This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live Shadi and Damir sit down again, four days into the war in Ukraine, to look at where things stand, and where things could be going. We talk best- and worst-case scenarios, why the West can’t get militarily involved, and why the Europeans in particular are so white-hot furious about Putin's invasion....
Shadi and Damir sat down to do a quick episode today as Russia commenced its invasion of Ukraine. They talk about how the world got to this point, what we in the West could have done differently, what could happen next, and what it means for the future of America. We hope you find this real-time attempt at analysis useful and helpful. Required Reading - "Negotiating with Madmen" by Damir Marusic ( Wisdom of Crowds ) - "America’s role in the Russia and Ukraine situation" ( AP ) This is a public e...
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live From Leon Trotsky to Sayyid Qutb to the Founding Fathers, Shadi and Damir discuss revolution in all its forms. The guys argue about the importance of ideas, the role of violence, and how order is legitimized. Can democracy keep the peace? Part 2 of our conversation is available here for subscribers. Shadi and Damir turn their attention to the revolutionary impulses on both the conservative right and the woke left. ...
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live In this week's episode, we were joined by our friend Aaron Sibarium, a reporter for the Washington Free Beacon . Aaron recently reported a piece showing how three states were rationing COVID drugs on race-based criteria. The article made a splash. Fox News covered the story, Trump referenced it in a speech (sloppily as always), and Twitter tried to rebrand it as a right-wing talking point. Prioritizing woke ideolog...
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live It used to be called "political correctness." It had its heyday in the 1990s, then it went underground. While we weren't paying attention, an entire architecture of speech restrictions was being built on campuses across the country. Greg Lukianoff, CEO of FIRE and co-author of the bestselling The Coddling of the American Mind , joins us to discuss what he calls the " second great age of political correctness ." Whe...
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live This week we were joined by Sam Adler-Bell, cohost of the Know Your Enemy podcast. We examined the New Right , their earnestly held belief that liberals have already won the battle for the soul of the country, and America's crisis of legitimacy. Is it even worth trying to bridge the gap between left and right on cultural issues? Required Reading: - " The Radical Young Intellectuals Who Want to Take Over the America...
What was it like to live through the fall of Kabul? How should we think about the American withdrawal from Afghanistan? And with famine enveloping the country amid an unprecedentedly severe state collapse, how should we approach—and deal with—the ruling Taliban authorities? This week we are joined by Dr. Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili and Dr. Omar Sadr, both of the newly-launched Afghanistan Project at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets, to talk about what lies ahead ...
As Biden struggles to get his massive spending bill passed, WoC's former Associate Editor Matt Winesett joins Shadi and Damir to talk about guns, gentrification, opera, the race for Governor of Virginia, and the sad state of the Republican Party. Required Reading: Matt's essays at WoC . " Trump's Look Backward Poses Peril for GOP ," by Gerald F. Seib (WSJ). The Citizen app . " Glenn Youngkin's Viral 'Child' Ad is Missing Important Context ," by Glenn Kessler (WaPo). " Nice Woke Parents " (Wisdom...
Damir and Shadi talk about health security theater during this latest phase of the pandemic, before going on to discuss how technocratic approaches tend to worsen and exacerbate polarization in democratic societies. Also: can anyone make a moral case for democracy without recourse to God? Required reading: The Islamic World Today: Issues and Perspectives (Brigham Young University) " The danger of bringing religious zeal to the political realm ," by Shadi Hamid (Deseret News). " One in 5,000 ," b...
It's no secret that the United States is in a bad place. Fiona Hill saw the chaos and blunders up close, as deputy assistant to President Trump and top Russia advisor at the White House. In November 2019, she was a witness in House hearings during the Trump's first impeachment. Fiona has a new book out There Is Nothing For You Here and is back at the Brookings Institution . She joins Shadi and Damir to talk about whether she would would have agreed to work under Trump knowing what she knows now....
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live Elbridge Colby joins Shadi and Damir to talk about his challenging new book The Strategy of Denial , an unflinchingly clinical argument for confronting China. Does China's authoritarianism make it our enemy, or is confrontation inevitable regardless? Will our allies stick by our side just because China is a bully? And what does Henry Kissinger get wrong about power politics? Required Reading: - " Will the Next Amer...
Is America the most successful third world country on earth? Shadi and Damir welcome Samuel Goldman, author of the new book After Nationalism, onto the podcast for a raucous discussion on national identity, the likelihood of another civil war, and the possibility that, because it has more in common with Latin America than Europe, the United States may be the best place on the planet. Required Reading: After Nationalism , by Samuel Goldman. A symposium on the book at Law and Liberty. Sam's column...
This summer, the inherent ugliness of the world reasserted itself. And yet we Americans still found a way to make it all about us, who we think we are, and what we think we represent. Shadi and Damir sit down to talk about the remarkable frivolity of our politics today, and whether there's any way out. Required reading: Shadi's recent Friday Essay on Carl Schmitt . Damir's recent Friday Essay on the Missionary Position . Damir's tweet on politics. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discu...
How did it all go wrong? Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, a leading scholar of Afghanistan, joins Damir and Shadi to dissect the Taliban's victory and discuss what it tells us about the failures of America's nation-building effort. Why did the Afghan government collapse so quickly? Have the technocrats and NGOs in the democracy promotion industry been completely discredited? And for the sake of the Afghan people, should we now help the Taliban succeed in governing the country? Things get heated. Mu...
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live Parents in the 1990s believed they were doing their children a favor by instilling in them the ethos “do what you like, follow your dreams, and things will work out.” But Michael Brendan Dougherty, author of My Father Left Me Ireland: An American Son's Search for Home , argues that sometime in the 2000s, this promise of liberation revealed itself as a curse, feeling more like abandonment than instruction. In a wide...
Wisdom of Crowds associate editor Matt Winesett joins Damir and Shadi to debate Donald Rumsfeld's legacy and if his mistakes permanently discredited nation building and democracy promotion abroad. They also discuss how younger Millennials perceived the Iraq War, whether Bushism or Trumpism would better serve the GOP's future, how much politicians' personal character ultimately matters, and much more. Their conversation continues in a bonus episode, out next week. Subscribe here to get it straigh...
Damir calls in from a conference in Slovakia and describes what life is like in a land without widely available vaccines. Shadi addresses why he won't just register as a Republican already (or convert to Catholicism). And they both discuss if Europe is in danger of sinking into irrelevance, whether George W. Bush should have sent troops to Crimea, the relationship between America's power and its values, and much more. Recommended Reading: "Biden Talks a Big Game on Europe. But His Actions Tell a...
Damir and Shadi return to a familiar topic, but this time with a twist. Damir manages to sound like an optimist. He argues that the fad of wokeness will collapse under the weight of its own contradictions, while Shadi thinks it's probably too late. They also discuss whether justice is possible without God, the rather odd fact that Shadi's first academic article was on feminist theory, why white parents seem nonplussed about indoctrinating their kids, and whether a rising crime wave will undermin...
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live “What fascinates and terrifies us about the Roman Empire is not that it finally went smash,” W. H. Auden once wrote, but rather that “it managed to last for four centuries without creativity, warmth, or hope.” In his latest book , The Decadent Society , Ross Douthat suggests contemporary America may be in a similar spot. He joined Shadi and Damir to discuss the factors contributing to our present state of decadence...
An Iranian-born immigrant, Sohrab Ahmari has become one of America's most prominent and controversial Catholic commentators. His new book , The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos, asks us to rethink our understanding of freedom and choice—and the fact that we have too much of it. What does it mean to be a "political Catholic"? What is the value of a state-imposed Sabbath? Does civilization require heartfelt religious belief, or is there a benefit in simply go...
What do Shadi and Damir's divergent responses to the Gaza crisis tell us about questions of morality, idealism, and power? Damir presses Shadi on his recent commentary about Israel's treatment of the Palestinians—and the line between analysis and polemics. Shadi argues the Middle East still matters—and that it's in America's national interest to be moral. Damir counters by saying that it is the job of the analyst to complicate stories, not necessarily to resolve them. Required Reading: "I'm Angr...
Damir returns to the office and is surprised by how it feels. Shadi marvels at the precipitous decline of outrage—but wonders if our collective tuning out of politics might have drawbacks. And why have so many corporations gone woke? All this and more on this week's episode of Wisdom of Crowds. Required Reading : "Tema Okun's 'White Supremacy Culture' work is bad," by Matt Yglesias ( Substack ) "Can We Please Ditch the Term 'Systemic Racism'," by John McWhorter ( Substack ) "Biden Struggles With...
The liberal idea arose partly as a response to the religious wars of 17th-century Europe. Could something similar occur in the Islamic world today? Mustafa Akyol thinks so—and his new book Reopening Muslim Minds offers a fascinating and forthright case for reinterpreting Islamic history and revisiting Islamic law. Mustafa joined Shadi and Damir to talk about what inspired the book, starting with his arrest by Malaysia's "religion police." They go on to debate Islam's proper role in public life, ...
Berlin-based journalist Elisabeth Zerofsky joins Shadi and Damir to talk about how Europeans are coping with the pandemic. What's it like living under an actual lockdown? Is Brexit vindicated? Does Europe now feel America envy? And would Damir make an effective demagogue? The answers to all these questions and more, answered in just over an hour. Required Reading : Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets, by Svetlana Alexievech ( Penguin ) "The Right-Wing Pundit ‘Hashtag Triggering’ France," by...
The journalist, author, and firebrand Glenn Greenwald joins Shadi and Damir for a two-part episode ranging from Glenn's investigative work in Brazil to his increasingly contentious relationship with the liberal establishment in America. In part one, Glenn talks about the corruption case at the center of his new book, why respectable middle-class people supported an authoritarian bigot, and how living in Brazil has shaped his views on American politics—including the January 6 riots at the Capitol...
Damir and Shadi pull back the curtain on the thought process behind Damir's latest essay. The central question: If Europe's social democracies offer far more support to their citizens, why has America weathered both the Great Recession and Covid-19 pandemic better than the European Union? Required Reading: "Selfishness and American Resilience," by Damir Marusic ( Wisdom of Crowds ) "Janet Yellen and Mario Draghi Have One Last Job," by Adam Tooze ( Foreign Policy ) This is a public episode. If yo...
Shadi and Damir discuss America's cratering religious affiliation and church attendance, and if the U.S. is losing any unifying culture it once had. Required Reading: “Church membership in the U.S. has fallen below the majority for the first time in nearly a century,” by Sarah Pulliam Bailey ( The Washington Post ) “America Without God,” by Shadi Hamid ( The Atlantic ) “The Paradox of American Faith,” by Damir Marusic ( Wisdom of Crowds ) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this w...
On today's show, Jason Willick of the Wall Street Journal's Editorial Page stops by to discuss all things representation: Does the filibuster still serve a beneficial purpose? How can we balance both rural and urban interests? Should representatives mirror their voters' preferences or rely on their personal judgment? And how does the rise of Big Tech factor into all this? Required Reading: The Politics of Size: Representation in the United States, 1776–1850, by Rosemarie Zagarri ( Amazon ) Why C...
Too many commentators today want a "return to civility" in political discourse. Osita Nwanevu, a staff writer at The New Republic , and Samuel Kimbriel, a political philosopher, think that's misguided—rather than ignoring our fundamental disagreements, we should be arguing about them much more honestly. This episode's example: Osita's proposal to abolish the U.S. Constitution. Required Reading: Friendship as Sacred Knowing: Overcoming Isolation , by Samuel Kimbriel ( Oxford University Press ) “T...
In another sprawling episode, Shadi and Damir talk about Germany's decision to surveil one of its leading political parties and what this says about modern liberalism. They also discuss Shadi's Islam-as-Keto metaphor, the EU's legitimacy problem, and how theodicy relates to democracy. Required Reading : “Germany Places Far-Right AfD Party Under Surveillance for Extremism,” by Katrin Bennhold ( New York Times ) “German Court Suspends Right to Surveil Far-Right AfD Party,” by Melissa Eddy ( New Yo...
