Open Source with Christopher Lydon

We’re staring down the several crises in our economy—and recalling the grand old joke that it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. John Cassidy. John Cassidy of The New Yorker magazine has written a sprightly catalog of capitalism’s critics over the centuries: who got it right, for example, about today’s inequality crisis, or the climate damage, or the threat to democracy, or the alternatives to capitalism that might still work better, or even rescue it.

We’re staring down the global trade war with Mark Blyth at Brown University. He is the People’s Economist from Scotland, who takes us home to his village pub in Dundee every once in a while to tell all of us what the powers that be are up to. Penguins on an uninhabited island that’s been hit with a 10% tariff. We’ve been bracing for a universal trade war, not just China, but Canada, France, Mexico, you name it—uninhabited islands (where only penguins and seals live) will be touched. President Trump’s ultimate weapon of choice in such a war is a 125% tariff, on most of what comes from China, raising prices, of course, but the Trump line also says the flood of new tariff income could pay for what he calls his big, beautiful tax cut.

Sarah Churchwell, a humanities professor at the University of London and expert on American literature, delves into the connections between F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby' and Donald Trump's political persona. She explores how both figures reflect deep flaws in American culture, critiquing ambition and moral character. The discussion touches on the darker sides of the American dream, linking themes of nostalgia and lost ideals to contemporary political issues like fascism. Churchwell argues for a reevaluation of societal progress in light of these enduring narratives.

Elaine Pagels, a renowned historian and professor at Princeton, dives deep into the life of Jesus of Nazareth, examining the political and spiritual turmoil surrounding him. She explores the radical insights of the Gnostic Gospels, contrasting them with traditional teachings. The conversation highlights the significance of resurrection and collective belief, delves into the artistic legacies of Jesus’ story, and reflects on the evolving themes of messianic identity. Pagels’ insights challenge conventional narratives and invite listeners to rethink spirituality and faith.

We’re tracking President Trump’s squeeze on higher education, and the argument in the Ivy League: whether or not to make a fight of it. First, Columbia surrendered under a Trump threat to cut $400 million in federal funding. Then Princeton said, “No way, we’ll fight your flimsy charges to the end.” And then Harvard, with $9 billion at stake, tried gentle engagement with the Trump inquiry, until 800 of its professors and staff said, “No way, when free expression and democracy are at risk.” Ryan Enos. What’s required, they said, is open, coordinated resistance, which gives the rest of us time to learn what this fight is all about. Ryan Enos is a young professor in Harvard’s government department, among the first of the 800 signers of that petition.

We’re reading our way out of a ruined time with the model reader, Patricia Lockwood. She’s the poet laureate of the internet, for starters. She’s a big-league literary critic, master of social media and the Twitter joke, but also of the mysticism of St. Teresa. She’s on a field-trip to Harvard this week from her home base in Savannah, Georgia, and we’re meeting for the first time, in Cambridge. Patricia Lockwood and Chris Lydon. In this almost archaic culture of books, her mindset is very 2025. This side of Harold Bloom, I’ve never met a wider scope in a reader.

We’re looking for our American place in what can feel like a new world order, with Stephen Walt, our first and favorite so-called realist in the foreign policy game—realists being the people who steer by the interests of nations, not their egos or their dreams. And they look beyond the headlines to the long-term effects of policy, to the results. Stephen Walt. By Stephen Walt’s standards, it looks like a new world since that astonishing shouting match in the White House, Donald Trump telling Ukraine’s President Zelensky that the U.S. is out of the war on the border of Russia, that we’re bent on repairing our relationship with Vladimir Putin. And Walt is in the news with a commentary and a headline that said, “Yes, America is Europe’s Enemy Now.”

Angus King is the anti-partisan, independent United States Senator from the cranky Yankee state of Maine. He is giving us a conversational civics lesson in the tradition of James Madison and also of Schoolhouse Rock, the kids’ TV explainer. James Madison. Senator King has been in the thick of the frenzy in Donald Trump’s Washington, with a certain distinction. His tone on the Senate floor has been measured, his language old-fashioned, and his message a deadly warning. It’s the Constitution itself that’s at risk. What’s at stake, he has been saying, is the famously balanced U.S. Constitution, “this clumsy system” of self-rule, he calls it, that is “the mainspring of our freedom.” And it is under direct assault as never before in these first weeks of a new presidency. Rescuing that “we the people” charter will mark our place in history, Angus King is telling us. Losing it would mark the end of the American experiment.

In the fog of Trump Two, we’re asking: what’s new? The co-presidency with Elon Musk is surely new, also the raging battle of exotic ideas among techno-optimists and libertarian anarcho-capitalists at war with the very idea of popular democracy and republican government. Further question: do citizens have to follow the action? Matt Taibbi’s headline is: Nation Shrugs as Godzilla Eats Washington. Ben Tarnoff and Quinn Slobodian. Here at Open Source in the first month of the Trump sequel, we’re hovering in the fog with two young historians of American finance, technology, and politics, and comparing clues about the future under construction.

We’re picking up the pieces of our country in the age of Trump, Part II. Is the USA still here? Is it still us? Kurt Andersen. Cue Kurt Andersen, with his finger in the wind. We want him on a mission to track the spirit of the age, because he’s been a cool, creative, wide-angle eye on events since the ’80s, when he founded Spy magazine, and then Studio 360 on public radio.