Symposium

I talk with University of Pennsylvania’s Damon Linker about teaching American government while our political system is rapidly being dismantled. We discuss the growing gap between the theory and the practice of American government, reasons for pessimism and optimism, and whether young people think the politics of the Trump era is just normal. You can also watch the video here . In light of the fla...

I talk to Paul Matzko who works on technology and abundance issues for the Institute for Human Studies. We examine the history of the FCC and its broad and vague power, the abuse of “news distortion” to distort the news, why the FCC wins even when it loses in court, how each side of our political debate keeps creating the precedents that are used against it—and the “original sin” on which the FCC...

I talk to Peter Shane, distinguished scholar in residence at NYU. We examine the "unitary executive theory," the long Anglo-American tradition of dividing and limiting executive power, how to have government do big things without becoming tyrannical, and how he would recommend amending the Constitution. See his article on Unitary Executive Theory at The UnPopulist . Or watch the interview here : I...

I talk with Chelsea Follett, managing editor of HumanProgress.org and author of Centers of Progress: 40 Cities That Changed the World . We talk about why cities have been the centers of progress, the conditions that make bursts of innovation possible, and examples of open and dynamic societies from Amsterdam to Dubrovnik to Mohenjo-Daro. You can view the video of this conversation here . Get full...

I talk with New York Times columnist David French about how he got canceled by his own church—see his Times column about that. We also talk about the growing problem of partisanship and intolerance in conservative institutions, the crisis of American Christianity, and the reasonable “center” that we need to hold together. You can view the video of this conversation here . The Mote and the Beam We...

I talk with Renée DiResta, formerly of the Stanford Internet Observatory and author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality . We talk about the canceling of the Stanford Internet Observatory, why “misinformation” isn’t the right term for the Internet rumor mill, the power of “counterspeech” and why suspending social media accounts doesn’t work, how an “army of Davids” turned int...

I talk with writer Alysia Ames about her coinage of the “Omnicause,” a tendency to absorb all left-of-center causes in one giant package deal. We also talk about the challenges for advocates of liberalism in rural areas—a closely related issue, because if you’ve got to back every cause in order to promote any cause, you’re going to encounter a lot more resistance. But first we talk about how women...

I talk with Ruy Teixeira of The Liberal Patriot about how the left and Democrats lost rural voters, and how they can try to get them back. We talk about the history of political realignments, the parallels to the fate of Republicans in the cities, why the left should spend less time appealing to college students with purple hair and more time on older black women, and how pursing a maximalist agen...

I talk with Damon Linker of Notes from the Middle Ground . We talk about the history of conservatism, the role of "liberalism" (in the broad sense) on the right, and whether race as a political dividing line is being eclipsed by education as the new dividing line, and why that might not be entirely a good thing. Watch the video of our conversation here . Get full access to Symposium at symposium.s...

I talk with Addison Del Mastro from The Deleted Scenes . We talk about the hidden regulations that make our cities and suburbs the way they are, the often distorting effects of central planning applies to land use, the Housing Theory of Everything , and the recent bipartisan awakening on housing issues. Watch the video of our conversation here . Get full access to Symposium at symposium.substack.c...

I have a conversation with Brent Orrell of the American Enterprise Institute, in a back and forth on the necessity of religion as the basis for a free society. He says it’s necessary, and I don’t, and we hash out the reasons for our positions—including the big moral questions of “Why not?” and “Says who?” Watch the video of our conversation here . Please consider making a tax-deductible donation t...

I talk with Anthony Sanders of the Institute for Justice about his book Baby Ninth Amendments: How Americans Embraced Unenumerated Rights and Why It Matters . We discuss the paradox of explicit constitutional protections for "unenumerated rights," how those protections were embraced not just on the federal level but in state constitutions, why those rights have often been ignored despite being pop...

I talk with Nathan Beacom of the Lyceum Movement , an attempt to organize local, in-person meetings to discuss important ideas. We talk about the history of the Lyceum Movement, the difference between in-person and online discussion, the rules for keeping discussions civil and productive, and about Zoom Fatigue (on Zoom). Watch it here . Speaking of online discussion and its sometimes perverse inc...

I talk with Shay Khatiri, Senior Policy Analyst at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, columnist for The Daily Beast, and author of The Russia-Iran File on Substack. We discuss the precipitous decline of religious belief in Iran and its lessons for America—based on his recent article, “ Integralism, Christian and Islamic ”—and how “kicking the dog” is not just a trope but offici...

I talk with Shoshana Weissman of R Street Institute and Jess Miers of the Chamber of Progress about recent Supreme Court cases challenging Section 230—the law that created the user-driven Internet we know and (mostly) love. We discuss the moderator’s dilemma, how the Wolf of Wall Street inadvertently helped create the Internet, and how attitudes toward Section 230 cut across the usual partisan lin...

I talk with New York Times columnist David French about attacks on academic freedom and freedom of speech, “the worst way to deal with educational controversies,” the culture war evolution on the right, and the world’s best and most effective political message. Watch it here . Also check out an acerbic post by Ken White, the law blogger known as Popehat, who takes on the recent shouting down of a...

I talk with David Baer and Dalibor Rohac about Viktor Orban’s authoritarian system in Hungary, its use as a model for American conservatives, and how the system has actually worked out for Hungary. Watch it here . For more on how the American right has embraced Orban, see a good overview in the New York Times . See also a history of conservative support for illiberal regimes in The Atlantic . This...

I talk with Jaroslav Romanchuk about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the causes of corruption, why Ukraine is going to need limited government, and the bad economic advice Ukraine keeps getting from the West. Watch it here . This is a follow-up on our previous conversation just prior to the Russian invasion, but this time we focus more on the prospective question of how Ukraine’s wartime economy...

I talk with Claire Berlinski of The Cosmopolitan Globalist about the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, why the press should not cover this as a mere natural disaster, and the worst thing that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ever done. Watch it here : The earthquakes are a lesson in the hollow promise of a strongman who will end the “deep state,” drain the swamp of corruption, and fight a...

Rob Tracinski talks to Tim Sandefur, author of the new book, Freedom’s Furies: How Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand Found Liberty in an Age of Darkness . We discuss the long friendship between these three women in the years leading up to the Depression, the New Deal, and World War II, and how they all published books in 1943 that led them to be hailed as the “three furies” of the mo...

Rob Tracinski talks to Marian Tupy of the Cato Institute and HumanProgress.org , and coauthor of the new book Superabundance . We discuss the reality of progress, why people refuse to accept it, the curious correlation of improvements to human life accompanied by increasingly apocalyptic films, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as an explanation for our pessimism, and the effect that recognition of prog...

Rob Tracinski talks to Tim Sandefur of the Goldwater Institute about the legal doctrine of “substantive due process,” its rejection by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and how conservatives adopted an anti-rights constitutional interpretation pioneered by progressives. Read Sandefur's recent article about this at The Unpopulist, and see also his book The Conscience of the Constitution . Watc...

Rob Tracinski talks to Yevgeny Simkin of Samizdat Online, https://samizdatonline.org , an attempt to help readers evade Internet controls in dictatorships. Our conversation includes the history of “samizdat” underground publication, how the flow of contraband information has changed in the 21st Century, and why dictators are so afraid of it. Watch the video here . Get full access to Symposium at s...

Rob Tracinski talks to the Cato Institute's Andy Craig about the alt-right takeover of the Libertarian Party, the hole left by the absence of a third political alternative, and how the Electoral Count Reform Act could save us from another crisis and vindicate the effectiveness of Secret Congress . But for God’s sake, don’t tell anyone. Watch the video here . Get full access to Symposium at symposi...

Rob Tracinski talks to Louis Anslow, creator and curator of the Pessimists Archive , which chronicles the long history of techno-pessimism, about the “science folklore” of the “Black Mirror fallacy” and the scarcity bias that induces a false nostalgia for the past. We also talk about how this feeds illiberalism by encouraging “Luddite populism” on both the left and the right. Watch the video here...