The Good Fight

Ben Ansell is Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the British Academy. He is the author of Why Politics Fails.  In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Ben Ansell discuss the collective goods that we all desire (democracy, equality, solidarity, security and prosperity) and why political systems struggle to bring them about; the implici...

Murtaza Hussain is a reporter at The Intercept covering national security and foreign policy.  In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Murtaza Hussain discuss why most Americans, whether they know it or not, are philosophical liberals; why the political cleavages that exist among white Americans are likely to replicate themselves among the country’s immigrant and minority communities; and wh...

Matthew Goodwin is Professor of Politics at the University of Kent. He is the author, most recently, of Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics.  In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Matthew Goodwin discuss the left’s transition from a focus on the working class to college-educated professionals; how leaders like Tony Blair and Bill Clinton were able to broaden their electoral...

Martin Wolf is the chief economics commentator for the Financial Times. He is the author of The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Martin Wolf discuss the symbiotic relationship between democracy and capitalism; the reasons for the crisis of democratic capitalism; and the dire consequences should it fail. This transcript has been condensed and lightly ed...

Jonathan Greenblatt is the national director of the Anti-Defamation League. Greenblatt previously served in the Obama White House as Special Assistant and Director of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. He is the author of It Could Happen Here: Why America Is Tipping from Hate to the Unthinkable-And How We Can Stop It. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Jonathan Gre...

Frans de Waal is a Dutch-American primatologist and the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Primate Behavior in the Department of Psychology at Emory University. He is the author of, among other books, Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes and Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Frans de Waal discuss how primate empathy forms...

Matthias Matthijs is Associate Professor of International Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and Senior Fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Matthias Matthijs discuss Germany’s Zeitenwende and why the country has found greater success than its European peers in countering right-win...

Vincent Lloyd is a Professor and Director of Africana Studies at Villanova University. His latest book is Black Dignity: The Struggle against Domination. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Vincent Lloyd discuss how his summer school seminar on black history was derailed by the language of “harm”; how well-intentioned efforts at contemplating past and present injustice can devolve into d...

Rachel Kleinfeld is a senior fellow in the Democracy, Conflict and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Kleinfeld’s latest book is A Savage Order: How the World's Deadliest Countries Can Forge a Path to Security. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Rachel Kleinfeld discuss effective strategies for heading off extremism and shoring up American democracy; w...

Congressman Ro Khanna is an American politician, lawyer, and academic. He is currently serving as U.S. Representative for California's 17th district, including much of Silicon Valley. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Ro Khanna discuss how we can protect free speech and civic agency in the age of the internet; what it would mean to have a cultural patriotism that celebrates both the tr...

Richard Haass is a veteran American diplomat, statesman, and author. He is president of the Council on Foreign Relations, and served as Special Assistant to President George H. W. Bush and as Director of Policy Planning at the State Department in the administration of President George W. Bush. His most recent book is The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens. In this week’s conversa...

Matt Bennett is co-founder of the center-left think tank Third Way. Bennett served in the administration of President Bill Clinton and is a veteran of Democratic politics, having acted as an advisor to the presidential campaigns of Clinton, Al Gore, and Wesley Clark. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Matt Bennett discuss why it’s hard for moderate candidates to outcompete extremists fo...

Charles Kenny is a writer-researcher and a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. Previously, he spent fifteen years as an economist at the World Bank. His books include The Plague Cycle: The Unending War Between Humanity and Infectious Disease and The Upside of Down: Why the Rise of the Rest is Good for the West. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Charles Kenny discuss why...

Bart Somers is a Belgian politician who has served as the mayor of Mechelen and is a minister in the Flemish government. He was awarded the 2016 World Mayor Prize in recognition of Mechelen’s success in integrating recent immigrants. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Bart Somers discuss how prioritizing public safety helped Mechelen head off populist extremism, how to build civic struc...

Tabata Amaral is a Brazilian politician currently serving as a federal deputy for the center-left Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), representing the state of São Paulo. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Tabata Amaral discuss her journey from a childhood of poverty to her admission to Harvard and her election as one of the youngest congresspeople in Brazil; how Lula’s ideologically diver...

Shadi Hamid is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. His latest book is The Problem of Democracy: America, the Middle East, and the Rise and Fall of an Idea. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Shadi Hamid discuss what happens when liberalism and democracy clash; whether countries with freely elected but highly illiberal governments can r...

Roya Hakakian is an Iranian American dissident, poet, and writer. Her latest book is A Beginner's Guide to America: For the Immigrant and the Curious. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Roya Hakakian discuss what makes this year's revolt different from previous protest movements; the meaning of the popular protest slogan “Woman, Life, Liberty;” and what ordinary people and their governm...

Ben Rhodes is a writer and the former Deputy National Security Advisor under President Barack Obama. His latest book is After the Fall: The Rise of Authoritarianism in the World We've Made. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Ben Rhodes discuss the record of Barack Obama’s foreign policy; what America should do about the Middle East, Russia, and China; and how (not) to advance democratic...

James Kirchick is a writer and a columnist at Tablet. His most recent book is Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and James Kirchick discuss how the Cold War shaped attitudes toward homosexuality; the (dis)similarities between homophobia and anti-Semitism; and what we can learn from the hard-won progress on gay rights about how to make progr...

Danielle Allen is the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, where she also directs the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics. Her forthcoming book is Justice By Means of Democracy. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Danielle Allen discuss why the great American political texts of the 18th century can still inspire; how we can build a political system that inv...

Renée DiResta is a writer and the technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Renée DiResta discuss how we can turn down the temperature on debates around social media and find real solutions; why terms like “censorship” and “misinformation” fail to capture the complex difficulties in reforming social media; and why, as a resident of S...

Ed Luce is the US national editor and columnist at the Financial Times.  In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Ed Luce discuss the electoral toll of Trumpism; why Democrats who focus on identity politics fare poorly at the polls; and whether Ron DeSantis poses as great a threat to democratic norms and institutions as Donald Trump. This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for...

Russ Muirhead is the Robert Clements Professor of Democracy and Politics at Dartmouth College and a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives. His latest book, co-authored with Nancy Rosenblum, is A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Russ Muirhead discuss how legislators can find sensible compromise...

Sam Harris is a neuroscientist, philosopher, author, and the host of the Making Sense podcast. He rose to prominence as a member of the “Four Horsemen” of New Atheism, which also included Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Sam Harris discuss the intellectual case for atheism; why both left and right have become more extreme in r...

Lis Smith is a veteran political strategist affiliated with the Democratic Party. Most recently, she was senior adviser to Pete Buttigieg in his 2020 presidential campaign. Her memoir is Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story.  In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Lis Smith discuss what she looks for in a successful candidate; the lessons she takes from years of courting independents a...