The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan (private feed for kbockus@gmail.com)

John Gray On The State Of Liberalism

John Gray is a political philosopher. He retired from academia in 2007 as Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics, and is now a regular contributor and lead reviewer at the New Statesman. He’s the author of two dozen books, and his latest is The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism. I’d say he’s one of the most brilliant minds of our time — and my first podcast with him was a huge hit. I asked him to come on this week to get a broader and deeper perspective on where we are now in the world. He didn’t disappoint.For two clips of our convo — on the ways Trump represents peace, and how heterosexuals have become more like gays — pop over to our YouTube page.Other topics: this week’s inauguration; the peaceful transfer of power; the panic of the left intelligentsia; the contradictions in the new Trump administration; Bannon vs Musk; Vivek’s quick exit; the techno-futurist oligarchs; Vance as the GOP’s future; tariffs and inflation; the federal debt; McKinley and the Gilded Age; Manifest Destiny; Greenland; isolationism; the neocon project to convert the world; Hobbes and “commodious living”; Malthus and today’s declining birthrates; post-industrial alienation; deaths of despair; Fukuyama’s “End of History”; Latinx; AI and knowledge workers; Plato; Pascal; Dante; CS Lewis’ Abolition of Man; pre-Christian paganism; Puritans and the woke; Žižek; Rod Dreher; Houellebecq; how submission can be liberating; Graham Greene; religion as an anchor; why converts are often so dangerous; Freudian repression; Orwell and goose-stepping; the revolution of consciousness after Christ; Star Wars as neo-Christian; Dune as neo-pagan; Foucault; Oakeshott’s lovers; Montaigne; Judith Shklar; Ross Douthat; the UK’s rape-gangs; Starmer and liberal legalism; the Thomist view of nature; the medieval view of abortion; late-term abortions; and assisted dying.Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Sebastian Junger on near-death experiences, Jon Rauch on “Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy,” Evan Wolfson on the history of marriage equality, Yoni Appelbaum on how America stopped building things, Nick Denton on the evolution of new media, and Ross Douthat on how everyone should be religious. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

Andrew Neil On Global Politics And The US

Andrew Neil has long been one of the finest journalists in the UK. He has been chairman of The Spectator, chairman of Sky TV, editor of The Sunday Times, and a BBC anchor, where his grueling interviews of politicians became legendary. He’s currently a columnist for both the UK and US versions of The Daily Mail and an anchor for Times Radio. In the US he went viral after a car-crash interview with Ben Shapiro.For two clips of our convo — on Europe’s steady decline, and Trump’s cluelessness on tariffs — pop over to our YouTube page.Other topics: growing up near Glasgow as a working-class Tory; his mother working in the mills; his father fighting the Nazis; his merit-based grammar school (before Labour dissolved them); thriving on the debate team; studying US history at university; Adam Smith; reporting on The Troubles; covering the White House at The Economist in the early '80s; Reagan Dems and Trump Hispanics; covering labor and industry in the Thatcher era; her crackdown on unions; the print unions that spurred violence; Alastair Stewart; tough interviewing and how the US media falls short; Tim Russert; audio of Neil grilling Shapiro and Boris; the policy-lite race between Trump and Harris; populism in the US and UK; Greenland and the Panama Canal; the rise of autocracy in the 21st Century; recent elections in Europe; Starmer; US isolationism past and present; the Iraq War; the 2008 crash; Taiwan and semiconductors; China’s weakening economy; the overconfidence of the US after the Cold War; Brexit; Covid; mass migration; AI; and the challenge of Muslim assimilation in Europe.Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: John Gray on the state of liberal democracy, Jon Rauch on “Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy,” Sebastian Junger on near-death experiences, Evan Wolfson on the history of marriage equality, Yoni Appelbaum on how America stopped building things, Nick Denton on the evolution of new media, and Ross Douthat on how everyone should be religious. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

Adam Kirsch On "Settler Colonialism"

Adam is a literary critic and poet. He’s been a senior editor at The New Republic and a contributing editor for Tablet and Harvard Magazine, and he’s currently an editor in the Wall Street Journal’s Review section. The author of many books, his latest is On Settler Colonialism: Violence, Ideology and Justice. I’ve been fascinated by the concept — another product of critical theory, as it is now routinely applied to Israel. We hash it all out.For two clips of our convo — on the reasons why Europe explored the world, and the bastardization of “genocide” — pop over to our YouTube page.Other topics: Adam’s roots in LA; coming from a long line of writers; the power of poetry; its current boom with Instagram and hip-hop; Larkin; the omnipresence of settler colonialism in human history; the Neanderthals; the Ulster colonists; the French in Algeria; replacement colonialism in Australia and North America; the viral catastrophe there; the 1619 Project; “decolonizing” a bookshelf; Marxism; Coates and fatalism toward the US; MLK’s “promissory note”; Obama’s “more perfect union”; migration under climate change; China the biggest polluter; More’s Utopia; the Holocaust; the Killing Fields; Rwanda; mass migration of Muslims to Europe; “white genocide”; Pat Buchanan; the settler colonialism in Israel; ancient claims to Palestine; the Balfour Declaration; British limits on migrant Jews in WWII; the US turning away Holocaust refugees; the UN partition plan; the 1948 war; the Nakba; Ben-Gurion; Jabotinsky’s “Iron Wall”; Clinton’s despair after 2000; ethnic cleansing in the West Bank; the nihilism of October 7; civilian carnage and human shields in Gaza; Arab countries denying Palestinians; a two-state solution; the moral preening of Coates; and the economic and liberal triumphs of Israel.Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Andrew Neil on UK and US politics, John Gray on the state of liberal democracy, Jon Rauch on his new book on “Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy,” Sebastian Junger on near-death experiences, Evan Wolfson on the history of marriage equality, Yoni Appelbaum on the American Dream, Nick Denton on the evolution of new media, and Ross Douthat on how everyone should be religious. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

Mary Matalin On Living Outside Groupthink

Mary is a political consultant and former TV and radio host. She served under Presidents Reagan, HW Bush, and W Bush. She also co-founded Threshold Editions, a conservative publishing imprint at Simon & Schuster. She’s married to Democratic consultant and Dishcast guest, James Carville, whom she wrote two books with: All’s Fair and Love & War. She also wrote Letters to My Daughters. We got to know each other decades ago, but lost touch. After her husband Carville’s pod, I asked her. She lives on a farm now — and is as fun and sharp as ever.We had no specific topic at hand so the convo is a bit sprawling, like two old friends reconnecting in the Christmas break. Or something like that. For two clips of our convo — on finding yourself through suffering, and the last days of Lee Atwater — pop over to our YouTube page.Other topics: growing up in south Chicago around steel mills; being the only white woman at beauty school; dropping out of college many times; worked her way through law school; the “explosion of ideas” under Reagan; converting to Catholicism; Vatican II undermining the liturgy; leaving the Dem Party over identity politics; black people against “Defund”; the Catholic view of the individual; why flaws are the most interesting parts of people; Mary’s close friendship with Donna Brazile; hairdressers as priests; Augustine; Pascal; the epistemological humility of Socrates; Stoicism; my mother’s mental illness; the crucifixion of Jesus; Mel Gibson’s version of the Passion; Willie Horton; Bernie one of the few pols championing class; the redistribution of wealth during Covid; the lockdowns; Boris and Partygate; George Floyd and BLM groupthink; Kyle Rittenhouse; Jussie Smollett; the narrative of structural racism; MLK envy and “the right side of history”; the Ferguson effect; innovative police work in NOLA; Mary fighting sex trafficking in NOLA; Tony Blair cementing the legacy of Margaret Thatcher; the lack of accountability from political consultants; the profundity of Winnie the Pooh; and which great Americans we should emulate today.Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Adam Kirsch on his book On Settler Colonialism, John Gray on the state of liberal democracy, Jon Rauch on his new book on “Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy,” Nick Denton on the evolution of new media, and Ross Douthat on how everyone should be religious. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.

Brianna Wu On Trans Life

We’ve been trying to cover the trans debate from as many sides as possible. So Brianna Wu was an obvious invite to the Dishcast. She is a video game developer and political activist who has run for Congress twice in Massachusetts. She is also a public speaker on issues affecting women in tech and became a central figure in Gamergate. She co-hosts with three other trans women — Kelly Cadigan, TafTaj, and Schyler Bogert — a podcast called Dollcast. She occupies a precarious center: defender of trans rights but opponent of critical gender and queer theory; a trans woman who fully acknowledges she isn’t the same in every respect as women; and a fellow spirit trying to seek a middle ground so we can all just get on with our lives. We had a lively “ask a tranny anything” chat. For two clips — on the indoctrination of kids in schools, and the ordeal of medical transition for adults — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Brianna wanting to be a woman from a very early age; her Christian upbringing in Mississippi; her mother scolding her effeminate hand gestures; dysmorphia; how she prayed to Jesus to be gay; her drug addiction and suicide attempts; postmodernists like Judith Butler; how queer ideology is inherently unstable; the “nonbinary” fad; the need for trans activism to return to liberalism; Virtually Normal and the marriage movement; Brianna “having no illusions” that she’s a natal male; how the definition of trans has broadened to a “ludicrous” degree; JK Rowling; trans athletes; the huge spike in girls seeking trans compared to boys; Wu opposing transition for girls until 18; comorbidities like autism and sexual abuse; the swiftness of hormones via Planned Parenthood; the black market for HRT; transing gay kids; Marci Bowers performing Wu’s vaginoplasty; Wu opposing Bowers at WPATH; Pope Francis; autogynephilia; right-wing backlash against trans adults; Nancy Mace; the blood libel of “groomer”; the Cass Review; Rachel Levine; death threats against Jesse Singal; the defenestration of Mara Keisling; the cowardice of gay donors; Wu losing friends over her moderate views; and her long marriage to a cis guy.Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Mary Matalin on our sick culture, Adam Kirsch on his book On Settler Colonialism, John Gray on the state of liberal democracy, Jon Rauch on his new book on “Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy,” Nick Denton on the evolution of new media, and Ross Douthat on how everyone should be religious. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com. Thank you for subscribing. Leave a comment or share this episode.