriage to Harold Evans (I think the Sunday Times was at its greatest when he was the editor). And the description of her autistic son and their time together shows her to be a beautiful, loving mother, as well as a towering intellect.
I particularly appreciated the comparison you both made of US to UK politicians:
Like you, Andrew, I studied at Oxford in the mid-1980s and always felt that institutions like the Oxford Union (where I saw you, Boris, and Micheal Gove perform, amongst others), and later Prime Ministerâs Question Time, toughened up UK politicians to a degree that is unheard of in the US. I actually had the pleasure of witnessing Question Time live when Thatcher was PM. What struck me was not only the substantive issues raised during those sessions, but also the sheer brilliance of the repartee. Thatcher gave as good as she got, and she made mincemeat of the Labour opposition.
Question Time compared to the deliberations of the fatuous Congress is like comparing Picassoâs work to that of a 5-year-old finger painter. It doesnât even bear thinking about how Biden would cope in an environment like that, let alone Trump. Both you and Tina come from that glorious UK debating tradition, and it shines through consistently throughout the episode.
My massive disappointment when I first watched the US House and Senate was related to this. So unutterably tedious. Another on the Tina pod:
If not too late, perhaps this will offer some help to Tina Brown, as your other listeners have suggested communities for adults with special needs: Marbridge in Austin, TX. Our daughter is only 12 and she has a rare genetic condition that basically means she will not be able to fully integrate into society. We are in the process of learning about opportunities for her to have some level of independence as she ages, if she so desires.
Hereâs a suggestion for a future guest:
Iâm glad you are gaining new subscribers, but I think it may be time to cull the herd and have on someone who will make the smugsâ blood boil. The brilliant and caustic Heather Mac Donald â one of a few prominent conservatives to excoriate Trump for January 6th â is scrupulously honest yet merciless in attacking left-wing hypocrisies on topics ranging from race and policing to the DEI takeover of classical music.
She sure is. Amy Wax anyone? Another rec:
I know you have quit Twitter somewhat, so I am not sure if you know who Brianna Wu is, but I strongly suggest looking her up. Bari Weiss just interviewed her:
I think you and Wu would be absolutely fantastic, and I think you would really like her â as would Dishheads.
Yep, great rec â weâre already planning to reach out to Wu. Another plug for a trans guest:
In case you didnât see it, hereâs an interesting interview with a trans man, Kinnon MacKinnon, who researches detransition. I found it refreshing to hear someone speak about detransition from an empirical perspective. Itâs a real phenomenon that to date has either been denied by trans activists or turned into red meat for the right-wing. A fact of logic so often forgotten is that two things can be true at the same time. Thus, adults who are truly trans should be allowed to live the lives they want; AND society should protect children against fervent trans activists who would rush them into radical âgender-affirming care.â The reality of sex (as opposed to gender) needs to be more firmly established in the publicâs understanding.
In short, we need more honest brokers in the discussion about trans issues if we are ever going to find the proper balance between allowing adults to make their own life decisions and respecting biological females on issues where sex (not gender) should be the overriding variable on which to make public policy and healthcare decisions. I donât know if Kinnon MacKinnon is truly an honest broker, but he seems to have potential. Perhaps you could consider him for a Dishcast.
I passionately defend the right of trans adults to do whatever they need to make their lives as fruitful as possible. Itâs children â and children alone â Iâm concerned with. On the topic of sex-changes for kids, a frequent dissenter writes:
When confronted with evidence that only a minuscule percentage of kids in the US are being prescribed puberty blockers and hormones in the late 2010s, itâs an artless dodge to try to reframe the discussion around the experiences of 124 kids who presented at a UK gender clinic in the 1990s, the vast majority of whom never transitioned at all. You cannot use that data to imply that the majority of kids being prescribed puberty blockers in America today are actually gay kids destined for detransition and regret. You are distorting the facts to fit your narrative.
Time and time again, the evidence shows that there is no epidemic of âtransingâ gay youth.
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Sam is a neuroscientist, philosopher, bestselling author, host of the Making Sense podcast, and creator of the Waking Up App. Heâs also an old friend, jousting partner, meditation role model, and all round wonderful man. His recent work helped me reassess my views on the Gaza war. This week we had our third consecutive talk on the eve of the presidential election â the first on his pod in 2016, the second on the Dishcast in 2020.
For three clips of our convo â on Trumpâs insane deportation plan, the depth of his cult, and what Harris should do in the final stretch â head to our YouTube page. Other topics: what Harris has done well in this campaign; her downplaying of identity politics; her deft debate with Trump and great convention speech; her stylistic â if not substantive â shift toward the center; her lack of Sister Souljah moments; her role as an establishment figure; the lack of a real primary; debating whether sheâs a woke Manchurian candidate; the ânepo babyâ running her campaign; understanding Trumpâs enduring appeal; his zero-sum worldview; calling the neoconsâ bluff; the Iraq War; the withdrawal from Afghanistan; Harris campaigning with the Cheneys; Trumpâs tariffs; his humor; the lawfare against him; the overblown Russiagate; not seizing dictatorial power during Covid or the 2020 riots; the vast majority of his own Cabinet now opposing him; his denigration of the military; his relationship with Israel; Hamas; Ukraine; Taiwan; the border crisis; sex changes for minors; trans prisoners; Harrisâ pitch to black men; âProject Fearâ during Brexit; January 6th; Bob Woodwardâs reporting; Project 2025; Vance; the growing gender gap in politics; the growing support of non-whites for Trump; his felonies; the McDonaldâs stunt; Harrisâ extreme caution with media; the Al Smith dinner; Xâs appalling algorithm of racial violence; the sinister Musk; the woke onslaught; Rahm Emanuel; and the risk of violence after Election Day.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety â subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: the return of the great John Gray, Damon Linker on the election results, Anderson Cooper on grief, Christine Rosen on humanness in a digital world, and Mary Matalin on anything but politics. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com
The inimitable Tina Brown revived Tatler, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, before turning to the web and The Daily Beast (where I worked for her). Sheâs written three books, the latest of which we covered on the Dishcast a few years ago, The Palace Papers. This week she launched a substack, Fresh Hell: Tina Brownâs Diaries â âobservations, rants, news obsessions, and human exchanges.â And yes, this chat really is unplugged. We had a lot of fun.
For two clips of our convo â on the personal cruelty of Donald Trump, and why politicians in the UK are tougher than American ones â head to our YouTube page. Other topics: Tina sitting behind Trump during Obamaâs WHCD; the impact another Trump term will have on our sanity; the sad decline of Tucker Carlson; Jon Stewart on Crossfire; Vance and resentment over liberal condescension; being a right-of-center person in academia and the MSM; my defenestration at New York Mag; Alexandra Pelosiâs The Insurrectionist Next Door; Obama telling black men how to vote; the most multi-racial GOP coalition since Nixon; Trumpâs tariffs and inflation; his interview with Micklethwait; candidates moving to podcasts; Bidenâs decline; his failure to tackle immigration; the lack of an open primary; Bill Clinton on a killer migrant; Springfield; Alvin Bragg; the passion of the Trump cult; the new film The Apprentice; Roy Cohnâs crush on Trump; the stark racism of Fred Trump; Musk at the Butler rally; the exhilaration of fascism; lying as a form of obedience; PMâs Question Time; Corbyn getting mocked in Parliament; Brexit; Boris and Partygate; Keirâs early floundering as PM; Ukraine; Applebaumâs new book; the new Woodward book; Tinaâs late husband Harry Evans and their storied marriage; their son Georgie and the difficulty of dating on the spectrum; Walzâs son; Tim Shriver âthe only Kennedy worth anythingâ; the challenges of being a working mother; the importance of living near grandparents; and the intimacy of blogging and Substack.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety â subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Sam Harris for our quadrennial chat before Election Day, the return of the great John Gray, Damon Linker on the election results, Anderson Cooper on grief, Christine Rosen on humanness in a digital world, and Mary Matalin on anything but politics. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com
Walter is a novelist, literary critic, and journalist. Heâs written eight books, most famously Up in the Air, which became a film starring George Clooney. Heâs now the editor-at-large for County Highway and co-hosts a weekly podcast with Matt Taibbi, âAmerica This Week.â Way back in the day, I edited his work for The New Republic, and he guest-blogged for the Dish.
For two clips of our convo â on Tim Walz as a âwhite minstrelâ of a Midwesterner, and Walter watching speeches by Obama and Trump on LSD â pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Walterâs upbringing in rural Minnesota â âa Huckleberry Finn lifeâ; the colorful characters of his small town; the humanist rear-admiral and feminist librarian who mentored him; learning horses from the Amish; his father the âshort-haired hippieâ; transferring to Princeton â âthe coldest bath of my lifeâ; the snobbery of his rich roommates; wanting to be a poet; his scholarship to Oxford; the anti-Americanism there; Shakespeare; drinking culture in London; working as a private eye; teaching immigrants to read in NYC; working at Vanity Fair with Tina Brown and the âEurotrash eliteâ; The Great Gatsby; Gore Vidal on homosexuality; the overblown fear of militias in â90s America; the Matthew Shepard myths; the history of progressive populism in the Midwest; Gus Hall and Eugene McCarthy; towns decimated by NAFTA; Trump turning on Iraq War; the Pentagon Papers; Harrisâ interview on 60 Minutes; her passing on Josh Shapiro; the phoniness of Walz; his fascination with China; disinformation and free speech; the Twitter Files; demonizing rural people during Covid; the âinformation engineeringâ in the pandemic; Jay Bhattacharyaâs dissent; sex changes for minors; Helene and FEMA; immigration in small towns; Mickey Kaus; how the elite loathe Vance; Stop the Steal; and Walter living in Montana.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety â subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Tina Brown on her new substack, Musa al-Gharbi on wokeness, Sam Harris for our quadrennial chat before Election Day, and Damon Linker on the election results. Wait, thereâs more: Peggy Noonan on America, Anderson Cooper on grief, Christine Rosen on humanness in a digital world, Mary Matalin on anything but politics, and John Gray on, well, everything.
Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com
Bill Wasik is the editorial director of The New York Times Magazine. Monica Murphy is a veterinarian and a writer. Their first book, Rabid: A Cultural History of the Worldâs Most Diabolical Virus, was a bestseller, and theyâre back with a new one: Our Kindred Creatures: How Americans Came to Feel the Way They Do About Animals.
For two clips of our convo â on the beginnings of dog welfare, and the âUncle Tomâs Cabinâ for animal activism â pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: writing a book as a married couple; the mass extinctions of early America; bison at the brink; how horses increased after the Industrial Revolution and drove the early movement for animal welfare; âthe best humanitarian ideas came from Englandâ; bullfighting in Spain; the profound role and colorful character of Henry Bergh; his founding of the ASPCA; the absence of vegetarianism among early activists; PT Barnumâs sympathy and exploitation; transporting Beluga whales by train; the public clashes between Barnum and Bergh; journalismâs role in animal welfare; George Angellâs magazine Our Dumb Animals; the anti-slavery Atlantic Monthly; animal activism growing out of abolitionism; Darwin; Romanticism; George Bird Grinnell and first Audubon Society; fashion and consumerism; wearing hats with whole birds; the emotional lives of dogs; the activism around strays; the brutality of early shelters; rabies and dog catchers; Louis Pasteur and the rabies vaccine; Anna Sewellâs Black Beauty; how she was robbed of royalties; the treatment of horses in Central Park; reform movements driven by elites; class resentment; Animal Farm and Watership Down; the cruelty of todayâs food industry; pig crates; Pope Francis; and Matthew Scullyâs Dominion.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety â subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Walter Kirn on his political evolution, Musa al-Gharbi on wokeness, Sam Harris for our quadrennial chat before Election Day, and Damon Linker on the election results. Wait, thereâs more: Peggy Noonan on America, Anderson Cooper on grief, Christine Rosen on humanness in a digital world, Mary Matalin on anything but politics, and John Gray on, well, everything.
Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
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David is an old friend, a long-time writer at The Atlantic, and a contributor to MSNBC. Heâs the author of 10 books, including Trumpocalypse and Trumpocracy.
For two clips of our convo â on the way Biden has empowered Trump, and the outlook that won the Cold War â pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Frum writing a memoir on being a Cold War baby; raised in Toronto â a city âfilled with exiles and refugeesâ from both sides of that conflict; torture under Pinochet; how global security made Frum a conservative; the Nazis; the distinction between authoritarians and totalitarians; the Stasi in East Germany; the Netflix docu-series on the Cold War; the hubris of the West; the US condoning the coup against Allende; Khrushchev wanting to âburyâ the West; JFK scared by Soviet growth; the Cuban Missile Crisis; the genius of Reagan and Thatcher to let the USSR implode; Gorbachev; the US neutralizing the nuclear stockpile after 1989; luring Russian scientists; the enduring influence of the KGB on Putin; the invasion of Crimea; Russiaâs historic claims on Ukraine; Putinâs drive to revive an empire; todayâs hot war with a nuclear power; the likely fate of Ukraine; how the EU is economically depressed; the migrant crisis there; Merkelâs role; Brexit; China lifting millions from poverty and fueling global trade; todayâs cold war with China; the Birther slur; Trumpâs wall; threats of mass deportation; asylum seekers vs. illegal immigrants; Bidenâs recent executive order; how both Frum and I are immigrants; how the Trump show is boring after a decade; Clintonâs âIâm With Herâ vs. Harris dulling identity politics; today problems vs. tomorrow problems; Washington leaving the presidency; Trumpâs deranged psyche; and the death of Frumâs daughter Miranda.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety â subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Musa al-Gharbi on wokeness, Walter Kirn on Republican voters, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal welfare, Anderson Cooper on grief, John Gray on, well, everything, and Sam Harris for our quadrennial chat before Election Day. After the election we have Peggy Noonan on America, Christine Rosen on humanness in a digital world, and Mary Matalin on anything but politics. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com
Michelle is an opinion columnist at the New York Times, and before that she was a columnist for Slate. She has written three books: Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, The Means of Reproduction, and The Goddess Pose. Sheâs also an on-air contributor at MSNBC.
For two clips of our convo â debating who the real Kamala is, and how much BLM is responsible for lost black lives â pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: growing up in Buffalo with conservative parents; her dad a journalist and mom a math teacher; Michelle a teen activist in the âBuffalo abortion warsâ; the legality but ugliness of clinic protests; a pro-life man knocking the wind out of her; ACT UP; going to J-school; reporting at mega-churches in Ohio in the 2004 election; Harrisâ moderate Smart on Crime book in 2009; her âtriangulatingâ in 2019 (e.g. fracking); her busing moment with Biden; supporting a bail fund in summer 2020; Bidenâs bait-and-switch as a centrist; bipartisan support for Israel; Merrick Garlandâs effort to appear apolitical; lawfare; from Bushâs âf**k yeahâ patriotism to Trumpâs dark view of America; the Iraq War and 2008 bailout causing mistrust toward institutions; crumbling infrastructure; Trump never being a majority candidate; the cultural grievance fueling him; Michelle going to Trump rallies; the 1619 Project; debating the US as a âwhite supremacyâ; the left radicalizing after Trump replaced a two-term black president; Covid mania; the distortion of Twitter; the Electoral College and its roots; the violent crime spike in 2020 and after; how the disadvantaged always bear the brunt of disorder; the greed of BLM Inc; the press distortion of unarmed black men killed by police; Michelleâs 2014 piece âWhat Is a Woman?â; Rachel Levine; puberty blockers; the Dutch protocol; the Cass Review; bathroom bills; and the GLAAD protest against the NYT.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety â subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: David Frum on Trump, Musa al-Gharbi on wokeness, Walter Kirn on Republican voters, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal welfare, Mary Matalin on life, Anderson Cooper on grief, John Gray on, well, everything, and Sam Harris for our quadrennial chat before Election Day. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com
Rod is an old-school blogger and author living in Budapest. Heâs a contributing editor at The American Conservative and has written several bestsellers, including The Benedict Option and Live Not by Lies. His forthcoming book is Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age, which you can pre-order on Amazon. And check out his raw and honest writing on Substack, âRod Dreherâs Diary.â
For two clips of our convo â on what red-pilled JD Vance, and embracing the mystery of Christianity â pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Rod moving to Hungary; his begrudging vote for Trump this fall; his vote for a crook against David Duke; Harris baiting, and beating, Trump in the debate; her evasion on immigration; not disavowing her extreme views from 2020; her response on Israel; the cat-eating thing; how Trump makes wokeness worse; Vance as the future of the right; his tolerance of January 6; him signing on to Trumpâs abortion pivot; the Kavanaugh hearings; the canceling of Judge Kyle Duncan; politics destroying friendships; riots and speech crimes in the UK; OrbĂĄn and migrants; the war in Ukraine; racial violence on Elonâs X; rightwing anti-Semitism; Vanceâs conversion to Catholicism; âchildless cat ladiesâ; pronatalism; the sexual revolution; Ross Douthat; the loss of freedom in parenthood and its joys; Deneenâs Why Liberalism Failed; Houellebecqâs Submission; Zygmunt Bauman and liquid modernity; environmental destruction; Trumpâs grudge against windmills; Germany nixing nuclear power; the Iraq War; Trump vs. the neocons; his phone call to rig the vote-tally in Georgia; lawfare; the Hunter laptop story; Iain McGilchrist and the cultural crisis of the West; Pascal; religious faith arising in a crisis; conversion stories; Kierkegaard; transcendentalism; Rod attending an exorcism; demons and miracles; psychedelics as a window to the divine; Rodâs LSD trip in college; my MDMA trip in Miami; the lack of silence in modern life; and an update on my Ozempic summer.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety â subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Michelle Goldberg on Harris, David Frum on Trump, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on the history of animal cruelty, Mary Matalin on life, Anderson Cooper on loss and grief, John Gray on, well, everything, and Sam Harris for our quadrennial chat before Election Day. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com
Eric is a professor of politics at the University of Buckingham, where he runs the new Centre for Heterodox Social Science. Heâs also an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His new book is The Third Awokening: A 12-Point Plan for Rolling Back Progressive Extremism (its title in the UK is Taboo: How Making Race Sacred Produced a Cultural Revolution). He also runs a 15-week online course on the origins of wokeness that anyone can sign up for.
For two clips of our convo â why race/gender/sexuality are now considered sacred identities, and whether peak woke is past us â head to our YouTube page. Other topics: born in Hong Kong with a diplomatic dad; raised in Tokyo and Vancouver; living in the UK ever since; how the US spreads its culture wars abroad; the BLM moral panic; âhate speechâ; psychotherapy and Carl Rogers; the psychological harm of growing up with homophobia; the gay rights movement; wedding cakes in Colorado; Jon Rauch; Jon Haidt; the taboos of talking immigration or family structure; the Moynihan Report shelved by LBJ; Shelby Steeleâs book on white guilt; Coleman Hughes and âintergenerational traumaâ; anti-Semitism and the Holocaust; the AIDS crisis; the tradeoffs in trans rights vs. womenâs rights; the spurious âmass gravesâ of indigenous Canadians; the CRA of 1964 dovetailing with the Immigration Act of 1965; Chris Caldwell; Richard Hanania; Americaâs original sin of slavery; Locke and Hobbes; Douglas Murrayâs The War on the West; Churchill; cancel culture; CRT as unfalsifiable; Ibram Kendi; the gender imbalance in various industries; Chris Rufo; how Trump makes wokeness worse; the absence of identity politics in Harrisâ convention speech; and being comfortable with being âabnormalâ.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety â subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Rod Dreher on religion and the presidential race, Michelle Goldberg on Harris, David Frum on Trump, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on the history of animal cruelty, John Gray on, well, everything, and Sam Harris for our quadrennial chat before Election Day. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com
Carville needs no introduction, but heâs a legendary consultant, a former CNN contributor, and the author of a dozen books. He currently co-hosts the Politics War Room with Al Hunt, a podcast available on Substack, which you should definitely follow for the election season.
For four clips of the highly quotable Carville â on Harrisâ convention speech, Vanceâs conversions, Bill Clintonâs âpussy business,â and woke condescension toward minorities â pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: growing up in a poor town famous for its leprosy hospital; one of eight children in an âextremelyâ Catholic family; the vast majority of his peers were African-American; the woke leftâs caricatured view of âthe marginalizedâ; the flattening term âcommunities of colorâ; NPR; the misnomer âLGBTQIAâ; the resilient old queens of the South; progressive orgs paralyzed by young woke staffers; the shocking strength of Harrisâ acceptance speech; why masculine rhetoric is even more effective coming from a female pol; her immigrant background; her poor management of staff; how she needs to own up to her 2020 views and convey âgrowthâ; the crime issue; the border crisis; Gaza; Starmer and âstabilityâ; Carville leading Wofford to an incredible comeback in his Senate race; teaming up with Begala to guide Clinton to the White House; Billâs profound charm and smarts; his Achilles heel; the sudden implosion of the Church in Ireland; the sex-abuse crisis; Spotlight; how the closet attracts predatory priests; Trump as the antithesis of a Christian; January 6; how Harris is focused on mockery rather than fear; how the race is now âfresh vs. staleâ; how Biden was pushed out by big donors and Pelosi; how the timing turned out to be perfect for Harris; how sheâs avoided the press longer than Palin did; how Walz is further left than Carville; Vance and âchildless cat ladiesâ; common-good conservatism; the difference between cradle Catholics and converts; the Gospels; infallibility; Garry Willsâ influence; Trump thrilled by domination; the hatred of elites and foreign wars and offshoring; the snipes at Walzâs son; and Carville dealing with ADHD.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety â subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Eric Kaufmann on left-liberal excess, Michelle Goldberg on Harris, David Frum on Trump, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal cruelty, and Sam Harris for our quadrennial chat before Election Day. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com
Jeffrey Toobin is a lawyer, author, and the chief legal analyst at CNN, after a long run at The New Yorker. He has written many bestselling books, including True Crimes and Misdemeanors, The Oath, The Nine, and Too Close to Call, and two others â The Run of His Life and A Vast Conspiracy â were adapted for television as seasons of âAmerican Crime Storyâ on the FX channel.
You can listen right away in the audio player above (or on the right side of the player, click âListen Onâ to add the Dishcast feed to your favorite podcast app). For two clips of our convo â why the Bragg conviction helped Trump, and the origins of lawfare with Bill Clinton â pop over to our YouTube page.
Other topics: growing up in NYC as the only child of two journos; his mom was a pioneering TV correspondent; his dad was one of founding fathers of public television; Jeffrey at the Harvard Crimson and then Harvard Law; how Marty Peretz mentored us both; the conservative backlash after Nixon and rebuilding executive power; Fordâs pardon; Jeffrey on the team investigating Oliver North; the Boland Amendment and the limits of law; Cheneyâs role during Iran-Contra; how Congress hasnât declared war since WWII; Whitewater to Lewinsky; Ken Starr and zealous prosecutors; Trump extorting Ukraine over the Bidens; Russiagate; the Mueller Report and Barrâs dithering; how such investigations can help presidents; the Bragg indictment; the media environment of Trump compared to Nixon; Fox News coverage of Covid; Trumpâs pardons; hiding Biden; the immunity case; SEAL Team Six and other hypotheticals; Jack Smith and fake electors; the documents case; the check of impeachment; the state of SCOTUS and ethics scandals; Thomas and the appearance of corruption; the wives of Thomas and Alito; the Chevron doctrine; reproductive rights; the Southern border and asylum; Jeffreyâs main worry about a second Trump term; and his upcoming book on presidential pardons.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety â subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Eric Kaufmann on liberal extremism, and Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal cruelty. (Van Jonesâ PR team canceled his planned appearance.) Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
Hereâs a fan of last weekâs episode with Anne Applebaum:
I loved your freewheeling interview with Applebaum. Just like the last time she was on, each of you gave as good as you got.
I tend to agree more with her, because I fear that sometimes you come off as what Jeane Kirkpatrick called the âblame America first crowdâ â not that we havenât committed our sins. But if we didnât exist, Putin would still be evil and want to recreate the Warsaw Pact, and the mullahs in Iran would still be fanatics despite our CIA involvement. Itâs complicated.
Another on foreign policy:
I despise Putin, my sympathies are totally with the Ukrainians, and I get angry when people like Rod Dreher and Tucker Carlson imply that the Russians were forced by the West to invade Ukraine. But, so what! You hit the nail on the head with the Obama quote â that Ukraine is never going to mean as much to us as it does to them (the Russians). You also made another very good point that the Russians canât even conquer Ukraine, but weâre supposed to fear they will march West? How they going to do that?!
Another took issue with several things from Anne:
You raised the immigration issue, and Applebaum completely dismissed it:
Hungary doesnât have a migrant crisis. ⊠Because itâs a useful symbol [to] create fear and anxiety. ⊠This is the oldest political trick in the book, and the creation of an imaginary culture war is one of the ways in which you build support among a more fearful part of the population.
WTF? Are Hungarians not allowed to see what is happening in every other European country that has allowed mass migration and see the problems it has caused and proactively decide to prevent this?! Are they not allowed to be concerned until Budapest has the banlieues of Paris, the car bombing gangs of Sweden, and the grooming gangs of England?! And in Germany, it has been recently reported that almost half of people receiving social payments are migrants.
Applebaum followed that up with an even bigger gobsmacker about Bidenâs cognitive decline: âThis is another road I donât want to go down, but I know people who met with Joe Biden a couple months ago, and he was fineâ (meaning I just want to make my statement but will not allow you a rebuttal). And then:
Iâve met [Harris] a few times, mostly in the context of conversations about foreign policy and about Russia and Ukraine and other things. And sheâs an intelligent conversationalist. ⊠I was impressed with her. And these are way off-the-record conversations... And I was always more impressed with how she was off the record. And then I would sometimes see her in public. And I thought, she seems very stiff and nervous. ⊠Youâd like her if you met her in real life.
Translation of both of these excerpts: âYou plebes who arenât insiders just donât understand, but trust me â the connected insider â instead of your lying eyes.â
Another adds:
I think for the next few months, youâre going to have to push people like Anne Applebaum to be more open to criticizing the Biden-Harris record. Sheâs a smart person with important things to say, but she clearly dared not criticize the current administration, lest she be seen as helping Trump.
And another:
She says, unironically, that autocrats rig court systems with exotic new lawfare to attack their political enemies to seize or cling to power. I wonder what that makes Alvin Bragg and Merrick Garland.
This Dishhead listened to the episode with his teenage son:
The notion that Trump supporters want a dictator is beyond ridiculous. They are among the most individualistic and freedom-loving people in America. They are the Jacksonians, the Scots-Irish heart of this country. They are ornery as hell, and if Trump tried to force them into anything, heâd have another thing coming. Just look how he tried to get them to take âhisâ vaccine. That didnât work out so well, did it?
The truth is, they view people like Anne as the ones who are taking away their rights and freedoms through their absolute dominance of the media and all cultural institutions. Now maybe Trump will deliver them from that and maybe he wonât, but that is what they are seeking â not a dictator, but someone who will break the hideous grip that the liberal elite has on the culture.
My son is 18 years old and was also listening to the episode. He is highly engaged in national and world affairs, and he also thought Anne was way off track. Heâs already announced to his mother (much to her chagrin) that he will be casting his first vote for Trump. And get this: heâs going to Oberlin College this fall. I can assure you heâs not looking for a dictator. Heâs looking to say âeff youâ to a system that has no use for upper-class, normal white boys like him. The elites hate him and his friends.
But Iâm glad you have a diversity of views on the Dishcast. It really is the best. I look forward to listening to it every week.
I canât back Trump, but I do think your son is onto something. On a few other episodes:
Lionel Shriver â I love her! I wished youâd talked more about her novel, Mania. Itâs not perfect, but itâs good.
On the Stephen Fry pod, I was resistant! Heâs irritated me at times. But I loved it when you two started doing Larkin! I shouldnât admit this, but âAubadeâ could be my autobiography. I think one or both of you misinterpret âChurch Going.â Larkin doesnât wish he had faith. I donât think thatâs relevant to him. Fry talked about how he liked everything about Anglicanism except for the detail about God (and I always suspect that for Anglicans, God is a somewhat troubling detail). Iâm probably just guessing, but I donât think thatâs Larkin. Larkin didnât wish he had faith. He was elegiac about the past in which there was faith. I think youâll see this sensibility in âAn Arundel Tomb.â
Agreed. Another on Shriver:
She seems to think that âliberalsâ are mistaken in believing that everyone can be equal, but I think she is mistaken in thinking that is what they believe â at least those I know. Liberals do think that 1) expectations play a role in what people achieve; and 2) given the right circumstances, many people find they can achieve more than was expected. Low expectations do lead to low outcomes (and yes, there is research to support that statement). Does that mean everyone can do anything they wish? No. Neither you nor I will ever be a concert pianist, but let us not condemn everyone to the garbage heap based on false expectations.
Thanks as always for your provocative discussions.
Hereâs a guest rec:
Musa Al Gharbi, a sociologist at Stony Brook, has written for Compact, American Affairs, and The Liberal Patriot. His forthcoming book, We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite, draws on Pierre Bourdieuâs notions of cultural capital to analyze the ascendant symbolic capitalists â those who work in law, technology, nonprofits, academia, journalism and media, finance, civil service and the like â and how the ideology known as âwokenessâ exists to entrench economic inequality and preserve the hegemony of this class. I have preordered the book, and it should be a timely read for an election in which class (education), not race, has become the preeminent dividing line in our politics.
Hereâs a guest rec with pecs:
I have a recommendation that may sound bonkers, but hear me out: Alan Ritchson, the actor whose career has taken off thanks to playing Jack Reacher on Reacher.
The fact that heâs really, really, really ridiculously good-looking is the least interesting thing about him. Iâd love to hear a conversation between you and him for a few reasons. First, heâs bipolar and speaks openly about it. Second, he started taking testosterone supplements after his body broke down from working out for Reacher, and he speaks openly about that too. Third, heâs a devout evangelical Christian who speaks openly about his faith â and about his disgust with Christian nationalism and the hijacking of Christianity by many Trump supporters. Fourth, he posted what read to me as a thoughtful, sane critique of bad cops, thereby angering certain denizens of the Very Online Right.
Thus, he could speak to a number of major Dishcast themes: mental illness, masculinity, and Christianity. To me, he manages to come across as a guyâs guy whose comments on political matters sound like the result of actual reflection, rather than reflexively following a progressive script, which is how most celebrities come across. Heâs articulate, and the way heâs navigating this cultural and political moment is fascinating.
And if you do snag him, you should supplement the audio with video.
Haha. But seriously, weâre trying to keep the podcast fresh and this is a great out-of-the-box recommendation.
Next up, the dissents over my views on Harris continue from the main page. A reader writes:
I have no particular attachment to Kamala Harris, and share some of your concerns, but your latest column reads more like a Fox News hit piece than a real assessment. The main problem is that you seem to be judging Harris almost exclusively on the basis of statements she made in 2020, at the height of the Democratsâ woke mania because of George Floyd. Do you not remember that she was destroyed in the primary because she was a prosecutor, and was to the right of almost everyone else in the primary, except for Biden and Sanders? Thatâs why she lost: she wasnât woke enough.
So as VP, of course she pivoted to shore up her appeal to the base, like any good politician would. Itâs terribly unfortunate that she had to tack hard left precisely as the country was moving back to the center and rejecting wokism, but that doesnât mean sheâs the âwokest candidate,â as you say. It just means sheâs a politician.
My criticism also extended to her management and campaigning skills in the past. And look: I donât think itâs fair to compare my attempt to review the evidence of her record with a Fox News hit-piece. Itâs important to understand her vulnerabilities as well as he core ideas, if she has any. This next reader thinks she is off to a good, non-woke start:
I agree with your criticisms of Harris, at least some of them. We need to have stronger border enforcement, we canât have riots in cities, and racism is real but DEI excesses are also bad. And itâs troubling that she has a history of being a bad boss. I can only hope that she has learned from her mistakes.
But I take heart from her campaign speech in Wisconsin: she said not a word about DEI, nothing about âvote for me to show that youâre not sexist/racist, because Iâm a woman of color,â and not much about âTrump is a threat to democracy.â It was all, âI have experience dealing with sleazy crooks and sex offenders like Trump, and I want to help middle-class Americans and protect health care and a womanâs right to choose.â Sounds like a popular message!
You also say, âShe is not a serious person.â Bro, have you *seen* the other partyâs candidate?
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Anne is a journalist and historian. Sheâs currently a staff writer at The Atlantic and a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins Universityâs Agora Institute. Sheâs written many books, including Red Famine, Gulag: A History, and Twilight of Democracy, and her new one is Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World. Also check her substack, âOpen Letters.â
For two clips of our convo â on whether Trump is a kleptocrat, and whether Kamala can connect with the public â pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: the ways dictatorships no longer act alone; surveillance and social media; the appeal of Western freedoms via the internet; the Great Firewall; the Uyghurs and squelching dissent before it happens â with algorithms; Iranian theocracy; how autocrats have anonymity but their subjects donât; the ease of stealing and hiding money; shell corporations; the unipolar hegemon of the US; the influence-peddling of the Trumps and the Bidens; what frightens Anne most about Trump; how his China policy could disappoint hawks; why he admires dictators; J.D. Vance and isolationism; Putin invading Ukraine to test the West; the failure of sanctions to cripple Russia; its economic alliance with China; Dubyaâs foreign adventures; a dictatorâs appeal to order and tradition; the profound brutality of Stalin; the Cold War; the war in Syria stoked by Russia; the fall of Venezuela as a rich democracy; Western democracies in crisis today; mass migration and Bidenâs failure; the turnover of Tory PMs and Starmerâs âstabilityâ; the Westâs goal of transparency and accountability; autocrats leaning into social conservatism; scapegoating gays; the myth of Russia as a white Christian nation; misinformation and free speech; Trumpâs endurance; the assassination attempt; and Anneâs husband becoming the foreign minister of Poland.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety â subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Jeffrey Toobin on the Supreme Court, Eric Kaufmann on reversing woke extremism, and Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal cruelty. (Van Jonesâ PR team canceled his planned appearance.) Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com
Lionel Shriver is an author and journalist. Sheâs written 17 novels, most notably We Need to Talk About Kevin, and in 2022 she published her first book of nonfiction, Abominations: Selected Essays from a Career of Courting Self-Destruction. Sheâs currently a columnist for The Spectator, and her new book is Mania, a satirical novel about a dystopian movement that claims that everyone is equally smart.
We recorded this convo last month. For two clips â on the relief that comes with personal limitations, and whether feminism has run its course â pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: raised in North Carolina by a family of liberal Dems; her dad a Presbyterian minister and her mom a homemaker; Lionel a tomboy with two brothers; how she hated her birth name and changed it to a male one; David Bowie and how gender nonconformity has changed; the far leftâs obsession with equality at all cost; the resentment toward achievement; trans sports; the far right and Bronze Age Pervert; the class structure of the UK; the English fondness for eccentrics; Farage and Trump; how conservatives are transgressive now; Plato and Aristotle; the past systemic racism against black Americans; when identity politics is needed; minority groups policing their ranks; epistemic closure on the right; 2020 election denialism; Montaigne and Shakespeare inventing the modern individual; Lionel living in London and now Portugal; her fierce independence in publishing; the tragic death of her brilliant older brother; Bill Clintonâs appetites; Hitchâs compulsions and work ethic; why the most gifted are often the most troubled; the loss of desire on O-zen-pic; the high standards and judgements of the old gays; the Oppression Olympics; why beauty shouldnât have moral qualities; the DEI industry; the collapse of readerships within the MSM; how male friends mock each other; and how women and wokeness dominate the book industry.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety â subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Jeffrey Toobin on the Supreme Court, Anne Applebaum on autocrats, Eric Kaufmann on reversing woke extremism, and Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal cruelty. (Van Jonesâ PR team canceled his planned appearance.) Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com
Stephen Fry is a legendary British actor, comedian, director, writer, and narrator. His TV shows include âA Bit of Fry & Laurie,â âJeeves and Wooster,â and âBlackadder,â and his films include Wilde, Gosford Park, and Love & Friendship. His Broadway career includes âMe and My Girlâ and âTwelfth Night.â Heâs produced several documentary series, including âStephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive,â and heâs the president of Mind, a mental health charity. He has written 17 books, including three autobiographies, and he narrated all seven of the Harry Potter books. You can find him on Substack at The Fry Corner â subscribe!
For two clips of our convo â on the profound pain of bipolar depression, and whether the EU diminishes Englishness â pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: growing up in Norfolk; his momâs Jewish ancestry in Central Europe; her dad facing anti-Semitism after fighting in WWI and coming to England to train farmers; embracing Englishness; family members lost to the Holocaust; Disraeli; the diversity of Tory PMs; Stephenâs wayward youth; wanting to become a priest as a teen; growing up gay in England; the profound influence of Oscar Wilde and his trials; Gore Vidal on puritanism; Cavafy; Auden; E.M. Forster; Orwell; Stephenâs bipolarism; the dark lows and manic highs; my mumâs lifelong struggle with that illness; dementia; her harrowing final days; transgenerational trauma; Larkinâs âThis Be the Verseâ; theodicy; the shame of mental illness; Gen Zâs version of trauma; the way Jesus spoke; St. Francis; the corruption and scandals of the Church; Hitchens; the disruption of Silicon Valley and the GOP; Chestertonâs hedge metaphor for conservatism; Burke and Hayek; Oakeshott; coastal elites and populist resentment; the Iraq War and the 2008 financial crisis; Stephen writing jokes for Tony Blair; Brexit and national identity; Boris Johnson; Corbyn and anti-Semitism; Starmerâs victory and his emphasis on stability; Labourâs new super-majority; and Sunakâs graceful concession.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety â subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Lionel Shriver on human limits and resentment, Anne Applebaum on autocrats, Eric Kaufmann on reversing woke extremism, and Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal cruelty. (Van Jonesâ PR team canceled his planned appearance.) Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com
Erick 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 âErick Erickson Showâ on WSB Radio in Atlanta and runs a popular substack of the same name. Heâs back on the Dishcast to discuss his new book, You Shall Be as Gods: Pagans, Progressives, and the Rise of the Woke Gnostic Left â though it also criticizes the âgnostic rightâ.
For two clips of our convo â on the post-Christian right, and the anti-Christian Trump â pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: the drop in churchgoing and the rise of the nones over the past few decades; how Covid broke the church-going habit even further; how plagues reshape societies in other ways; Augustine; how churches are sending missionaries abroad rather than to the US; conspiracy theories; the purported âsecret knowledgeâ of the first Gnostics; how the Bible canon was shaped; Bart Ehrman; Erick in the inerrancy-of-the-Bible camp; his wifeâs cancer; the issue of cremation; sacraments as physical acts; the Resurrection; how Jesus sought out and loved the abnormal; gnosticism on the political left; transgenderism; Scientism; climate change as apocalyptic; Greta Thunberg; how Reagan and Thatcher addressed the ozone layer; Thatcher being the first to talk climate change at the UN; the comorbidities of many kids seeking transition; the Cass Review; the language police; Michael Antonâs âFlight 93 Electionâ; the border crisis under Biden; his student loan forgiveness; resurgent anti-Semitism on the left and the right; protesting at the homes of politicians; the overreach of the Alvin Bragg case; the queer criticism of gay marriage; why âemotional laborâ is the lifeblood of a democracy; the Ten Commandments vs critical queer and gender theory in schools; the blasphemy of crosses on January 6; the MSMâs failure to simply explain the opposing side; and how America in the 2020s is becoming a version of The Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety â subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Stephen Fry on his remarkable life, Eric Kaufmann on reversing woke extremism; Anne Applebaum on autocrats, Lionel Shriver on her new novel, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal cruelty, and Van Jones on race in America. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com
The best political reporter in Britain returns to the Dishcast to discuss the election on July 4. Tim has been a chief political commentator at The Sunday Times since 2014, after serving eight years as political editor. His first two books, All Out War and Fall Out, are indispensable to understanding the politics of Brexit, and his new book is No Way Out: Brexit: From the Backstop to Boris.
For two clips of our convo â on the fall of Rishi Sunak, and Nigel Farage entering the âclusterfuck,â as Tim puts it â pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: 14 years of Tory power; George Osborneâs austerity; Boris the cosmopolitan liberal Tory; how he screwed up Brexit; his common touch overshadowed by breaking his own Covid rules; deep spending during the pandemic; his bromance with Zelensky; vowing to cut migration but legislating mass, unskilled migration; Theresa May unable to right the ship; the Liz Truss disaster; her naive libertarianism and supply-side shock therapy; Rishi Sunak sweeping in from a smoke-filled room; coming in as a technocratic problem-solver but lacking the political skill; surrounded by Yes Men and âsurprisingly brittleâ; his rolling series of campaign blunders this month â starting with his election announcement in the pouring rain; the D-Day disaster; Nigel Farage entering the âclusterfuckâ and splitting the Tory base; losing all his previous seven races for Parliament; how Reform will get one, maybe two seats; how Farage is close with Trump and âmore jovialâ; how Farage had to backtrack on Putin ; why Keir Starmer is not proposing radical change (like Thatcher did); how heâs touting âstabilityâ and âcompetenceâ; his policy is thin; my reflections on befriending and debating Keir during our school days; how he was a class-war leftist in his youth, with swagger; the depth of his ambition (even more than Rishi); how he outmaneuvered Jeremy Corbyn and distanced the party from anti-Semitism; the Cass Review; China policy; Blairism; how old party allegiances are mostly gone; and how July 4 could see the worst election loss since 1906.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety â subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Erick Erickson on the leftâs spiritual crisis, Anne Applebaum on autocrats, Lionel Shriver on her new novel, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal cruelty, Van Jones, and Stephen Fry! Send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com
Elizabeth Corey is an academic and writer. Sheâs an associate professor of political science in the Honors Program at Baylor University and the author of the 2006 book, Michael Oakeshott on Religion, Aesthetics, and Politics. She also writes for First Things and serves on the board of the Institute on Religion and Public Life. After many of you asked me to do a podcast on my intellectual mentor, we delve into the thinking and life of Michael Oakeshott â the philosopher I wrote my dissertation on.
For two clips of our convo â on the genius who shirked fame, and my sole meeting with Oakeshott â pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Elizabeth born and raised in Baton Rouge; growing up to be a musician with Bill Evans as her idol; her father was an econ professor at LSU and part of the conservative intellectual movement; Baylor is a Christian school with thought diversity; Eric Voegelin; Hannah Arendt; Friedrich Hayek; how Elizabeth first stumbled upon Oakeshott; his critical view of careerism; living in the now; a championof liberal education; opposing the Straussians and their view of virtue; individualism above all; how he would be horrified by the identity politics of today; calling Augustine âthe most remarkable man who ever livedâ; Montaigne not far behind; the virtue of changing oneâs mind; how Oakeshott was very socially adept; conversation as a tennis match that no one wins; traveling without a destination; his bohemian nature; his sluttiness; Helen of Troy; early Christians; the Tower of Babel; civil association vs enterprise association; why Oakeshott was a Jesus Christian, not a Paul Christian; hating the Reformation and its iconoclasm; the difference between theology and religion; the joy of gambling being in the wager not the winning; the eternal undergraduate as a lost soul; politics as an uncertain sea that needs constant tacking; the mystery of craftsmanship; present laughter over utopian bliss; how following the news is a ânervous disorderâ; why salvation is boring; how Oakeshott affected the lives of Elizabeth and myself; and the texts she recommends as an intro to his thought.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety â subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Tim Shipman on the UK elections, Erick Erickson on the leftâs spiritual crisis, Lionel Shriver on her new novel, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal cruelty, Van Jones, and Stephen Fry! Send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com
Nellie is a writer and reporter. She has worked for many mainstream publications, most notably the NYT covering Silicon Valley. Now she is teamed up with her wife, Bari Weiss, to run The Free Press â a media company they launched on Substack in 2021. Nellieâs weekly news roundup, TGIF, is smart and hilarious, and so is her new book, Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches From the Wrong Side of History.
For two clips of our convo â on the scourge of Slack, and questioning whether trans is immutable â pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Nellie growing up in SF with divorced parents; her mother the writer and stockbroker; her dad the entrepreneur; Nellie the tomboy who ran the gay-straight alliance to find a girlfriend; reading conservatives (Paglia, Rand, Coulter) as a liberal teen; working at the SF Chronicle; the NYT full of âintense, ambitious people on a political missionâ; James Bennet; Dean Baquet and the âracial reckoningâ; the 1619 Project; Donald McNeil; the MSM ignoring antifa; Joe Kahn taking a stand; NPR refusing to cover Hunterâs laptop; lab-leak theory; disinfo as a âuseful cudgelâ; CHAZ/CHOP in Seattle; Prager U; the Shitty Media Men list; Jordan Peterson and âenforced monogamyâ; James Damore; a NYT editor calling Bari âa f*****g Naziâ; Nellie falling in love with her; losing friends over their relationship; Nellie being very pregnant right now; male role models for the kids of lesbians; marriage equality; the queer leftâs opposition to marriage; when the straights culturally appropriate âqueerâ; Ptown and Dina Martina; the importance of Pride for small towns; taking my mum to a parade; the US being way behind Europe on trans kids; the profound effects of hormones; the âthe science is settledâ campaign by GLAAD; detransitioners; Jan 6 and Stop the Steal; right-wing pressure on courts and Congress due to Trump; RFK Jrâs candidacy; the woke blackout on humor; Elon Musk; the mainstreaming of masks and violent rhetoric after Oct 7; Nellie converting to Judaism; and how her book is ânot about heroism.â
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety â subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Lionel Shriver on her new novel, Tim Shipman on the UK elections, Elizabeth Corey on Oakeshott, Erick Erickson on the leftâs spiritual crisis, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal cruelty, Van Jones, and Stephen Fry! Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
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