As perhaps too much public attention is focused these days on the Manhattan trial of one Donald J. Trump, here’s my 2021 conversation with Federal Judge JED RAKOFF of the Southern District of NY. In his book, WHY THE INNOCENT PLEAD GUILTY AND THE GUILTY GO FREE, RAKOFF makes clear that the US justice system bears little relationship to what the founding fathers contemplated, what the media portrays, or what the average American believes. The US accounts for about 5% of the world’s population yet houses nearly 25% of its prisoners, with one in nine serving a life sentence, and half a million incarcerated for lack of bail. 40% are Black males and another 20% Hispanic males. 

I don’t know if my big question is “Why don’t the rich/super-rich and their corporations get the value of a society that works?” Or is it - “Why don’t they care?” Despite the knowledge that it might be impossible, moving society in that direction calls for getting ideas and models out into the world that show it’s actually possible to reduce inequality. CHUCK COLLINS has been doing that for years in his work and writing. He runs the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-edits Inequality.org and its (highly recommended) weekly newsletter.

Earlier this year my dear friend, meditation teacher, TRUDY GOODMAN, experienced a medical emergency that almost killed her. Another reminder of the preciousness and fragility of life and friendship. Here’s my 2015 conversation with TRUDY and JACK KORNFIELD on the occasion of an event at Insight LA, the mindfulness mediation center founded by Trudy. The event featured virtual dialogues with Jon Kabat-Zinn (Wherever You Go, There You Are), Ram Dass (Be Here Now), Tara Brach (Radical Acceptance), Joseph Goldstein (Insight Meditation), and then-Congressman Tim Ryan (A Mindful Nation). We talk about Trudy and Jack’s personal paths, what each of their guests means to them, and tell the story of mindfulness in America over the last 45 years. 

In 2020, I talked about democracy with filmmaker/writer/organizer/activist, ASTRA TAYLOR. Four years later, following a pandemic, waves of protests, an insurrection, and a couple of ongoing wars, we revisit our fragile and threatened way of political life.  She’s been busy - working with the Debt Collective, a union of debtors she co-founded, and writing two new books, THE AGE OF INSECURITY and SOLIDARITY: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea. 

Earth Day 2024 is April 22nd. Here’s my 2011 conversation with JANINE BENYUS, who coined a term and invented a field called Biomimicry. After 3.8 billion years of R&D on this planet, failures are fossils. What surrounds us in the natural world has succeeded and survived. So why not learn as much as we can from what works? Nature has already solved many of the problems we grapple with. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. They have found what works, what is appropriate, and most important, what lasts here on Earth.

Why does our society produce more poverty than other wealthy countries? Why don’t we or why can’t we change our incentives? I speak with MARK RANK, about his books, THE POVERTY PARADOX and POORLY UNDERSTOOD: What America Gets Wrong About Poverty, and his latest, THE RANDOM FACTOR: How Chance & Luck Profoundly Shape Our Lives & the World Around Us. Learn more at bit.ly/3JdYuWZ

I describe the goal of my engagement with what we call the environment as “a healthy relationship with the rest of nature.” In this 2019 conversation, CHARLES EISENSTEIN asks: Have we become too focused on climate change? and reminds us that holding rivers, forests, and creatures as sacred and valuable in their own right, not simply as carbon credits, can engage emotional and psychological connections deeper than any policy prescription. I say we need both. We’re engaged in an existential improv and the first rule of improv is “Yes, and-“ 

With social media and AI, bad actors weaponize information, stressing democracy. We have two options: stop the lies or stop people from believing them. The former is near impossible in a free society, but there’s solid evidence the latter is achievable. I talk with two founders of the Mental Immunity Project, ANDY NORMAN, author of MENTAL IMMUNITY, and MELANIE TRECEK-KING, creator of THINKING IS POWER, an online resource that teaches critical thinking to the general public.

As we fasten our seatbelts and plunge into the 2024 campaign, here are two conversations worth a re-listen. From 2007, I talk with DREW WESTEN about the ideas and advice in his influential book, THE POLITICAL BRAIN: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation. Westen: Democrats almost always present the best arguments but lose elections to Republicans who have mastered the art of emotion and story-telling. In the second half, my 2009 conversation with BERNIE HORN of the Leadership Training Institute about FRAMING THE FUTURE: How Progressive Values Can Win Elections and Influence People. Horn: Persuadable voters make choices depending on how political issues and questions are framed. Emotion, framing, narratives. Trump traffics in all three. 

ROB JOHNSON is a plain-speaking and passionate critic of an economic, financial, and political system that leaves too many behind. He and I do post-election shows - and we’ll do another this November, but this week we talk about the State of the Union as well as the state of the union. We talk about Biden’s speech and about how the two of us see things - the economy, the election, the two parties, the nation’s mood, how we got here, and how we might move forward. Rob is President of the Institute for New Economic Thinking and host of the podcast Economics and Beyond. You can learn more about him and his work at ineteconomics.org