Dr. Leana Wen is fighting on the frontlines of the pandemic. She's not only taking on Covid-19, but also the rampant disinformation and political flip-flopping that turned a manageable threat into one of the worst crises in American history. An emergency physician and Washington Post columnist, Wen has emerged as one the nation's most poignant voices on America's dire need to prioritize public health. In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Dr. Leana Wen sit down to discuss the failures of...
Apr 03, 2021•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast Most Westerners have a one-dimensional view of China, identifying it with either its economic success or its authoritarian government. Rana Mitter, a professor of modern China at Oxford University, suggests that the best way to understand contemporary China is to look at the interplay of four key characteristics: authoritarianism, consumerism, globalization, and technology. In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Rana Mitter discuss how to understand contemporary China; attempts by the Chi...
Mar 27, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast Clay Shirky has always been an optimist, believing in the potential of the internet to bring humanity together. But recent trends – from the spread of fake news to the rise in online vitriol – seem to have thrown his vision of cooperation and trust into serious doubt. Does the promise of the internet which Shirky has spent so many years touting still hold true? In this week’s episode of The Good Fight, Yascha Mounk and Clay Shirky sit down to discuss if social media might be more of a curse than...
Mar 20, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast Between 2003 and 2007, 96% of participants in social psychology studies were Westerners, most of them undergraduates at American universities. As a result, much of what psychologists have come to believe about human nature is actually a description of a geographically and historically specific group: people who are western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic ("WEIRD"). Joseph Henrich, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard, has spent his career trying to change the paroc...
Mar 13, 2021•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast There is a lot of bad advice going around these days. If something bad happened to you, define yourself by your trauma. And if somebody inadvertently did something offensive, react as though they had intended to harm you. Emily Yoffe, a member of Persuasion's Board of Advisors and a contributing writer at The Atlantic, has spent years giving thoughtful advice and chronicling the strange turn in our culture. One of the country's best writers and most fearless reporters, she knows better than just...
Mar 06, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Trump's presidency, Brexit, and the mishandling of a global pandemic have made Douglas Alexander deeply concerned about the "powerful weaponization of nostalgia." As a former leader of the Scottish Labour Party, Alexander fears that a dissolution of old class identities will open the way to an even bigger attachment to tribal identities. In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Douglas Alexander discuss the power of identity politics around the world, whether voters still believe in politic...
Feb 27, 2021•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast We like to think the right argument could persuade our friend or uncle of our point of view. But what if our personality helps to determine how we see the world? Dr. John Hibbing, a professor of political science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, believes that psychology, rather than culture or economic circumstances, explains much of our politics. In this week’s episode of The Good Fight, Yascha Mounk and John Hibbing sit down to discuss the drivers of our political beliefs, why a longing ...
Feb 20, 2021•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast What transforms reasonable people into an angry mob? Why are we so eager to dismiss those who disagree with us as inherently evil? These are questions which Jonathan Haidt has spent his career trying to answer. One of the world’s most influential social psychologists and a member of Persuasion's Board of Advisors, he argues that a lot of recent cultural shifts are encouraging emotional fragility rather than resilience. A professor of ethical leadership at NYU's Stern School of Business, Haidt se...
Feb 13, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Commentators often think that the threat to democracy comes from those who feel left behind - the ones who feel voiceless and vote accordingly. But what if the rise of populism was provoked, in part, by the growth of "a new managerial class" that rules the key institutions of society in its own favor? That is what Michael Lind, a co-founder of New America and a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, argues in his latest book, The New Class War. In this week’s episode of The Good Fight, ...
Feb 06, 2021•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast We often hear the phrase “Twitter isn’t real life” as a reminder to take online spats with a pinch of salt. But with the U.S. Capitol riot, we’ve been painfully reminded of social media's power. There’s few better people to understand how we got here than tech journalist Kara Swisher. A New York Times columnist and podcaster, Swisher has charted the rise of the internet since 1994, challenging the claims of Silicon Valley's biggest names while warning the public of big tech's ever-growing power....
Jan 30, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast Steven Pinker dares to believe that human beings are better off than ever before in human history. A world-renowned linguist, Pinker has dedicated his career to unveiling the ways by which we express our human nature through our language, behaviors, and beliefs. In an era often plagued by fatalism, Pinker maintains a radical and unwavering dedication to his belief in humanity's steady improvement. In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Steven Pinker sit down to discuss why we need to look...
Jan 23, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast A proud Never Trumper and a founding editor at The Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg believes that capitalism and liberal democracy have long been the foundations of America's success. But as the country fractures, Goldberg fears we’re throwing all that away - and threatening to crash American democracy itself. In this week’s episode, Yascha Mounk and Jonah Goldberg sit down to discuss the meaning of the assault on the U.S. Capitol, the future of the GOP, and whether to impeach Donald Trump. Please do li...
Jan 16, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Glenn Loury became Harvard's first black tenured professor of economics at 33. Now, he’s one of the country’s most irreverent thinkers on racial inequality--often challenging an emerging consensus on the nature and causes of structural racism. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Glenn Loury discuss the nature of racism, how much progress America has (or hasn't) made over the past fifty years, and what a just society would look like. Please ...
Jan 09, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast Why is it OK to discriminate on grounds of intelligence? That might seem like an odd question. But for writer and academic Fredrik deBoer, it’s one we can't ignore. His new book, The Cult of the Smart, argues that we’ve created an educational system that incessantly rewards the good luck of innate intelligence—while condemning the less clever to failure. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Fredrik deBoer discuss America’s broken schools, debate the damage of overvaluing academic abilit...
Jan 02, 2021•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast As it recovers from Covid more quickly than other nations, China appears to be stronger than ever. But the world’s next superpower faces enormous challenges of its own. Minxin Pei, a professor at Claremont McKenna College and one of the world’s leading China experts, has spent years writing about them. Behind the country's façade of invincibility, he argues, lies “a Leninist state in an advanced stage of decay”. In this week's conversation,Yascha Mounk and Minxin Pei trace the country's politica...
Dec 19, 2020•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast In times of crisis, it’s easy to wish for the good old days. Rutger Bregman wants us to look to the future instead. One of Europe’s leading young thinkers, Bregman's unapologetic calls for higher taxes at the Davos World Economic Forum in 2019 made him an overnight internet sensation. As a self-confessed utopian, he now wants us to think big – and that means planning for 15 hour workweeks, open borders and a universal basic income. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Rutger Bregman dis...
Dec 12, 2020•1 hr 20 min•Transcript available on Metacast With Trump gone it’s tempting to think that America’s foreign policy can return to normality – no more praise of Putin, no more maligning of allies. But as Thomas Wright makes clear, restoring America’s place in the world will be far from plain sailing. As Director of The Brookings Institution’s Center on the United States and Europe, Wright’s access to the incoming administration has afforded him a unique understanding of the challenges it will face. His view that Biden’s presidency may be “the...
Dec 05, 2020•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Most people believe that the candidates they like best are also most likely to win. If you are far left, you are likely to think that far left candidates are also most likely to beat their opponents. If you are moderate, you are likely to think that moderate candidates are most likely to beat their opponents. David Shor is the rare exception: a self-described democratic socialist, he believes that the Democratic Party needs to moderate its rhetoric and abandon some of its policies to win the maj...
Nov 28, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast Caroline Fourest is one of France’s leading thinkers on issues of secularism and religious extremism. A writer for Charlie Hebdo from 2004 to 2009, Fourest was at the forefront of defending the magazine after many of its journalists were murdered in a brutal terrorist attack in 2015. An acclaimed feminist author and director, her works have often made an impassioned case for free expression in the face of intimidation and censorship. In this week's episode, Yascha Mounk and Caroline Fourest disc...
Nov 21, 2020•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast Wesley Yang is one of the America’s leading essayists. From “Paper Tigers,” his examination of why Asian-Americans remain underrepresented in leaderships positions, to “The Face of Seung-Hui Cho,” his meditation on the shooter who killed 33 people at Virginia Tech, he has traced America’s shifting understanding of race. But over the past years, the focus of Yang’s work has subtly shifted. He is now trying to chronicle and explain what he calls the “successor ideology,” the constellation of ideas...
Nov 14, 2020•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’d like to think of our societies as places with a lot of social mobility, in which individuals can climb the ladder by working hard. But by tracking families with rare surnames across the centuries, Gregory Clark, an economist, has shown that social mobility is much rarer than we’d like to think. The descendants of 14th century Florentine aristocrats, 18th century Korean civil servants and 19th century Swedish notables, research Clark conducted or inspired has shown, are much more likely to w...
Nov 07, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast For the past years, we have paid a lot of attention to the fight for democratic values in countries where they are newly under threat. But what can activists do to stand up for democracy in countries where they already have to fear imprisonment, or worse? In the latest episode of The Good Fight, we feature the voices of activists from Asia and Europe. First, Yascha Mounk talks to Andrei Sannikov about the ongoing protests against Alexander Lukashenko. Then, he talks to Nathan Law about the new s...
Oct 31, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast Zion Lights has long been an environmentalist activist. When Extinction Rebellion was founded two years ago, she became one of its informal leaders, organizing highly disruptive events and representing the organization in the media. But over time, she came to doubt both its strategy and its policy commitments. Did disrupting public transport really help to persuade the public of the urgency of fighting climate change? And shouldn’t environmentalists who deeply care about climate change embrace n...
Oct 23, 2020•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast According to Ian Bremmer, the President of the Eurasia Group, the global pandemic is revealing the extent to which democracies have been failing over the past years. To strengthen them, he proposes that they should re-establish faith in the system by regulating social media, shifting away from American exceptionalism, and embracing an innovative approach to capitalism. In this conversation, Ian Bremmer and Yascha Mounk debate how different political systems have dealt with COVID-19, how capitali...
Oct 16, 2020•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Lawrence Wright has been friends with Jamal Khashoggi for nearly two decades. In a new documentary, The Kingdom of Silence, he tells the complicated story of America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia through the lens of Khashoggi’s life—from his youthful enthusiasm for jihadis to his years serving the Saudi royal family and his eventual embrace of the Arab Spring. On the latest episode of The Good Fight, Yascha Mounk and Lawrence Wright, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and staff writer at the New ...
Oct 09, 2020•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast For much of the past four years, Matt Yglesias dismissed worries about growing illiberalism on the left as a campus fad that is sure to fade. This year, he changed his mind, becoming increasingly vocal about his concerns, and co-signing the Harper’s letter. On the latest episode of The Good Fight, Yascha Mounk and Matthew Yglesias talk about how and why he changed his mind. The podcast also discusses Matt’s latest book, One Billion Americans. The best way to ensure that liberal values continue t...
Oct 02, 2020•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast Irshad Manji has a lot of experience in trying to persuade those who really don’t want to be persuaded. Early in her career, Irshad wrote two influential books that advocated for a reformed Islam. In conversations with religious conservatives around the world, she found that a combative style did not help her win adherents for her cause; instead, she started to acknowledge their views—before proudly arguing for her own. Now, Irshad runs the Moral Courage project, a pedagogical approach that hope...
Sep 18, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone. A few weeks ago, I got an email from somebody I admire tremendously: Elizabeth Anderson, one of the most interesting contemporary political philosophers. Anderson, she wrote, has long been an avid listener to The Good Fight. But she strongly disagrees with the episode I did with Edward Irizarry, in part because she thought that my characterization of Robin diAngelo’s work was overly dismissive. ...
Sep 04, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast Michael Sandel, one of the most influential political philosophers of our time, makes a provocative argument: Meritocracy allows successful people to feel good about themselves, and doesn’t do anything to address the plight of those who are less fortunate. It is time to abandon the ideal. In this conversation about Sandel’s new book, The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?, I debate these themes with him. Should we really throw the pursuit of meritocracy on the trash heap of hist...
Aug 14, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone. For the past years, Frank Dobbin, a Professor of Sociology at Harvard University, has been researching diversity initiatives at big corporations and academic institutions. He has consistently come to the same, sobering conclusion: They don’t tend to work. And in many cases, they actually backfire. In this nuts-and-bolts conversation with Yascha Mounk, Dobbin explains why diversity programs so of...
Aug 04, 2020•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
