This week, I welcome Matt Rosenberg to TGS. Matt is a journalist who grew up in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood and the author of the recently published book What Next, Chicago?: Notes of a Pissed-Off Native Son . The book delves into the causes and effects of the city’s recent, alarming rise in crime and also chronicles those who are trying to address the problem. As a native of Chicago’s South Side, I share Matt’s concerns, and I highly, highly recommend that everyone read his book. We begin ...
Feb 28, 2022•1 hr 25 min
John McWhorter is back, just like you knew he would be. This week we’re talking about the future of affirmative action. We begin by discussing Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner’s new film adaptation of the classic musical West Side Story . John argues that people who dismiss the musical as just “something some old white people wrote” are far too simplistic and limited in their view . I haven’t yet gotten a chance to see the new adaptation, but I’m a fan of the music and lyrics, so I’m inclined t...
Feb 21, 2022•1 hr 3 min
As many of you know, I’m in the midst of writing a memoir. I’m now calling it The Enemy Within, but its earlier title was Changing My Mind , an allusion both to my intellectual development and to my shifting political orientations. In the course of thinking through my past, I’ve wondered how much the new, more conservative Glenn would have to say to the more liberal Glenn of the ‘90s and ‘00s. So I decided to stage a little “debate” between us. Mark Sussman, my editor here at the newsletter, wen...
Feb 16, 2022•54 min
On this week’s show, I’m talking to the political scientist Steven Rhoads, author of the influential book The Economist’s View of the World , which was recently reissued in a substantially updated edition. Steven thinks the fundamental principles of economics can help even non-economists see the world in a more rational and solution-oriented way, and I have to say, I agree! I begin by asking Steven how a political scientist came to write a book extolling the virtues of economics —why not write o...
Feb 14, 2022•1 hr 5 min
I’m back with my friend John McWhorter for one of our regular conversations. A lot has happened on the race and politics front over the last two weeks, so we’ve got a full docket of topics to discuss. And speaking of dockets, after overcoming some technical difficulties, we spend a good chunk of time on matters relating to the Supreme Court. Ilya Shapiro , the incoming director of Georgetown University’s Center for the Constitution, was put on leave by the school after tweeting criticism of Joe ...
Feb 08, 2022•1 hr 9 min
Here at The Glenn Show, I’m taking a little break from politics and culture to talk dollars and cents. My good friend and former Boston University colleague Larry Kotlikoff is here to discuss his new book, Money Magic: An Economist’s Secrets to More Money, Less Risk, and a Better Life . In it, Larry brings his knowledge and expertise as an economist to bear on the everyday problems of spending, saving, and investing. In this episode, he shares some of that advice with TGS viewers. But, wait a mi...
Jan 31, 2022•57 min
John McWhorter and I often find ourselves aligned on the issues we discuss on The Glenn Show. We’ve even received criticism for how much we agree with each other! This episode should please those critics, as John and I actually find ourselves in stark (though productive and friendly) disagreement on a few matters. Let’s get into it. We begin by talking about Joe Biden’s recent press conference . Personally, I think he performed pretty badly, as the White House subsequently had to walk back sever...
Jan 24, 2022•1 hr 4 min
This week we’ve got Heather Mac Donald on The Glenn Show . Heather is a fellow of the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor to City Journal , and author of several books, including The Diversity Delusion , The War on Cops , and The Burden of Bad Ideas . Heather’s writing combines meticulous research and sharp, uncompromising prose. Her positions on crime and policing have led some on the left to regard her as a bit of a boogeyman. But while she is a fierce critic of failing progressive poli...
Jan 18, 2022•1 hr 19 min
John McWhorter is back for our first conversation of 2022. Let’s get into it! We begin by discussing the death of the groundbreaking black actor Sidney Poitier . Portier was best known for his roles in films like The Defiant Ones , Lilies of the Field, In the Heat of the Night , and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner . John puts forward the fascinating theory that Poitier’s Caribbean origins and mannerisms made him acceptable to white American audiences who were unaccustomed to seeing black men in dra...
Jan 11, 2022•1 hr 4 min
This week I’m honored to have the distinguished Robert Woodson on the show. Since joining the civil rights movement as an activist and organizer in the ‘60s, Bob has dedicated himself to finding solutions to the problems of poverty and dysfunction in America. Through the Woodson Center, Bob helps fund and advise programs that are on the ground and working to solve some of the toughest problems in American communities. He’s got more awards and achievements than I can possibly list here, and there...
Jan 04, 2022•1 hr 9 min
It’s been a big year here at The Glenn Show. So as 2021 draws to a close, I thought it would be a nice idea to round up some choice selections from the conversations I’ve had with John over the past year. This episode is a kind of “best of” compilation of segments that got a big response from viewers or that I personally thought were important or noteworthy. I couldn’t include all of the highlights, but I think these clips give a good sense of what my conversations with John were all about in 20...
Dec 27, 2021•1 hr 26 min
On this week’s show, I talk with Professor Amy Wax of the University of Pennsylvania Law School. As you might have guessed, we get into some very controversial territory. But that’s why I enjoy talking to Amy—she doesn’t pull her punches. Amy begins by talking about her position at Penn Law, where a group of alumni are attempting to get her fired . It’s not the first time people have tried this—as Amy notes, she’s been “canceled” many times , but she’s still here. We move on to a discussion of i...
Dec 21, 2021•1 hr 37 min
The “common sense” of the Woke Left sees so many issues, from the historical effects of redlining to the relationship between race and IQ, as matters that no longer require discussion. “Redlining is responsible for present-day racial wealth disparities, period. There is no relationship between race and IQ, period. End of discussion.” But the discussion is not over, these matters and many others are not settled. Treating them as such just papers over matters of vital concern that require serious ...
Dec 13, 2021•1 hr 8 min
The audiovisual experiments continue here at The Glenn Show. In some of our recent conversations, John McWhorter and I talked about how we would reply to “Simone,” a fictionalized version of one of my students at Brown who believes that systemic racism causes most or all of the racial disparities in the US. I think Simone is wrong about that, but this idea is so widespread that John and I agreed that we can’t just brush it aside. We need to address and refute it head on. We attempted to do that ...
Dec 08, 2021•6 min
This week on TGS we’ve got Rav Arora. He’s a compelling writer on race matters in the US. He’s also a college undergraduate , though it would be a mistake to underestimate him. He’s already published in a number of widely read outlets, including the New York Post , Quillette , and City Journal . He’s also got a Substack called Noble Truths , where he writes about psychedelics, meditation, and cultural trends. I begin by inquiring into Rav’s intellectual background. What is this young guy from Ca...
Dec 07, 2021•1 hr 25 min
John and I often talk about how we feel about race in America, but we rarely delve into why we feel the way we feel. What factors in our own lives primed us for those emotional responses? While John and I often agree about where the politics of race have gone wrong, we just as often experience very different feelings about these matters. I start the discussion off by raising a question a friend put to me recently: are we wasting our time engaging with “red meat” issues in the race debate? Should...
Nov 30, 2021•39 min
In this week’s TGS, my old friend Larry Kotlikoff, an economist at Boston University, is back to talk about some of our most pressing economic concerns. Chief among them is the inflation rate, which has hit a 30-year high. By some accounts, inflation is now threatening to do major, possibly longterm damage to the US economy. But are things as bad as they seem? Larry will take us through his analysis and talk about some other looming economic troubles. If you want to understand how these things w...
Nov 22, 2021•1 hr 3 min
A couple weeks ago in this space, I published an autobiographical sketch called “The Double Life.” It elicited such a strong reaction from readers that I wanted to revisit it, so I recorded an audio version and Nikita Petrov, my creative director, created a video feature to go along with it. I plan to do more of these audio/video pieces in the future, mostly for subscribers. Let me know what you think of this new feature in the comments! This post is free and available to the public. To receive ...
Nov 21, 2021•15 min
This week, John and I continue our discussion of systemic racism, which was kicked off when one of my students wrote a searing critique of some of my positions. John and I agreed that “Simone” (not her real name) deserved a real, intellectually serious response. We can’t just blow off Simone and people like her—that is, sober-minded, sincere, intelligent progressives and leftists who happen to think that systemic racism is responsible for all or most of America’s racial disparities. In respondin...
Nov 15, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Recently, I was asked to deliver a speech at the National Conservatism Conference, which was held in Orlando, Florida. It was high-profile affair with many prominent conservative intellectuals, media figures, and politicians speaking and in attendance. And I don’t mind saying I had a prime speaking slot! I used the speech to develop some ideas I’ve aired here on TGS, and I think many of you will be gratified by the reaction they get from the crowd. But make no mistake: I’m not just telling them ...
Nov 08, 2021•38 min
This week’s TGS features two incomparable guests: John McWhorter and Randall Kennedy. John, of course, needs no introduction. Randy is a professor at Harvard Law School and the author of many books, the latest of which is Say It Loud!: On Race, Law, History, and Culture . In this episode, we get into it pretty much immediately. Randy admits to being “ thrown” by Donald Trump’s election and to finding his campaign openly racist . I, as you may know, think that is an oversimplified explanation of ...
Nov 02, 2021•1 hr 25 min
I know this week everyone is expecting one of my conversations with John McWhorter. But due to some unforeseen events, we ended up shifting things around a bit. Next week you can expect to see John and I speak with Harvard Law School professor Randall Kennedy , where we’ll engage issues of systemic racism , among other topics. Two weeks after that, John and I will be back to have our own discussion about systemic racism. We said we wanted to formulate serious responses to those who believe syste...
Oct 25, 2021•1 hr 18 min
In this week’s TGS, we’re talking about an issue that seems local but has big national implications. Wai Wah Chin is the Charter President of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York, and she joins me to discuss an ongoing controversy in New York City’s exam schools . These schools are rigorous public high schools that focus on STEM subjects, and admission is determined by student performance on a single exam. If you can excel on one test, you can get access to a free first-rat...
Oct 18, 2021•51 min
In this episode of The Glenn Show, I’m back with my friend John McWhorter, and we have much to discuss. John joins me fresh from a day trip to Brighton Beach , a neighborhood in Brooklyn where Russian language, food, and culture abound. He talks about teaching himself Russian and the benefits of the Glossika language-learning tool . Then, in a continuation of last week’s conversation with David Kaiser, we move on to the history of redlining , which is quite a bit more complex than some recent co...
Oct 11, 2021•59 min
In this episode of The Glenn Show, I’m talking to David E. Kaiser, author of many books about American and international political history. As a distinguished professional historian, David has seen many changes in the way history is written both inside and outside the academy, not all of them for the better. In this conversation, David talks about why Ta-Nehisi Coates’s highly influential 2014 essay “The Case for Reparations” and the view of race and American history it represents leaves out man...
Oct 04, 2021•55 min
For this week’s episode of The Glenn Show, we’ve upped our production game a little. In late August, John McWhorter and I met up for an all-too-rare in-person conversation in Manhattan, and the filmmaker Rob Montz and his crew were on hand to record it. It was wonderful to be able sit face-to-face with John, and Rob did a wonderful job capturing the energy in the room. It wouldn’t have been possible to pull all of this together without the support of the subscribers here: Thank you ! We’re hopin...
Sep 27, 2021•1 hr 12 min
For this edition of The Glenn Show, I’m joined by someone who may be familiar to long-time viewers: Bob Wright. Bob is a distinguished journalist and the author of many books, including The Moral Animal , Nonzero , and Why Buddhism is True . He also happens to be the co-founder of Bloggingheads, the platform on which The Glenn Show was born and has flourished. In our conversation, Bob walks us through the early days of Bloggingheads and the flash of inspiration that led him to create the site. W...
Sep 20, 2021•56 min
In this week’s TGS, I’m joined once again by intellectual historian Daniel Bessner. Given Daniel’s area of scholarly expertise—US foreign relations—it should be no surprise that the recent withdrawal from Afghanistan colors our discussion. But we range much further than that. We debate Daniel’s conception of “American empire” and its origins in the Cold War . He is quite critical of American foreign policy during that period (and beyond), and I do push back on some of his more pointed critiques....
Sep 13, 2021•1 hr 9 min
John McWhorter is back for this week’s episode of The Glenn Show. In it, we discuss John’s new gig writing a newsletter for the New York Times. Anyone wondering whether he’s being stifled by the paper’s editorial sensibilities will be glad to hear the answer is a definite “no.” We spend a while discussing John’s recent piece about the removal of a “racist” rock from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s campus after administration gave in to student activists. From there we move on to a broader ...
Sep 06, 2021•1 hr 6 min
Here’s something different for you. In this episode of The Glenn Show, I sit down with artist, writer, and TGS Creative Director Nikita Petrov to discuss two fundamental questions: “What the hell is going on?” and “What is to be done?” If those questions sound both deep and broad, there might be a reason. They occurred to Nikita in the wake of a recent psychedelic experience. Not your typical TGS fare, to be sure! The conversation begins with Nikita explaining what he’s learned from working with...
Aug 30, 2021•1 hr 9 min
