Harvey Mansfield is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. One of the old guard of American conservative thought, he has taught at Harvard since 1962, and counts among his former students Andrew Sullivan, Francis Fukuyama, and Bill Kristol. In this week’s conversation, Harvey Mansfield and Yascha Mounk discuss the nature of American liberalism, Donald Trump’s effect on conservatism, and Alexis de Tocqueville’s enduri...
Jan 15, 2022•47 min
Fiona Hill is the former Senior Director for Europe and Russia of the National Security Council under President Trump and a key witness in his first impeachment trial. She is Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. In her latest book, There Is Nothing For You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century , she describes her journey from the post-industrial north of England to the world of academia at Harvard and the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. In this week’s conversation, ...
Jan 08, 2022•1 hr 6 min
Michael Ignatieff, a renowned author and academic, is the former Leader of Canada’s Liberal Party. While Ignatieff was serving as Rector of Central European University, the university was pushed out of Budapest by the Hungarian government. In this week’s conversation, Michael Ignatieff and Yascha Mounk discuss the rise of illiberal conservatism, the pitfalls of liberalism, and how to find consolation in trying times. This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity. Please do li...
Dec 18, 2021•59 min
Jeannie Suk Gersen is the John H. Watson, Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a contributing writer at The New Yorker. She writes widely about the law and its impact on society. In this week’s conversation, Jeannie Suk Gersen and Yascha Mounk discuss the value of robust debate in law school classrooms, the perils of eroding due process in the name of progress, and the legitimacy of the Supreme Court. This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity. Please do listen a...
Dec 11, 2021•1 hr 8 min
John McWhorter is an author, a member of the Persuasion Board of Advisors, a Columbia University linguist, and a columnist for The New York Times. His latest book, Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America, argues that we must understand wokeness, quite literally, as a religion. In this week’s conversation, John McWhorter and Yascha Mounk discuss the nature of today’s social progressivism, whether it constitutes a religion, and how we can actually help to reduce racial dispariti...
Dec 04, 2021•1 hr 6 min
Garry Kasparov, the former World Chess Champion, is the founder of the Renew Democracy Institute and chairperson of the Human Rights Foundation. He is a member of the Persuasion 's Board of Advisors. In this week’s conversation, Garry Kasparov and Yascha Mounk discuss how he came to oppose the Soviet regime, why he quickly recognized the dangers posed by Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, and what to make of illiberal tendencies on the left. This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited fo...
Nov 27, 2021•54 min
Michael Powell is a reporter for The New York Times, covering issues including free speech, education and identity politics. His reporting takes him from the campuses of elite universities and private schools to the halls of the ACLU. In this week’s conversation, Michael Powell and Yascha Mounk discuss whether the left has cooled on free speech, what’s lost in the national discussion about critical race theory, and how establishment institutions across the United States are being transformed. Th...
Nov 20, 2021•48 min
Andrew Yang is a popular commentator and former presidential candidate. In his latest book, Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy, he advocates for economic reforms like Universal Basic Income and political reforms like ranked choice voting. In this week’s conversation, Andrew Yang and Yascha Mounk discuss how today’s political campaigns are run, why Democrats struggle to connect with voters, and whether or not third parties can be part of the solution. This transcript has been condensed...
Nov 13, 2021•1 hr 7 min
Noam Chomsky, professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has for many decades been one of the most prominent critics of U.S. foreign policy. In this week’s conversation, Noam Chomsky and Yascha Mounk discuss the theory of universal grammar, whether identity politics can be left-wing, and how the world should treat an ascendant China. This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity. Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight. I...
Nov 06, 2021•58 min
Peter Singer, the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, is one of the most influential philosophers of the past fifty years. A leading exponent of utilitarianism, he has often explored how individuals can improve the lot of those in need with their own choices. In this week’s conversation, Peter Singer and Yascha Mounk discuss what utilitarianism gets right, whether the effective altruism movement is effective, and why freedom of inquiry is crucial to improving the world....
Oct 30, 2021•57 min
Ross Douthat, a columnist for The New York Times , has long advocated for a brand of reform conservatism that stands in stark contrast to Trumpism. His latest book, The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery , chronicles his long struggle with Lyme disease. In this week’s conversation, Ross Douthat and Yascha Mounk discuss why the expert consensus sometimes fails, when to listen to outsiders, and whether the failures of the establishment help to explain the rise of populism. This transcr...
Oct 23, 2021•1 hr 7 min
Francis Fukuyama, one of the most important living political scientists, is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute. His writing spans from the origins of society in earliest prehistory to the rise of modern democracy and the identity wars of the 21st century. His new book, Liberalism and Its Discontents , a defense of the values of free societies, is scheduled for release in April 2022. In this week’s conversation, Francis Fukuyama and Yascha Mounk discuss how neoliber...
Oct 16, 2021•1 hr 12 min
Caitlin Flanagan, a staff writer at The Atlantic, is one of America's most incisive essayists. In her articles about a wide range of topics including modern motherhood, the politics of higher education, and the state of the abortion debate, she skewers consensus views with her trademark wit. In this week’s conversation, Caitlin Flanagan and Yascha Mounk discuss her coming-of-age in 1960s Berkeley, the evolution of freedom of speech, and whether America has a future. This transcript has been cond...
Oct 09, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Kwame Anthony Appiah is a British-Ghanaian philosopher, the Ethicist columnist for the New York Times Magazine , and one of today's deepest thinkers about the nature of identity. His scholarly writing, journalism, and novels help us to envision a world in which our professed categories enrich rather than impoverish—or, in his terms, a world which reveres “universality plus difference.” In this week’s conversation, Kwame Anthony Appiah and Yascha Mounk discuss neutrality as a liberal ideal, the l...
Oct 02, 2021•1 hr 4 min
Elizabeth Bruenig is a staff writer at The Atlantic and a Catholic socialist who writes on topics as varied as capital punishment and mothering two children while in her twenties. Her work is uniquely marked by her ruby-red Texas upbringing, the elite professional world she now inhabits, and her deep sense of morality, which draws from both Christian theology and left-wing politics. In a wide-ranging conversation, Elizabeth Bruenig and Yascha Mounk debate the importance of dialogue across moral ...
Sep 25, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Matthew Karp is a contributing editor for Jacobin magazine and associate professor of history at Princeton University. An expert on the Civil War era and slavery, his writing poses a challenge to a right too sanguine about the darkest corners of America’s past, and a left too eager to embrace despair about the arc of history. In this week’s conversation, Matthew Karp and Yascha Mounk discuss the "1619 Project,” the politics of history from Juneteenth to the Confederacy, and why an accurate conce...
Sep 18, 2021•50 min
Rachel Fraser is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford and an expert in feminism and the philosophy of knowledge. In her work, she thinks through how our social identities might help to shape how we see the world—and how that diverges from popular notions according to which the oppressed have special political knowledge unavailable to everyone else. In this week’s conversation, Rachel Fraser and Yascha Mounk discuss how our identities shape our perception of the world,...
Sep 11, 2021•1 hr 9 min
Samuel Goldman, associate professor of political science at the George Washington University, is an intellectual historian and political commentator. In his new book, After Nationalism: Being American in an Age of Division, he criticizes traditional notions of patriotism while trying to lay out how members of modern nations can preserve some form of pride of country. In this week’s conversation, Samuel Goldman and Yascha Mounk talk about different notions of patriotism and debate whether strong ...
Sep 04, 2021•56 min
Ambassador Eric Edelman was Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in the George W. Bush administration and served as the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and Finland. A strident critic of former President Donald Trump, he is among the foremost voices of the “Never Trump” movement. In a wide-ranging conversation, Ambassador Edelman and Yascha Mounk discuss the trajectory of the Republican party and Donald Trump’s political future, Turkey’s illiberal slide under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the fr...
Aug 28, 2021•1 hr
Kmele Foster is a heterodox writer who hosts The Fifth Column podcast. He recently joined with David French and Thomas Chatterton Williams, members of Persuasion 's Board of Advisors, to oppose laws which seek to ban discussion of critical race theory from American schools in the New York Times . In this week’s conversation, which was recorded with a live Zoom audience as part of the Persuasion festival, Kmele Foster and Yascha Mounk discuss the fixation on race in current political discourse, w...
Aug 21, 2021•58 min
Alex Tabarrok is a professor of economics and co-author, with Tyler Cowen, of the blog Marginal Revolution. A strident critic of institutional failure during the pandemic, Tabarrok has applied his libertarian perspective to a wide range of topics, including public health, regulation and the law, criminal justice, and entrepreneurship. In this week’s conversation, Alex Tabarrok and Yascha Mounk discuss the failure of American institutions to respond to COVID-19, the cost of insufficient economic ...
Aug 14, 2021•57 min
Roya Hakakian is an Iranian dissident, poet, and writer. She has long been a fierce critic of the regime. But in her latest book, A Beginner's Guide to America , she sets her sights on the United States, setting out to explain why the citizens of liberal democracies should value their political systems despite their flaws. In this week’s conversation, Roya Hakakian and Yascha Mounk discuss Iran’s democratic prospects, the state of democracy around the world, and why the benefits of freedom are o...
Aug 07, 2021•47 min
Adrian Wooldridge, the political editor of The Economist, has written on topics as diverse as Alan Greenspan, the history of radicalism in British psychology, and the evolution of the modern Republican Party. In his latest book, The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World, he seeks to counter recent attacks on the ideal of meritocracy. In this week’s conversation, Adrian Woolridge and Yascha Mounk discuss the hidden radicalism of the meritocratic ideal, China's embrace of me...
Jul 31, 2021•57 min
Patrick Sharkey spent years studying the causes for the national decline in crime that took place from the 1990s to the 2010s. A Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton, and the author of Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence , he warned that it would prove unsustainable to rely on aggressive policing and mass incarceration to keep the peace in America's cities. Now, he is ideally placed to answer why violent crime has surged...
Jul 24, 2021•52 min
Sabrina Tavernise is a national correspondent for The New York Times . She covered the Iraq War for the Times , where in 2005 she was one of the first people to document ethnic cleansing, and has reported on life in post-Soviet Russia for a variety of publications. She was a first-hand witness to the storming of the US Capitol. In this week’s conversation, Sabrina Tavernise and Yascha Mounk discuss Tavernise's experience in the Capitol on January 6, the roots of violence and civil war around the...
Jul 17, 2021•1 hr
Niall Ferguson is a Scottish-American historian whose interests span from WW1 to Henry Kissinger to the history of money. His most recent book, Doom—completed at the height of the COVID crisis—attempts to rethink the distinction between “man-made” and “natural” disasters. Ferguson examines the historical record from Vesuvius to viruses and concludes that societies are guilty of repeated misjudgments and delusions; but he avoids ascribing any immutable pattern to the unpredictable trajectory of d...
Jul 10, 2021•55 min
Arthur Brooks is a leading authority on the science and philosophy of happiness. In his books—most recently “Love Your Enemies”—and his regular contributions to The Atlantic, he urges us to act smarter in our pursuit of the good life. Combining insights from social science with wisdom from ancient sages, his unique blend of practical advice and philosophical depth serves as the perfect antidote to what he calls our “culture of contempt”. He holds professorships in the Practice of Public Leadersh...
Jul 03, 2021•1 hr 10 min
George Packer is one of the nation’s most eloquent writers and most perceptive observers. In his books, from The Unwinding to Our Man , he has chronicled the disintegration of America’s social fabric and the polarization of its politics. In his latest book, Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal, Packer argues that the country is now being torn apart by four competing narratives: Real America, Smart America, Just America, and Free America. In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Geo...
Jun 26, 2021•1 hr 10 min
The very idea of truth and science, Jonathan Rauch argues, is now under threat from many quarters. In his latest book, The Constitution of Knowledge , he gives a novel account of the principles of science, and explains why democracies must strive to preserve the truths that bind us together. In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Jonathan Rauch discuss the dangers of disinformation, the limits on robust debate, and why truth is fundamental to preserving democracies around the world. This ...
Jun 19, 2021•1 hr 3 min
In his new book, When The Stars Begin to Fall: Overcoming Racism and Renewing the Promise of America , Ted Johnson offers an optimistic vision for America's future. The only way to overcome racism and build a more just society, Johnson argues, is to build a shared American identity and aim for real mutual solidarity. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Ted Johnson discuss what is going wrong in current debates about race, how to foster civic friendship, and why Americans should remain ...
Jun 12, 2021•55 min
