Episódios
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Rod is an old-school blogger and author living in Budapest. He’s 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, “Rod Dreher’s Diary.”
For two clips of our convo — on what red-pilled JD Vance, and embracing the mystery of Christianity — 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 Trump’s abortion pivot; the Kavanaugh hearings; the canceling of Judge Kyle Duncan; politics destroying friendships; riots and speech crimes in the UK; Orbán and migrants; the war in Ukraine; racial violence on Elon’s X; rightwing anti-Semitism; Vance’s conversion to Catholicism; “childless cat ladies”; pronatalism; the sexual revolution; Ross Douthat; the loss of freedom in parenthood and its joys; Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed; Houellebecq’s Submission; Zygmunt Bauman and liquid modernity; environmental destruction; Trump’s 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; Rod’s 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 — 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. He’s 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 — why race/gender/sexuality are now considered sacred identities, and whether peak woke is past us — 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; “hate speech”; 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 Steele’s book on white guilt; Coleman Hughes and “intergenerational trauma”; anti-Semitism and the Holocaust; the AIDS crisis; the tradeoffs in trans rights vs. women’s rights; the spurious “mass graves” of indigenous Canadians; the CRA of 1964 dovetailing with the Immigration Act of 1965; Chris Caldwell; Richard Hanania; America’s original sin of slavery; Locke and Hobbes; Douglas Murray’s 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 Harris’ convention speech; and being comfortable with being “abnormal”.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — 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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Carville needs no introduction, but he’s 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 — on Harris’ convention speech, Vance’s conversions, Bill Clinton’s “pussy business,” and woke condescension toward minorities — 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 “extremely” Catholic family; the vast majority of his peers were African-American; the woke left’s caricatured view of “the marginalized”; the flattening term “communities of color”; NPR; the misnomer “LGBTQIA”; the resilient old queens of the South; progressive orgs paralyzed by young woke staffers; the shocking strength of Harris’ 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 “growth”; the crime issue; the border crisis; Gaza; Starmer and “stability”; Carville leading Wofford to an incredible comeback in his Senate race; teaming up with Begala to guide Clinton to the White House; Bill’s 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 “fresh vs. stale”; how Biden was pushed out by big donors and Pelosi; how the timing turned out to be perfect for Harris; how she’s avoided the press longer than Palin did; how Walz is further left than Carville; Vance and “childless cat ladies”; common-good conservatism; the difference between cradle Catholics and converts; the Gospels; infallibility; Garry Wills’ influence; Trump thrilled by domination; the hatred of elites and foreign wars and offshoring; the snipes at Walz’s son; and Carville dealing with ADHD.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — 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 — The Run of His Life and A Vast Conspiracy — were adapted for television as seasons of “American Crime Story” on the FX channel.
You can listen 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 — why the Bragg conviction helped Trump, and the origins of lawfare with Bill Clinton — 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; Ford’s pardon; Jeffrey on the team investigating Oliver North; the Boland Amendment and the limits of law; Cheney’s role during Iran-Contra; how Congress hasn’t declared war since WWII; Whitewater to Lewinsky; Ken Starr and zealous prosecutors; Trump extorting Ukraine over the Bidens; Russiagate; the Mueller Report and Barr’s dithering; how such investigations can help presidents; the Bragg indictment; the media environment of Trump compared to Nixon; Fox News coverage of Covid; Trump’s 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; Jeffrey’s 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 — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Eric Kaufmann on liberal extremism, and Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal cruelty. (Van Jones’ PR team canceled his planned appearance.) Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
Here’s a fan of last week’s 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 “blame America first crowd” — not that we haven’t committed our sins. But if we didn’t 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. It’s 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 — 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 can’t even conquer Ukraine, but we’re 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 doesn’t have a migrant crisis. … Because it’s 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 Biden’s cognitive decline: “This is another road I don’t want to go down, but I know people who met with Joe Biden a couple months ago, and he was fine” (meaning I just want to make my statement but will not allow you a rebuttal). And then:
I’ve met [Harris] a few times, mostly in the context of conversations about foreign policy and about Russia and Ukraine and other things. And she’s 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. … You’d like her if you met her in real life.
Translation of both of these excerpts: “You plebes who aren’t insiders just don’t understand, but trust me — the connected insider — instead of your lying eyes.”
Another adds:
I think for the next few months, you’re going to have to push people like Anne Applebaum to be more open to criticizing the Biden-Harris record. She’s 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, he’d have another thing coming. Just look how he tried to get them to take “his” vaccine. That didn’t 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 won’t, but that is what they are seeking — 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. He’s already announced to his mother (much to her chagrin) that he will be casting his first vote for Trump. And get this: he’s going to Oberlin College this fall. I can assure you he’s not looking for a dictator. He’s looking to say “eff you” to a system that has no use for upper-class, normal white boys like him. The elites hate him and his friends.
But I’m 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 can’t back Trump, but I do think your son is onto something. On a few other episodes:
Lionel Shriver — I love her! I wished you’d talked more about her novel, Mania. It’s not perfect, but it’s good.
On the Stephen Fry pod, I was resistant! He’s irritated me at times. But I loved it when you two started doing Larkin! I shouldn’t admit this, but “Aubade” could be my autobiography. I think one or both of you misinterpret “Church Going.” Larkin doesn’t wish he had faith. I don’t think that’s 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). I’m probably just guessing, but I don’t think that’s Larkin. Larkin didn’t wish he had faith. He was elegiac about the past in which there was faith. I think you’ll see this sensibility in “An Arundel Tomb.”
Agreed. Another on Shriver:
She seems to think that “liberals” are mistaken in believing that everyone can be equal, but I think she is mistaken in thinking that is what they believe — 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.
Here’s 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 Bourdieu’s notions of cultural capital to analyze the ascendant symbolic capitalists — those who work in law, technology, nonprofits, academia, journalism and media, finance, civil service and the like — and how the ideology known as “wokeness” 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.
Here’s 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 he’s really, really, really ridiculously good-looking is the least interesting thing about him. I’d love to hear a conversation between you and him for a few reasons. First, he’s 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, he’s a devout evangelical Christian who speaks openly about his faith — 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 guy’s 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. He’s articulate, and the way he’s navigating this cultural and political moment is fascinating.
And if you do snag him, you should supplement the audio with video.
Haha. But seriously, we’re 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 Democrats’ 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? That’s why she lost: she wasn’t woke enough.
So as VP, of course she pivoted to shore up her appeal to the base, like any good politician would. It’s terribly unfortunate that she had to tack hard left precisely as the country was moving back to the center and rejecting wokism, but that doesn’t mean she’s the “wokest candidate,” as you say. It just means she’s a politician.
My criticism also extended to her management and campaigning skills in the past. And look: I don’t think it’s fair to compare my attempt to review the evidence of her record with a Fox News hit-piece. It’s 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 can’t have riots in cities, and racism is real but DEI excesses are also bad. And it’s 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 “vote for me to show that you’re not sexist/racist, because I’m a woman of color,” and not much about “Trump is a threat to democracy.” It was all, “I 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 woman’s right to choose.” Sounds like a popular message!
You also say, “She is not a serious person.” Bro, have you *seen* the other party’s candidate?
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Anne is a journalist and historian. She’s currently a staff writer at The Atlantic and a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s Agora Institute. She’s 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, “Open Letters.”
For two clips of our convo — on whether Trump is a kleptocrat, and whether Kamala can connect with the public — 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 — with algorithms; Iranian theocracy; how autocrats have anonymity but their subjects don’t; 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; Dubya’s foreign adventures; a dictator’s 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 Biden’s failure; the turnover of Tory PMs and Starmer’s “stability”; the West’s 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; Trump’s endurance; the assassination attempt; and Anne’s 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 — 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 Jones’ 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. She’s 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. She’s 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 — on the relief that comes with personal limitations, and whether feminism has run its course — 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 left’s 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 Clinton’s appetites; Hitch’s 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 shouldn’t 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 — 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 Jones’ 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 “A Bit of Fry & Laurie,” “Jeeves and Wooster,” and “Blackadder,” and his films include Wilde, Gosford Park, and Love & Friendship. His Broadway career includes “Me and My Girl” and “Twelfth Night.” He’s produced several documentary series, including “Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive,” and he’s 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 — subscribe!
For two clips of our convo — on the profound pain of bipolar depression, and whether the EU diminishes Englishness — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: growing up in Norfolk; his mom’s 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; Stephen’s 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; Stephen’s bipolarism; the dark lows and manic highs; my mum’s lifelong struggle with that illness; dementia; her harrowing final days; transgenerational trauma; Larkin’s “This Be the Verse”; theodicy; the shame of mental illness; Gen Z’s 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; Chesterton’s 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; Starmer’s victory and his emphasis on stability; Labour’s new super-majority; and Sunak’s graceful concession.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — 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 Jones’ 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 “Erick Erickson Show” on WSB Radio in Atlanta and runs a popular substack of the same name. He’s back on the Dishcast to discuss his new book, You Shall Be as Gods: Pagans, Progressives, and the Rise of the Woke Gnostic Left — though it also criticizes the “gnostic right”.
For two clips of our convo — on the post-Christian right, and the anti-Christian Trump — 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 “secret knowledge” of the first Gnostics; how the Bible canon was shaped; Bart Ehrman; Erick in the inerrancy-of-the-Bible camp; his wife’s 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 Anton’s “Flight 93 Election”; 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 “emotional labor” 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 MSM’s 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 — 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 — on the fall of Rishi Sunak, and Nigel Farage entering the “clusterfuck,” as Tim puts it — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: 14 years of Tory power; George Osborne’s 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 “surprisingly brittle”; his rolling series of campaign blunders this month — starting with his election announcement in the pouring rain; the D-Day disaster; Nigel Farage entering the “clusterfuck” 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 “more jovial”; how Farage had to backtrack on Putin ; why Keir Starmer is not proposing radical change (like Thatcher did); how he’s touting “stability” and “competence”; 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 — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Erick Erickson on the left’s 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. She’s 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 — the philosopher I wrote my dissertation on.
For two clips of our convo — on the genius who shirked fame, and my sole meeting with Oakeshott — 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 “the most remarkable man who ever lived”; Montaigne not far behind; the virtue of changing one’s 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 “nervous disorder”; 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 — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Tim Shipman on the UK elections, Erick Erickson on the left’s 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 — a media company they launched on Substack in 2021. Nellie’s 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 — on the scourge of Slack, and questioning whether trans is immutable — 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 “intense, ambitious people on a political mission”; James Bennet; Dean Baquet and the “racial reckoning”; the 1619 Project; Donald McNeil; the MSM ignoring antifa; Joe Kahn taking a stand; NPR refusing to cover Hunter’s laptop; lab-leak theory; disinfo as a “useful cudgel”; CHAZ/CHOP in Seattle; Prager U; the Shitty Media Men list; Jordan Peterson and “enforced monogamy”; James Damore; a NYT editor calling Bari “a f*****g Nazi”; 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 left’s opposition to marriage; when the straights culturally appropriate “queer”; 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 “the science is settled” campaign by GLAAD; detransitioners; Jan 6 and Stop the Steal; right-wing pressure on courts and Congress due to Trump; RFK Jr’s 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 “not about heroism.”
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — 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 left’s 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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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com
George writes a twice-weekly column on politics and foreign affairs for the Washington Post, a column he launched in 1974. He is also a regular contributor to MSNBC and NBC News. The author of 14 books, his latest is American Happiness and Discontents, but the one we primarily cover in this episode is The Conservative Sensibility — which I reviewed for the NYT.
For two clips of our convo — on why the presidency has too much power, and the necessity of stopping Putin — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: growing up in Lincoln country; the son of a philosophy prof and an academic editor; Isaiah Berlin was a family friend; George and I both attending Magdalen College, Oxford; his meeting with Thatcher in late '60s; how socialism is stultifying; Oakeshott; industrial policy as crony capitalism “from the start”; Milton Friedman; why “secure” is the most important word in the Constitution; just war theory; Vietnam as the “professors’ war”; collectivism vs national security; the trauma of 9/11 and the Iraq War; the China threat today; Gaza; why natcons are jealous of progressives; Elizabeth Warren; why Woodrow Wilson criticized the Founding as quaint; FDR and his fireside chats; in praise of Eisenhower; the spread of the administrative state; Caldwell’s The Age of Entitlement; Reagan and the national debt; his bad wager on the Laffer Curve; the meaning of his smile; presentism; Hume at a dinner party; Madison’s genius; George the “amiable low-voltage atheist”; Christian nationalism; evangelicals for Trump; the entitlement crunch with Boomers; “not voting is an opinion”; our disagreement on immigration; the “execrable” 1924 law; climate change as a low priority for Gen Z; why Trump is unprecedented; Biden’s age and his “stupendous act of selfishness” in running again; Gina Raimondo; DEI as the new racial discrimination; the deep distrust in media; the flailing WaPo; “happiness is overrated”; the appeal of baseball; and the reasons why America is exceptional.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Nellie Bowles on the woke revolution, Lionel Shriver on her new novel, Elizabeth Corey on Oakeshott, Tim Shipman on the UK elections, Erick Erickson on the left’s spiritual crisis, 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
Noah is a journalist who covers economics and geopolitics. A former assistant professor of Behavioral Finance at Stony Brook University and an early blogger, he became an opinion columnist at Bloomberg in 2014. He left after seven years to focus on his own substack, Noahpinion, which you should definitely check out.
For two clips of our convo — on why we should fear a military strike from China, and the good news about tech and the economy we don’t pay enough attention to — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: the amazing story of Fawlty Towers triggering Noah’s birth in Oklahoma; raised in Aggie country; his father the psych professor; Noah’s clinical depression after his mom died young; trolling X File fans on the early web; the internet as an escape back then, before social media ruined it; joining the early blogs; Jonah Goldberg and Liberal Fascism; Noah living in Japan after Battle Royale gripped him; Yakuza burning down his apartment; the MAX show Tokyo Vice; debunking stereotypes about Japan (e.g. xenophobia); his tech optimism; Ozempic and HIV drugs; wages and wealth growing in the US; tuition falling; inflation leveling; the YIMBY movement; how AI will empower the normies; the collapse of global poverty; the China threat; EVs and tariffs; industrial policy as means for national security; risking global war over Taiwan; Noah downplaying the chips factor; the chance of another Pearl Harbor — from China; TikTok and controlling US media; the woke wars as a distraction; “information tournaments”; debating mass immigration; agreeing about the asylum clusterfucker; questioning whether the US was ever a melting pot; Biden catching up on the border and inflation; how he’s more likely to tighten the budget than Trump; debating which nominee is losing his marbles more; and why Ukraine and Gaza are diversions from China.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Nellie Bowles on the woke revolution, George Will on Trump and conservatism, Lionel Shriver on her new novel, Elizabeth Corey on Oakeshott, Tim Shipman on the UK elections, Erick Erickson on the left’s spiritual crisis, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal cruelty, and the great Van Jones! 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 needs no introduction, but he’s been the formidable host of HBO’s Real Time for 21 years now, and before that he hosted Politically Incorrect, which ran from 1993 to 2002. He has a new book out, What This Comedian Said Will Shock You — a collection of his best editorials on Real Time. Also check out his podcast, “Club Random,” which he recently expanded into a pod network, Club Random Studios. Bill manages to do all of that and still perform standup on the road — schedule here.
For two clips of our convo — on Bill not caving to political correctness after 9/11, and the two of us debating the credibility of the Gospels — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Bill going to church every Sunday as a kid; his Irish-Catholic dad turning away from the Church after Pope Paul VI; how the left today is bonkers; how Biden is captured by wokeness; the toxicity of the Trump cult; getting his GOP rivals to bend the knee; Ann Coulter’s balls in opposing him; the crisis of mass illegal migration; the dickishness of DeSantis on lab meat and rainbow bridges; his sensible approach to Covid; election deniers; the remarkable progress of legal weed and marriage equality; Bill’s movie Religulous; his admiration for Jesus as a philosopher; Muhammad the invading warrior; slavery in the Bible; the conflicting accounts of the Resurrection; whether Paul was a closeted gay; Christianity starting as a bourgeois religion; the pagan origins of Christian holidays; Richard Dawkins; the rise of the nones; wokeness as a religion; Bronze Age Pervert; Lauren Boebert on church/state; American exceptionalism as Christian heresy; October 7th; the profound illiberalism of Hamas; their Nazi-like tactics; “Hamas wants to commit genocide but can’t — Israel can, but won’t”; Rafah as Dunkirk; Biden’s Morehouse speech; Trump’s insane antics as the ultimate teflon; his humor; wokeness as a gold mine for comedy; comics who cave to PC; Trump’s energy on the trail; and Bill’s grueling book tour offering insight into campaigning.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Nellie Bowles on the woke revolution, Noah Smith on the economy, George Will on Trump and conservatism, Lionel Shriver on her new novel, Elizabeth Corey on Oakeshott, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal cruelty; and the great Van Jones! 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
Oren is a writer and policy advisor. In 2012, he was the domestic policy director for Romney’s presidential campaign, and in 2018 he wrote The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America. In 2020, he founded the think tank American Compass, where he serves as executive director. He’s also a contributing opinion writer for the Financial Times.
For two clips of our convo — on how China cheats at free trade, and the possibility of Trumpism without Trump — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: growing up in a stable family in suburban Mass; both American parents grew up in Israel; Oren’s progressive charter school; turning to conservatism at his very liberal college; studying political economy; working at Bain; the gap between wealth and happiness; the stagnant protectionist UK before Thatcher; Brexit; how London is almost unrecognizable to older Brits; Adam Smith and David Ricardo; how no one predicted the fall of the Soviet Union; Tiananmen Square; neoliberalism’s obsession with GDP growth; NAFTA and the WTO; the China Shock; how the success of the free market swung the pendulum too far; the meaning of populism; Oren working for the Romney campaign after the Great Recession; the growing trade deficit; Biden following the Trump playbook on tariffs and industrial policy; semiconductors in Taiwan; the CHIPS Act; the left’s disdain for patriotism; the cheap labor of open borders; E-Verify; how the college-for-all model is a “toxic disaster”; Biden’s loan forgiveness; Trump’s advantage in the 2024 election; his growing multi-racial coalition; his tax cuts and their looming expiration; Republicans rethinking labor unions; reformicons like Reihan and Ross; and me calling out Yglesias for never paying for The Weekly Dish. (Subscribe!)
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Nellie Bowles on the woke revolution, Noah Smith on the economy, Bill Maher on everything, George Will on Trump and conservatism, Lionel Shriver on her new novel, Elizabeth Corey on Oakeshott, and the great Van Jones! 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
Adam is the best magazine editor of my generation, and an old friend. From 2004 to 2019, he was the editor-in-chief of New York Magazine, and before that he edited the New York Times Magazine, and 7 Days — a weekly news magazine covering art and culture in NYC. His first book is The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing.
For two clips of our convo — on the bygone power of magazines, and the birth of the great and powerful performance artist Dina Martina — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: his upbringing on Long Island; fantasizing about NYC through the cosmopolitanism of magazines; being a “magazine junky extremely early”; the literary journalism of the ‘60s; Gay Talese; Joan Didion; Tom Wolfe; Adam’s early start at The Village Voice; 18-hour workdays; joining Rolling Stone then Esquire; commissioning Frank Rich’s groundbreaking piece on gay culture; the visual strength of mags; 7 Days “doomed from the start” because of a stock market crash; the NYT’s Joe Lelyveld hiring Adam to “make trouble” with creative disruption; Tina Brown; “the mix” of magazines like a dinner party; the psychodrama of writers clashing with colleagues; how the Internet killed magazines; the blogosphere; podcasting; the artist Cheryl Pope and her series on miscarriages; Tony Kushner’s Angels in America; when creation is tedious and painful; Leaves of Grass and its various versions; Montaigne’s essays; Pascal and the incompleteness of The Pensées; Amy Sillman painting over her beautiful work; Steven Sondheim; choreographer Twyla Tharp; poetry as the concentration of language and the deconstruction of how we speak; poets Marie Howe and Louise Gluck; the fiction writer George Saunders; how weed suppresses the ego; and Adam’s preternatural calm.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Oren Cass on Republicans moving left on class, Noah Smith on the economy, Bill Maher on everything, George Will on Trump and conservatism, Lionel Shriver on her new novel, Elizabeth Corey on Oakeshott, and the great Van Jones! 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
My old and dear friend Johann just released his latest book, Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight-Loss Drugs. That follows Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs (2015), Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression (2018), and Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention (2022), which we covered on the Dishcast.
For two clips of our convo — on the ways Big Food gets us hooked, and the biggest risk of Ozempic — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Johann’s struggles with food growing up; how his Swiss dad’s healthy eating habits clashed with his Scottish mom’s processed food; how the obesity crisis started in 1979; the comfort and convenience of junk food; 78 percent of calories consumed by kids today are ultra-processed; how ads hook them at an early age; why the government should regulate food companies like Japan does; Johann’s own experience with Ozempic over the past year; how such drugs boost satiety; nausea and other side effects; the dangers for those with thyroid issues and anorexia; ten other risks he highlights; the ease of getting Ozempic; how people on it lose the pleasure of eating; how the disruption of food habits surface psychological problems; bariatric surgery; Fen Phen and its $12 billion settlement; the dangers of obesity that include diabetes and cancer; how victims of sexual abuse put on weight as a deterrent to abusers; the resilience of fatphobia; why The Biggest Loser is an “evil f*****g show”; why weight-loss drugs feel like cheating; why they might inhibit reform in the food industry; when Johann was fat-shamed by the Dalai Lama; why exercise is great for your health but not really for weight loss; and why I might start taking Ozempic myself.
In fact, I just started. Took my first dose yesterday. I’m struck by how utterly simple it is. A teeny-tiny injection from a teen-tiny needle once a week. I’ll keep you posted if anything interesting happens.
Update from Johann's book peeps: "A statement about a food critic taking Ozempic leading to a loss of joy in eating was incorrectly attributed to Jay Rayner. In fact, Mr. Rayner has never taken Ozempic and last year wrote an article explaining that he would not use the drug because it would risk him losing his pleasure in food. Mr. Hari apologizes for this error."
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Nellie Bowles on the woke revolution, Adam Moss on the artistic process, Oren Cass on Republicans moving left on class, Noah Smith on the economy, Bill Maher on everything, George Will on conservatism, Elizabeth Corey on Oakeshott, and the great and powerful Van Jones! Please 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
Kara is a journalist who has covered the business of the Internet since 1994. She was the cofounder and editor-at-large of Recode, and she's worked for the NYT, the WaPo, and the WSJ. She’s now the host of the podcast “On with Kara Swisher” and the co-host of the “Pivot” podcast with Scott Galloway, both distributed by New York Magazine. Her new memoir is Burn Book: A Tech Love Story. It’s a fun read, and it was good to hang out with her again after many years. We were both web pioneers and it’s good to remember those days of the blogosphere. And we get fiery at times.
For two clips of our convo — debating how woke the MSM really is, and how readers are smarter than journalists — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Kara’s rough childhood on Long Island; losing her dad at an early age and contending with a bad stepdad; her military family and her interest in serving; how DADT made things worse for gays; being an AIDS quilt folder; lesbian tropes; our mutual dislike of Pride parades; her fearlessness as a young reporter; The McLaughlin Group; the condescension of legacy media; tycoons who buy media outlets; Jeff Bezos; Marty Peretz; Friendster, Zip2 and Suck.com; how Facebook was seen as a savior for media; how trolls are chagrined when you talk to them; how Zuckerberg is “lovely but awkward” in person; Bill Gates; Peter Thiel; how gay hookups drove the early internet; how the apps kill serendipity; the power of podcasts for community; how the right innovated direct mail and talk radio; Obama’s pioneering with web outreach; how Twitter made January 6 (and Trump himself) possible; Kara watching every single episode of The Apprentice; how Trump’s act is getting stale; how social media is not a good business model; Elon Musk; buying Twitter to “make him more interesting at parties”; the Walter Isaacson bio; Elon’s vile tweets on Paul Pelosi; his trans daughter; ketamine; Mark Cuban on DEI; abortion in the 2024 election; how social media is fracturing and losing appeal with Gen Z; the decline of cable news; the disinfo on unarmed black men killed by cops; how BLM led to more black lives lost; the grievance-industrial-complex of the right; how its reactionaries just want to “burn s**t down”; why Kara is a China hawk; why she disagrees with Jon Haidt; the TikTok ban; the Twitter Files; Hunter’s penis; Tipper Gore and dirty lyrics; and how Kara counsels her four kids about social media and porn.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Adam Moss on the artistic process, Johann Hari on Ozempic, Nellie Bowles on the woke revolution, Noah Smith on the economy, George Will on Trump and conservatism, Bill Maher on everything, and the great Van Jones! 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
Eli is a journalist and friend. He’s a former senior national security correspondent for The Daily Beast and Newsweek, and a former columnist for the Bloomberg View. He’s now a reporter for The Free Press, a contributing editor at Commentary Magazine, and the host of his own podcast, The Re-Education. I thought I should have a strong Israel supporter to come on and challenge my recent columns.
For two clips of our convo — on the West Bank settlements, and Trump’s record on Israel — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Eli raised as a latchkey kid in Philly; his leftwing Jewish parents; turning neocon in college during the ‘90s PC wars; Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose a formative book; Eli’s love of rap from an early age; Tribe Called Quest and the Native Tongue movement of “rap hippies”; Black Nationalism; David Samuels’ story on white kids driving hip-hop; Kanye’s genius and grappling with his anti-Semitism; the bigotry of Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot; Nietzsche’s madness; the persistence of Jew hatred across history and cultures; dissidents in the Catholic Church; Augustine; Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah; the faux sophistication of conspiracy theorists; Bob Dole as a Gen Xer; envy and resentment over Israel’s success; the First Intifada; Labor Zionism; Ben-Gurion and Arab resistance; Menachem Begin; Netanyahu’s dad; the IRA bombing British leaders; Arafat walking away from Camp David; the Second Intifada; 9/11 and Islamofascism; the Iraq War and Abu Ghraib; the settler movement and Judeo-fascists; Jared Kushner; the Abraham Accords; Arabs serving in the Knesset; Israel withdrawing from Gaza and southern Lebanon; the evil of Hamas; Yossi Klein Halevi; the IDF’s AI program; the tunnels and 2,000-lb bombs; Dresden; John Spencer’s Understanding Urban Warfare; Rafah; Trump’s vanity; Soleimani and the Damascus embassy; and the US supplying weapons to Israel.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Next up: Kara Swisher on Silicon Valley. After that: Adam Moss on the artistic process, George Will on Trump and conservatism, Johann Hari on weight-loss drugs, Noah Smith on the economy, Nellie Bowles on the woke revolution, Bill Maher on everything, and the great Van Jones! 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
Neil is a writer and historian. He used to be a contributing columnist at The Week, and he now co-hosts the “Past Present” history podcast. His first book was We Gather Together: The Religious Right and the Problem of Interfaith Politics, and his new one is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right.
For two clips of our convo — on when the Postal Service snooped on gay men’s letters, and Trump’s growing support among gays and lesbians — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: growing up a gay kid in a Baptist family in central Florida; college at Duke then Columbia while living in NYC for two decades; how gays are a unique minority because they’re born randomly across the US; the Best Little Boy in the World syndrome; the libertarian tradition of gay activists; the Mattachine Society; the obscure importance of Dorr Legg and One magazine; the Lavender Scare; the courage of Frank Kameny; how “privileged” white men had more to lose by coming out; the fundraising power of Marvin Liebman; his close friendship with Bill Buckley; the direct-mail pioneer Terry Dolan; Bob Bauman’s stellar career in the GOP until getting busted for prostitutes; Michael Barone; David Brock; Barney Frank’s slur “Uncle Tom Cabin Republicans”; the AIDS epidemic; how the virus sparked mass outings and assimilation; gay groups decimated by the disease; why gay Republicans wanted to keep the bathhouses open; John Boswell’s history on gay Christians; my conservative case for marriage in 1989; the bravery of Bruce Bawer and Jon Rauch; the early opposition to marriage by the gay left and Dem establishment; HRC’s fecklessness; the lies and viciousness of gay lefties like Richard Goldstein; Randy Shilts despised by fellow gays; Bayard Rustin; war hero Leonard Matlovich; how DADT drummed out more gays from the military than ever before; Clinton’s betrayal with DOMA; the peerless legal work of Evan Wolfson and reaching across the ideological aisle; how quickly the public shifted on marriage; the Log Cabin Republicans in the early ‘00s; Dubya’s marriage amendment; his striking down of the HIV travel ban; PEPFAR; Ken Mehlman; Tim Gill; Kennedy’s opinion in Obergefell; Gorsuch’s opinion in Bostock; Buttigeig’s historic run; the RNC’s outreach to gays in 2019; Jamie Kirchick’s book; Caitlyn Jenner; the groomer slur; the conflict between homosexuality and transness when it comes to kids; Tavistock; and the new conversion therapy.
Coming up on the Dishcast: Eli Lake on Israel and foreign affairs, Kara Swisher on Silicon Valley, Adam Moss on the artistic process, George Will on Trump and conservatism, Johann Hari on weight-loss drugs, Noah Smith on the economy, Nellie Bowles on the woke revolution, Bill Maher on everything, and the great Van Jones! Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other pod comments to [email protected].
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