Does rhetorical escalation among our elites belie the stability of the nation today? With Amy Coney Barrett nominated for the Supreme Court and partisan rancor at an all-time high, Shadi and Damir pick apart their doubts about the health of our democracy. Reading List: Shadi's prescient tweet "Resisting the Juristocracy," Samuel Moyn (Boston Review) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

The great Nils Gilman of the Berggruen Institute and Noema joins Shadi and Damir to talk about why the upcoming elections feel existential, why our federal government feels increasingly illegitimate, and why Shadi's most recent piece in The Atlantic has annoyed so many people. Reading List: "Human Rights and Neoliberalism," by Nils Gilman (LA Review of Books) "The Collapse of Racial Liberalism," by Nils Gilman (The American Interest) "The Democrats May Not Be Able to Concede," by Shadi Hamid (The Atlantic) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

Shadi thinks Damir is getting more worried about our institutions. Damir reveals the depths of his relentless fatalism. All because NPR thought it was a good idea to interview a radical apologist for rioting and looting. Reading List: "One Author's Controversial View: 'In Defense of Looting'," by Natalie Escobar (NPR) "Between Orientalism and Postmodernism: The Changing Nature of Western Feminist Thought Towards the Middle East," by Shadi Hamid (Hawwa) The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics, Mark Lilla (NYRBooks) "The Free Floater," by John Gray (TNR) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

During a livestream, Shadi and Damir talked about the site redesign and relaunch, why it's smart to abandon Big Tech platforms during the upheavals of the Age of Wokeness, how America is definitively not on the cusp of revolution (no matter what the activists might think), and whether violence was likelier if Trump defeats Biden than vice versa. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

It's summer. Damir rings up Shadi to talk about the pleasure of writing and the pain of exercising, before the conversation takes a much darker turn. Required Reading: Islamic Exceptionalism, by Shadi Hamid That Mohammed Tweet, by Shadi Hamid This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

Stand up straight! The Washington Post's Christine Emba joins Shadi and Damir to ponder the positive aspects of the woke wars, the role of ideas in furthering social change, and the virtues of lukewarm takes. Reading List: "Why George Floyd Died," by Rod Dreher (The American Conservative) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

Are we reaching a tipping point in our politics, and is the very legitimacy of our democratic system is being called into question? The Week's Damon Linker joins Shadi and Damir to discuss how a desperate narrative seems to be taking a hold on the Right, its historical antecedents, and whether the threat comes from an illiberal ideology or if our Union has always been more precarious than we thought. Reading List: "When Conservatives Become Revolutionaries," by Damon Linker (The Week) "Democracy Maybe," by Lee Drutman, Joe Goldman, and Larry Diamond (Voter Study Group) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

Jamie Kirchick of the Brookings Institution and author of The End of Europe joins Shadi and Damir to talk race, anti-semitism, morality, and the ever-multiplying claims to universal rights that are driving the turmoil shaking Western societies to their cores. Come for Damir's tinnitus, and stick around to find out if Shadi will end up a neo-neocon as the woke brigades take over the Left. Reading List: "The Man Who Opposed Hate," by James Kirchick (Tablet) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

Peter Beinart joins Shadi and Damir to discuss his recent essays for Jewish Currents and the New York Times, in which he argues that with the two-state solution a dead letter in solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the only possible path forward is making a case for a bi-national state. Is this a tactical maneuver to expand the Overton Window to unblock the status quo? A desperate attempt to prevent Israel from considering worse solutions? Or a moral case energized by the ascendance of the social justice movement? (And what does it have to do with cancel culture?) Reading List: "Yavne: A Jewish Case for Equality in Israel-Palestine," Peter Beinart (Jewish Currents) "I No Longer Believe in a Jewish State," Peter Beinart (NYT) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

Shadi and Damir sit down their friend Robert Nicholson, Founder and Executive Director of the Philos Project (and one of the small handful of people who witnessed the birth of the idea for this podcast with his own eyes). Recently back from a trip to Minneapolis, Robert discusses facing up to our deep national dysfunctions as someone who has worked abroad, and how religion might end up being the best bridge we have across our gaping racial divides. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe