The Liberal Patriot with Ruy Teixeira

This week I’m pleased to host TLP’s friend Adam Jentleson —the founder and CEO of the Searchlight Institute , former Chief of Staff to Senator John Fetterman, and former Deputy Chief of Staff to Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid—to make the case that the Democratic Party has built a billion-dollar idea machine and gotten almost nothing useful out of it. * Why do the progressive groups shaping De...

In this week’s episode of the TLP Podcast, I’m thrilled to speak with Wall Street Journal writer at large Pamela Paul about her new article on the battles over civic literacy in leading universities and why the Democratic Party struggles to adjust to reality on gender ideology and other matters even as public opinion shifts against them. From campus monoculture to Planned Parenthood’s mission cree...

Why do elites in both political parties keep misreading the public? In today’s episode of The Liberal Patriot Podcast, I speak with journalist Mike Pesca to unpack the surprising voter ID consensus, the “scalpel vs. chainsaw” problem in modern politics, media tribalism, Bari Weiss and CBS, and the Democrats’ struggle between moderation and resistance. Mike is an award-winning journalist and podcas...

On today’s episode of The Liberal Patriot Podcast, I talk with Iowa state legislator and U.S. Senate candidate Josh Turek about why Donald Trump’s populism resonated with working-class voters—and why it ultimately failed to deliver. We examine faux populism, rural economic decline, tariffs, health care, and what genuine working-class politics would require beyond slogans and culture war performanc...

Is America the victim of its own economic success? In this episode of The Liberal Patriot Podcast, I speak with Niskanen Center senior vice president Brink Lindsey about why material abundance in America no longer translates into national meaning, cohesion, or progress. We discuss capitalism’s limits, performative politics, declining birth rates, and what it would take to move from mass plenty to...

On this week’s episode of The Liberal Patriot Podcast, I talk with geologist and energy expert Scott Tinker about why affordable, reliable energy is the foundation of human progress. We examine energy poverty, the limits of renewables, and why many climate policies collide with physics, economics, and lived reality—especially for the world’s poorest people. From 2000-2024, Tinker was Director of t...

This week, I speak with my AEI colleague, Sally Satel , a practicing psychiatrist and lecturer at the Yale University School of Medicine, about the rapid ideological transformation inside American medicine. Satel explains how medical associations shifted from clinical excellence toward activist missions, how flawed research, such as the now-debunked study claiming that black infant mortality could...

What do voters actually want—and why do so many politicians keep getting it wrong? This week I talk with the great Simon Bazelon about the real data behind voter shifts, why popular narratives miss the mark, and what a winning path forward for Democrats really looks like. Simon is the lead author of a terrific new report, “ Deciding to Win: Toward a Common Sense Renewal of the Democratic Party .”...

Why did America stop building? My AEI colleague James Pethokoukis joins the podcast this week to explain how cultural pessimism, bad policy, and bipartisan fear of disruption stalled progress in strengthening America’s economy. From nukes to AI, we explore what went wrong—and how to fix it. Please listen in on the discussion and check out James’s excellent 2023 book, The Conservative Futurist: How...

This week, I’m thrilled to welcome Massachusetts Fourth District Representative Jake Auchincloss to the podcast. Congressman Auchincloss is serving his third term in office and currently works on the House Committee on Energy & Commerce with a particular focus on issues including healthcare, clean energy, gun violence, and a strong middle class. From his bio: Jake was born and raised in Newton, Ma...

I’m pleased to have Hoover Institution research fellow Dan Wang on the podcast this week to discuss one of my favorite books of the year, Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future . Dan walks us through how China became an “engineering state” while the U.S. turned into a “lawyerly society,” and what this shift means for the future of democracy, progress, and national development. Please list...

I’m thrilled to welcome Thomas Chatterton Williams to the podcast this week. Williams is a colleague of mine at AEI, a staff writer at The Atlantic , and the author of the provocative new book, Summer of Our Discontent: The Age of Certainty and the Demise of Discourse , which examines how the year 2020 broke American politics: Taking aim at the ideology of critical race theory, the rise of an oppr...

I’m pleased to welcome Ted Nordhaus to the podcast this week. Ted’s work at The Breakthrough Institute offers an intriguing and important way to think about the intersection of energy policy, society, and politics. Ted explains why he abandoned climate catastrophism, how the “Green Vortex” collapsed, and why Democrats need to unlearn old dogmas if they want to survive as a governing party. Please...

Today, I’m pleased to welcome journalist Emily Jashinsky , the D.C. Correspondent at UnHerd , to discuss the rise of the “New Right,” the split between old-guard conservatives and MAGA-aligned populists, and why Democrats should not underestimate J.D. Vance. Populism isn’t just a passing phase—it’s reshaping both the Republican Party and American politics for the long haul. Listen in and please su...

Today, I’m pleased to welcome Yascha Mounk to the TLP Podcast. Yascha is an Associate Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and is the author of the excellent 2023 book, The Identity Trap , featured on TLP when it was first published. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of the always interesting Persuasion n...

Today, I’m pleased to welcome Christine Emba to The Liberal Patriot Podcast. Christine is a colleague of mine at the American Enterprise Institute and is a columnist and former editorial board member at The Washington Post . She is the author of the great 2022 book, " Rethinking Sex: A Provocation ." We discuss the issues surrounding modern sex and dating, the reasons behind young men's shift to t...

This week I’m joined by economist Ian Fletcher to discuss how decades of economic missteps have left the U.S. dangerously dependent on imports and vulnerable to competitors like China. Fletcher is the co-author with Marc Fasteau of an important book entitled Industrial Policy for the United States: Winning the Competition for Good Jobs and High-Value Industries . Fletcher breaks down why free trad...

On today’s podcast, I’m pleased to talk with TLP’s newest contributor, Justin Vassallo . As you’ve seen from his recent columns, Justin’s writing focuses mainly on political development, working-class economics, industrial policy, party systems, and related areas. Justin also writes regularly for Compact , an excellent heterodox journal that everyone should read and subscribe to, as well for UnHer...

Today I’m joined by Zaid Jilani , a fellow at New America, proprietor of the excellent Substack newsletter, The American Saga , and one of our sharpest observers of contemporary politics and culture. Zaid and I discuss the puzzle of Democrats’ obsessive use of twenty-dollar words like “oligarchy” and their stout refusal to speak language that normal Americans understand. We then delve into the use...

Today I’m joined by Michael Lind , co-founder of New America and the author of Hell to Pay: How the Suppression of Wages is Destroying America . Michael walks us through the last couple decades of globalization, including how both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump came to denounce the TPP. He then argues that Trump 2.0 has done some good things with tariffs—including partial decoupling from China—b...

This week I welcome Henry Olsen back to the podcast. Henry is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center—and has the distinction of being our first repeat guest on the show. We start our conversation on the continent. How has populism, both left and right, fared in Europe in the 21st century? Will the AfD continue its rise in German politics? What about Marine Le Pen and French populis...

Today I have the privilege of welcoming Marc Dunkelman to the podcast. Marc is a research fellow in International and Public Affairs at Brown University and the author of a new book, Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress—and How to Bring it Back . We begin by discussing a key premise of his book: progressivism is, and always has been, split between a Hamiltonian impulse to push power up and a Jef...

This week I’m thrilled to welcome Derek Thompson to the show. Derek is a staff writer at The Atlantic , the host of the Plain English podcast, and, as I’m sure many of you have heard, the author of Abundance with Ezra Klein. Wasting no time, we jump right into Derek’s vision of an abundance agenda. * Why has the center-left been so slow to embrace these ideas? * How can we effectively match priori...

This week we welcome a special guest to the podcast: Congressman Ro Khanna of California’s 17th District . First elected in 2016, Rep. Khanna has been a strong advocate for how Democrats can win back working-class voters. We cover his book, Dignity in a Digital Age: Making Tech Work for All of Us , and why the tech industry swung towards Trump last year. We then turn to Trump’s joint address to Co...

Today I sit down with my friend Rick Kahlenberg , an expert on all things affirmative action and the author of the forthcoming book, Class Matters: The Fight to Get Beyond Race Preferences, Reduce Inequality, and Build Real Diversity at America’s Colleges . We kick off with a discussion of DEI trainings, the educational bureaucracy, and Trump’s latest executive orders. We then chat about how both...