The Trumpist right has a very clear picture of what they imagine masculinity to be, and are quite upset that it's not a picture all men find all that appealing. It's one of violence, belligerence, and professions of heavy labor. Anything else, including the whole of the knowledge economy that has made the developed world rich, is inauthentically masculine, the result of corrupting feminization. As someone who earns his living communicating ideas, and is pretty happy doing so, I find their arg...

The authoritarian right loves to talk about how they're upholding democracy. Trump didn't lose the 2020 election, because if he had, democracy would've been against him. So instead it was stolen from him, his loss a subversion of the democratic process. Now, as a deeply unpopular second-term president, he and his loyalists pretend they are executing the will of the people, instead of horrifying most Americans while circumventing the people's elected legislature. My guest today has written a t...

The first few months of the Trump administration have proven not just how willing much of America was to embrace and celebrate fascism, but how crucial careful, clear-eye, and thoughtful reporting and analysis are to building and sustaining a resistance movement. Few publications have been as essential in this moment as Liberal Currents, which has consistently brought deep understanding, a sense of urgency, and a commitment to the necessary practical steps of defending liberal institutions an...

As we've talked about a fair amount on the show, gender is at the center of the ideological clashes defining our political moment. Trumpism is, at its heart, a misogynistic movement, and the fractious coalition of philosophies within the Trumpist tent all agree that increased freedom and opportunities for women have been very upsetting for right-wing men. My guest today brings gender into dialogue with the structure of the economy has it has manifested in the developed world. And, in doing so...

Many very rich men who support Trump fancy themselves heroes from the novels of Ayn Rand. I've never done an episode of this show on Rand's ideas, because I'm not a Randian, and don't think about political questions through anything like an Objectivist perspective. But the fact that so many men breaking the country believe they are Randian archetypes makes her ideas now, I think, worth talking about. Particularly because, as my guest argues, Rand would hate these guys. Paul Crider is an assoc...

I wanted to try to do a hopeful episode. The world look pretty grim right now, and many of us feel discouraged. The unlawful and authoritarian actions of the Trump administration keep coming at a relentless pace, and it can be difficult to see any reasons for optimism. It can also be lonely. Someone mentioned to me recently that, in times as dark as these, we need friends, but we also need comrades. We need people who share a common purpose in defending liberalism and who are working, alongsi...

The right-wing ideologies we see most active in the world right now aren't intellectual by any stretch of the imagination. But there is a rich tradition of conservative political and social philosophy and, as liberals, it's important to understand what its objections to liberalism look like. ReImagining Liberty stalwart Matthew McManus, a lecturer in political science at the University of Michigan, wrote an article for Liberal Currents not too long ago about the philosopher Roger Scruton's cr...

How we navigate the new political environment the voters thrust upon on, and the new regime that seeks to tear up the very foundations of our liberal society, is a matter of ethics. And ethics is bigger than just political questions. It's about how you live, what you aspire to, and what makes for an admirable life, both inside and outside of politics. My guest today has written an important book about just that. Seth Zuihō Segall is a clinical psychologist who served for nearly three decades ...

We talk a lot on this show about the benefits of free and open markets and, given the growing hostility to economic freedom, not just from the Trump administration, but from populist governments around the world, we'll continue to do so. Today I wanted to approach that conversation a little differently from usual though. Most of the time, when people say markets are good, what they mean is that markets make us richer, driven innovation, and so on. But markets do more than that. They make us b...

The information environment in which Americans form and discuss their political views has gotten weird. Walter Cronkite is gone. The editorial pages of the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal have lost influence to podcasters, social media influencers, and internet conspiracy theorists. Trump's rise, and return to power, was in large part fueled by figures on the far-right who knew how to take advantage of this changed environment in a way liberals haven't yet figured out...