David Frum needs little introduction; he’s a long-time writer at The Atlantic and the author of many books, the latest being Trumpocalypse and Trumpocracy . We cover a range of issues in this episode. You can listen to it right away in the audio player embedded above, or right below it you can click “Listen in podcast app” — which will connect you to the Dishcast feed. To listen to two excerpts from my conversation with David — on the problems of mass immigration; and on our disagreements over R...
Jan 22, 2021•1 hr 20 min
Michael (@hirschorn) is the Emmy-winning CEO of Ish Entertainment, which makes political documentaries, and the founder of The People PAC, which promotes democratic values. He’s also an old friend from Harvard, former house-mate, and one of the smartest people I know. We talk about race, class, the resistance, the Democrats, “deep canvassing,” the woke and the promise of the unwoke left. It gets pretty real at times. You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player embedded above, or...
Jan 15, 2021•1 hr 36 min
A senior fellow at Brookings and a contributing writer at The Atlantic, Shadi runs a podcast and pens articles with Damir Marusic at the Wisdom of Crowds . He’s been a strong advocate of the argument that American democracy is resilient, and that Trump never represented an existential threat to American democracy. We debated this before, so I asked him to come back and defend his case in the wake of the insurrection in Washington this week. I also began the podcast with an extemporaneous rant ab...
Jan 08, 2021•1 hr 36 min
Caitlin is a longtime writer at The Atlantic and the author of several books — the most recent is “Girl Land” — and she’s a frequent guest-host on the Femsplainers podcast. I’ve long been a super-fan. To see why, here are two recent essays Caitlin wrote — one on the dark lessons of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer , and one on the abortion debate . We share a Catholic faith and encounters with mortality, but Caitlin’s brushes with near-death have been far more acute than my own. Her extraordinary ...
Dec 25, 2020•1 hr 35 min
Meghan is the author of many books — the latest being The Problem with Everything: My Journey Through the New Culture Wars — and she’s the host of her own podcast, Unspeakable . I hadn’t met Meghan until this week, but it was a pleasure. We talked about our generation; what it feels like, if anything, to be a man or woman; the truthful hyperboles of wokeness and Trump, the poison of Twitter, the lessons of facing death early, and the benefits of solitude. It was a blast. To listen to two excerpt...
Dec 18, 2020
This week I did a simulcast episode with Damir and Shadi that will also air on their own podcast, Wisdom of Crowds . We discussed and debated the resilience of American democracy in this fraught time — with some sharp disagreements. (You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player embedded above, or right below it you can click “Listen in podcast app” — which will connect you to the Dishcast feed. To listen to two excerpts from my long conversation with Damir and Shadi — on Trump’s ...
Dec 11, 2020
Olivia is the brilliant 27-year-old Washington correspondent for my old haunt, New York Magazine, who has been covering all things Trump. I talked with her about the man who has defined so much of the news these past five years. (You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player embedded above, or right below it you can click “Listen in podcast app” — which will connect you to the Dishcast feed. To listen to two excerpts from my conversation with Olivia — about the first time she met ...
Dec 04, 2020
Dana is a retired surgeon, a mother, a trans rights advocate, and the former executive director (and current board member) of Gender Rights Maryland. She’s also been on the boards of two Jewish LGBT organizations, A Wider Bridge and Keshet, and has blogged extensively for HuffPo . We’ve been friends for a long time, and I thought it could only help the debate a little to have a spirited but also humane debate about trans issues — as they have been, and as they are now, in a “critical theory” wor...
Nov 27, 2020•1 hr 54 min
Matt Yglesias, contrarian progressive, joins the Dishcast to discuss the fallout of the 2020 election and his new book, “ One Billion Americans ,” a patriotic case for making America greater by inviting more immigrants. In the episode we talk about the 2020 election, wokeness and media, the cancel culture on the right, the progressives who find patriotism hokey, the black voters who support Biden more than white liberals do, Matt’s dissent over my use of “Christianists,” the importance of real d...
Nov 20, 2020
Brian Muraresku is the author of the new book The Immortality Key , currently the #10 audiobook on the NYT Best Seller list and the #9 hardcover on Amazon’s non-fiction list . A collection of reviews can be found on Brian’s website . My own review is here . The Immortality Key , his first book, examines the pivotal role that psychedelics may have played in the origins of Western civilization, first among the ancient Greeks and then early Christians. This is not some kooky-ass book from some hipp...
Nov 13, 2020
Coleman Hughes is a brilliant young writer at Quillette on issues related to race, a contributing editor at City Journal , and the host of the podcast Conversations with Coleman . He famously faced off against Ta-Nehisi Coates at a congressional hearing on reparations. In this episode, I begin by wondering what I got wrong about Trump and how the electorate actually views him. We discuss what kind of authoritarian he actually turned out to be, how woke overreach cost the Democrats big this year,...
Nov 06, 2020•1 hr 42 min
Sam Harris is a neuroscientist, philosopher, New York Times best-selling author, host of the Making Sense podcast, and creator of the Waking Up App. He’s also an old friend, jousting partner, meditation role model, and all round wonderful man. In thinking who might be an ideal first guest for the first Dishcast, and on the eve of an election, Sam came up immediately. Exactly four years ago, in an episode of his podcast titled “ The Lesser Evil ”, we had a rambling discussion that went viral, whe...
Oct 30, 2020•1 hr 45 min
