The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan

We took the podcast on the road this week — to Provincetown for a live chat with Jamie Kirchick, whose new book, Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington, I reviewed last week. We were able to discuss much more than could be covered in pixels — with questions from the audience as well. Many thanks to Twenty Summers for hosting the event.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or click the dropdown menu to add the Dishcast to your podcast feed). Read the full transcript here. For two clips of my convo with Jamie — on the similarities between anti-Semitism and homophobia, and on whether J. Edgar Hoover was gay — head over to our YouTube page. Also: new week, new transcript — this time with Charles Murray. It was one of the most popular episodes last year, and if you never listened to it, now’s your chance to read it as well. Looking back to our episode with Kathleen Stock (who has since moved to Substack!), we still have many unaired emails from listeners. The first writes:I just wanted to email to say thank you for the work you’re doing on the (potential) threat of trans ideology to cis gays. I’m a 33-year-old cis gay in Australia, and I was a bit confused by trans stuff at first, because I felt I was supposed to implicitly understand trans issues, existing in that “LGBT” bloc. Back around 2013, any trans-related conversation amounted to laughing about the silliness of the “xe/xir” stuff, while still acknowledging that it’s simple human decency to use whatever pronouns someone asks me to use.As Kathleen Stock said on your podcast, respecting trans people through their struggle always seemed “costless.” Clearly, that is no longer true. Something has changed for the worse; the most visible, loud and most obnoxious segment of the LGBT community are the “queer fascists.” I’m called a bigot for simply acknowledging that there exist people who detransition (without even mentioning whether transgenderism might be a form of gay conversion therapy, in some cases). I could go on and on, obviously, but again: thank you.P.S. I adored your point on Brendan O’Neill’s show about how the queer community used to be the resistance, but has transitioned into being the censorious puritans.Here’s a clip from the Stock pod:From another listener who “LOVED the conversation with Kathleen Stock”:I’m an intersex person and can say with authority that human bodies are weird. Mine doesn’t produce enough sex hormone. I tried testosterone and developed anxiety, depression, and depersonalization, so I’m now going in the other direction and I’m much happier. My pronouns are “whatever you want,” and I’m fully aware that I’m atypical. I don’t care for the “trans” label because of how ridiculous it has become. That makes my heart hurt for those who have battled very hard to be recognized only to watch their identity subverted into something meaningless by a vicious and thoughtless mob. I hate what was done to Kathleen or anyone else who says, “Hey, wait a minute, we should talk about this.” I don’t know when talking about our differences became so damn dangerous. It’s intellectually dishonest. Weren’t universities supposed to be the places to halt this kind of thing, where ideas could be debated and reasoned through? But if the universities are all businesses now, and their incentives are about how to get more paying students, then where else can the debate be had? Where are the incentives more closely aligned with the public good rather than the almighty dollar? I don’t know. I worry that place doesn’t exist here in the US.One thing that was truly horrifying was when you mentioned that gay kids are being told they’re trans because they’re gay. That’s evil. I don’t know what else to call it. Human brains aren’t done forming until what, our 20s? There’s a reason peer pressure is so pernicious for teenagers, and it seems strange that many adults seem to have forgotten it and blithely go along with kids (rare exceptions aside) who want to block their own puberty or have a double mastectomy before they can legally vote.Anyways, I enjoyed every minute of your conversation with Kathleen, even the part where you went on about how “I don’t even know what non-binary IS,” because that’s how I feel as a non-binary person! I’m not comfortable with either of given options, nor am I comfortable in any same-sex space (but I manage in airports). Again, I’m atypical on the chromosomal level, so while I can’t speak to everyone’s experience, I can say mine is a bit more existential than the random 16 year old who’s decided, along with their entire social circle, that they’re suddenly non-binary and have all dyed their hair blue. Sometimes it feels like I’m riding around in a clown car, to be honest.From another fan of the episode, a medical doctor:I admire both you and Kathleen Stock. The more I learn about what is being done to children who don’t conform to stereotypes, the more horrified I’ve become.  During my lifetime, much has been done to accept people, including children as they are. We’ve come to recognize that there’s a great deal of variance of normal around the mean. But when it comes to subjecting children to dangerous medical interventions, we no longer need to worry about causing real harm? To me it appears that some physicians have no qualms about experimenting on healthy children. Malicious intent is all that’s missing for this to be criminal misuse of medical science.I have no platform to use to try to stop this. I appreciate that you and Dr. Stock are making an effort to put the brakes on this madness. Another medical doctor who sounded off on the trans debate was the great Dana Beyer:Listen to the whole episode here. Another listener reflects on the trans debate more broadly:Though I find the entire trans/gender battle beyond exhausting, the recent events surrounding the swimmer at Penn brought it front and center for me. Partly because I was a competitive swimmer in HS, but mostly because my girlfriend’s daughter is a championship-level swimmer with a scholarship to a top-tier program after HS. (By the way, the daughter is not okay with the Penn swimmer.)I have a degree in English, and I’m fortunate to have a lifelong best friend whose father is a linguist. And there were two linguistic tools recently designed to serve one group’s agenda while doing a terrible disservice to the one that should matter. The first was to change the term transsexual to “transgender,” shifting from a term defining the biology of gender dysphoria to one that is intentionally far more vague. The second was to create the shorthand term “trans,” which acts a vehicle for the first by turning something that affects .03% of the population into something broader and far more inclusive.It’s these subtle yet effective shifts in language that facilitate the gender vs biological sex movements, and accepting that someone who still has a penis can be defined as a woman. Now, “trans” is a definition designed to cover any permutation of gender non-conformity instead of actual gender dysphoria, as defined in the DSM-5. And it has opened the door to well-meaning (I assume) adults making terrible decisions regarding child development.Growing up as a boy, all my closest relatives — sister, cousins, an aunt three years older than me — were girls. I ended up playing with them often, regardless of the game or what items were involved (dolls, etc). I followed their lead and even thought I was supposed to pee sitting down. None of this was driven by a desire to be a girl, but rather just to be included. And like many boys, my first forays into my own genitalia involved other boys, as we learned about our bodies. But by the time I neared puberty, it was clear that I was both male and heterosexual. Yet, I fear that children growing up today in similar circumstances will find themselves in a world of confusion, brought on by adults, not their playmates.Speaking of confused kids, another listener:I’ve heard you express frustration and/or disbelief at the rate of depression among gay youth today, despite how much easier things are for them compared to the ‘70s and ‘80s. I just wanted to point out that many young people seem to believe that gay means same-gender attraction, not same-sex. This seems to be part of the Queer umbrella where heterosexual people can identify as another gender and so claim a gay identity. This makes no sense to me (I also find it homophobic), and I wonder if the whole mess contributes to the rates of depression among Millennials and Gen Z.One of those confused kids was Helena Kerschner, a young woman who transitioned and then detransitioned:Listen to her whole story, along with the inimitable Buck Angel’s, here. Another good point comes from this listener:I see the current kerfuffle about trans identities as reflecting the inability to experience complexity without anxiety and a desire to simplify things. That a person can have what are seen as conflicting senses of themselves — as a man, as a man/woman, woman/man, or somewhere in-between — is too complex for some people. Some I expect do find the idea anxiety-provoking — leading to questions about themselves, in a Freudian way — and they are trying to solve their problems by forcing others into boxes.Circling back to the Stock episode, another listener:I do want to push back on, and encourage you to revisit in depth, your point of disagreement with Kathleen over the use of puberty blockers and hormone treatments in transgender youth. While the issues are surely different in the case of adults who have reached the age of consent (though even here there is a strong reason for limiting what can be done in the name of medicine in the strict sense, with consequences for what insurance policies should have to cover), the idea that a child could be given permanently life-altering treatments on the basis of a diagnosis for which, as Kathleen observed, there are simply no rigorous criteria, and to treat a psychological condition that could very well turn out not to be lasting, seems utterly abhorrent. What serious arguments are there in defense of this? What are the responses to the obvious objections? Finally, what should liberal people, who are opposed to these treatments but nevertheless prize individual autonomy and fear governmental overreach, think about the various legislative strategies that are on offer to forbid or restrict access to them? I hope that this is a conversation you’ll be able to keep on having.Some kids are definitely trans, know it, and panic at the thought of puberty. In extreme cases, in which the child seems truly desperate, I don’t want to get in the way of an individual doctor, child and parents making this decision. But as routine care? It scares me. For more debate on this ongoing issue, check out the Dishcast episode with Mara Keisling, the founding executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. A clip of our constructive disagreement:Lastly, a listener looks ahead:I’m writing to suggest a guest (though I am not sure she accepts podcast invitations). There’s a point of view on trans issues I haven’t really heard adequately represented on your podcasts or in your blog posts. I think the person who best articulates it is Natalie Wynn, aka Contrapoints. I recently watched her YouTube episode on J.K. Rowling (and TERFs in general). It was brilliant, and opened my mind to many of the tropes and biases we hear all the time that I wasn’t fully hearing. Natalie is extremely smart, articulate, funny, and not afraid to say things that piss off her tribe. Thanks so much for the suggestion. Keep them coming — along with your dissents, assents and personal stories: dish@andrewsullivan.com. And you can browse the entire Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Bob is a journalist, public intellectual, and the author of many books, including The Moral Animal, Nonzero, The Evolution of God, and Why Buddhism Is True. He’s written for countless magazines, including The New Republic, where he co-wrote the TRB column with Mickey Kaus. He and Mickey also co-founded Bloggingheads TV, and the two regularly converse on The Wright Show and The Parrot Room. He also has his own Substack, the Nonzero Newsletter.Bob is quite simply brilliant, and his books have been very influential in the development of my own thinking. Empirical but spiritual, he’s one of a kind.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or click the dropdown menu to add the Dishcast to your podcast feed). For two clips of my convo with Bob — on what could possibly stop Putin now, and on the danger of humiliating a country — head over to our YouTube page.New transcript just dropped: my convo with Jonathan Haidt over the damage wrought by social media over the past decade. A primer:A listener gives “thanks for producing an interesting, thought-provoking podcast” — then dissents:There was much interesting material in your interview last week with Francis Fukuyama, but there was one major source of disappointment and irritation: your misrepresentation of the ideas of Michel Foucault. Blame Foucault for what you want, but at least try to represent his work truthfully. Contrary to what you asserted, there is no theory of conspiracy in Foucault. On the contrary, he sought to explain that power is exercised in society much less by domination by a few than by influence through diffuse means. He documented how mechanisms of power emerge over time to establish social order in the face of changing economic, social and cultural conditions.  In fact, Foucault sought to answer the question you asked at the end of your interview: if we’re all autonomous, how do we create community? What is it, Foucault asked, that brings order to society at different times, that makes us behave and think in tune with each other, that makes us behave in socially compatible ways, that makes us see ourselves as part of society, and how do we deal with those who seem to deviate from prescribed ways of being and acting? There’s no conspiracy there. There is the steady construction, by numerous people looking to make life more manageable, more productive, etc., of intellectual, institutional and practical means of bringing some order to things and of getting individuals to internalize that order. Here’s a clip from the Fukuyama episode that’s getting a lot of views:Next, a long dissent over last week’s column, “Can A Cult Become A Movement?”:You wrote: “A figure who could mimic Trump’s broader f**k-it-all style, and focus on substantive policy more than Trump does, and have a record of actually getting s**t done, could conceivably co-opt the Trump populism without the Trump baggage.”You must be joking. How do you propose for Trump’s successor to “mimic Trump’s broader f**k-it-all style” — the “it” apparently including democratic norms, the U.S. Constitution, and America’s 200-plus-year tradition of peaceful transitions of power? Trump doesn’t have “baggage.” Not telling your fiancée that you’ve fathered a child during a drunken one-night stand is “baggage.” What Trump has is a proven willingness to burn everything to the ground rather than do the right thing when said right thing involves any damage to his ego. And here’s the kicker: Trump would not have been able to do what he did had it not been for the approval of the GOP.You seem to believe that Trump is the problem, and as soon as he goes away, we can all get back to normal and pretend the Trump presidency never happened. Sorry to shout in all caps, but this is really freaking important: TRUMP IS NOT THE PROBLEM. TRUMP IS A SYMPTOM.Trump is a symptom of a political party that (with very, very few honorable exceptions) wants to grab onto power and hold onto it, ethics be damned. They stood by while Trump spread vicious lies, tried to pressure a secretary of state into altering vote counts, incited a riot (complete with chants of “Hang Mike Pence”), and continues to act like a victim who has been wrongfully deprived of his throne. Had some combination of his cabinet members and GOP congresspeople told him, “Shut up, you clown, what you’re doing is wrong,” January 6 would not have happened. As Bill Maher said on his show, “It’s time to admit that the Republicans don’t just hate the Democrats; they hate democracy. They hate the player and the game!”And you want them back in the White House? Because Biden is old and decrepit and something about trans children and CRT and inflation? I’m sorry to say it, but you sound like Trump apologists back in 2016: “Yes, Trump did some bad things, but Hillary’s emails! And Benghazi!11!!!11”As for the Democrats, I highly recommend this piece by your fellow Substacker Freddie de Boer. To summarize: Democrats suffer from a “worst of both worlds” scenario. On Twitter and in the media, they are the woke fanatics who want to cancel you for using the wrong pronoun and to teach your children that all cis-het white Americans are the Antichrist. In Congress, they are a coalition of woke activists, centrists, and everyone in between, forced to plead with Romney, Collins, and Manchinema to get anything done. The former is more conspicuous than the latter, and so the average voter gets a mental image of Democrats as crazy extremists, while actual progressives are tearing their hair out in frustration with not being able to save the climate and implement universal childcare.Also, I am well and truly flabbergasted by your juxtaposition of “How awful that innocent children have been murdered with a gun! We must do something about the easy availability of guns in our country!” with “Wouldn’t it be swell if Governor DeSantis [who received an A rating from the NRA] became our President in 2024!”Face, meet palm; head, meet desk.Mr. Sullivan, I know you’re a conservative, and I don’t expect you to be happy about the Democrats’ positions on taxes and abortion and whatnot. But please, for the love of all that is holy, do not let that blind you to the danger that the GOP represents. To answer the question in your headline — Can A Cult Become A Movement? — no. No, it cannot. Not if you want America to remain a democracy. As any longtime reader will know, I have no brief for the GOP. I’ve been harshly criticizing it for decades. I would vote for any Democrat rather than Trump, who remains a profound threat to what’s left of liberal democracy. And even if you think Trump represents the real GOP, I don’t think you can argue that his personal vileness, demagogic genius, and insatiable narcissism didn’t also make a difference. And the fact is: we have two parties, the Democrats have completely bungled their opportunity to recapture a vacated center, and I profoundly oppose their ever-leftward social authoritarianism. As for my reader’s defense of the Biden Dems, it’s no defense. The president knew how slim his Congressional majority was, and instead of working from the center out, as he promised, proposed the biggest spending package in decades, has echoed every extreme left position, from abortion to race to immigration to sex changes for children, misjudged the economy by funneling more borrowed money into an overheated economy with supply restraints, and committed the US to a long war of attrition in Europe which Russia believes it cannot lose. There is no one I can see who can replace him who isn’t even further to his left. I voted for Biden, a moderate. I got a woke extremist who cannot command the country’s attention and clearly hasn’t a clue what’s going on in the country. Do you think he understands why and how he may be pushing more Latinos into the GOP camp? I don’t. Pragmatically speaking, in other words, I’m pretty sure the Dems have handed the country over to the GOP for the foreseeable future, and so I’m trying to see how that can somehow save us from a second Trump term. At this point, that’s my main hope. I’m not happy — but DeSantis could be the least awful option in that context. Do you want Biden to run for a second term? It would be “Weekend at Bernie’s,” but not funny.Another reader recommends a book:I was reading your “Rumblings of Rome” piece and couldn’t stop thinking about How Democracies Die by Levitsky and Ziblatt. According to them, democracies are based on a series of unwritten norms of political restraint followed by all the players. They call this “institutional forbearance” and consider it one of the two pillars of a healthy democracy. (The other is “mutual tolerance.”) Money quote:Forbearance means “patient self-control; restraint and tolerance,” or “the action of restraining from exercising a legal right.” For our purposes, institutional forbearance can be thought of as avoiding actions that, while respecting the letter of the law, obviously violate its spirit. Where norms of forbearance are strong, politicians do not use their institutional prerogatives to the hilt, even if it is technically legal to do so, for such action could imperil the existing system.According to the authors, institutional forbearance legitimizes democracy and keeps it going, but once the players start violating the norms, things fall apart. It’s an awesome book and I recommend it to everyone.It is also happening right here right now. It’s a textbook case of the extinction of liberal democracy. Trump was and is incapable of functioning in such a system, and he made everything far far worse. But the Democrats’ response — to shift drastically to the left and to assault our entire system as illegitimate because it doesn’t reflect majority rule in every respect — has made things worse. The response of the Dems to the GOP view that the system is rigged is to argue that the system is rigged in another way — by white supremacy. Both parties are now run by their extremes which do not believe in the rules more than they believe in their agenda. And Biden’s decision to move far to the left of Obama — when he was elected to do the opposite — has told voters like me that voting Democrat means enabling the far left’s seizure of government as well as every other major institution and corporation.Another reader has a truce proposal for the culture wars:I have always voted for Dems because I’m pro-choice. Right now, I’d vote for someone sane who says, “How about we ban assault weapons in exchange for no abortions after 16 weeks?” I’d be in favor of that — with a heavy heart, since it entails giving up a huge chunk of liberty for women. But it might mean less death all around. Everyone loses something and gains something. But who am I kidding? Not going to happen in our lifetimes. Nope. That kind of horse-trading — like building a border wall in return for amnesty — is only accomplished by a liberal democracy. And that’s now extinct in this country. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Fukuyama is simply the most sophisticated and nuanced political scientist in the field today. He’s currently at Stanford, but he’s also taught at Johns Hopkins and George Mason. The author of almost a dozen books, his most famous is The End of History and the Last Man, published shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. His new book is Liberalism and Its Discontents.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above, or click the dropdown menu to add the Dishcast to your podcast feed. For two clips of my convo with Fukuyama — explaining why we need to pay attention to “the men without chests,” and remembering when the political right championed open borders — head over to our YouTube page.Did you ever catch the episode last year with Glenn Greenwald criticizing Bolsonaro, woke journalism, and animal torture? We now have a full transcript available, if you’d rather read the conversation.Back to Fukuyama, the following meme captures much of the sentiment addressed in the episode:A fan of the Dishcast has been anticipating the episode:You announced a few weeks ago that you’d be interviewing Francis Fukuyama, so I decided to re-read The End of History. While I’m sure you’ve no need of assistance of any kind, I wanted to remind you of why some folks are struck by its prescience. Towards the end, he highlights the potential danger for liberal societies that have solved so many problems — there is no end to the amount of “problems” that a society can then invent:To find common purpose in the quiet days of peace is hard…. [When] there is no tyranny or oppression against which to struggle, experience suggests that if men cannot struggle on behalf of a just cause, because that struggle was victorious in an earlier generation, then they will struggle against the just cause. They will struggle for the sake of struggle. They will struggle, in other words, out of a certain kind of boredom. They cannot imagine living in a world without struggle. If the world they live in is a world characterized by peace and prosperity, then they will struggle against that peace and prosperity … and against democracy.He then refers to some French college-student protests in 1968 against Charles de Gaulle:… [they] had no rational reason to rebel. They were, for the most part, pampered offspring of one of the freest and most prosperous societies on earth. But it was precisely the absence of struggle and sacrifice in their middle-class lives that led them to take to the streets and confront the police … they had no particularly coherent vision of a better society.Like the old Cervantes metaphor — then and now, we see people inventing enemies and problems while they obliviously find themselves “tilting at windmills.”There is no greater example of this, to my mind, than the current LGBTQIA++ movement. Fukuyama and I discuss these people, also known as “the men without chests”:Related to that conversation is a reader email over my recent item, “The Rumblings of Rome”:I enjoyed your take on the faltering mos maiorum of our American republic, and I think you’re onto something important. These values and practices are what keep the system together in times of crisis, and their abandonment is a canary in the democratic coal mine. I know you’ve used the Weimar analogy before, and it is apt: Hitler may have issued the coup de grace to German democracy, but its demise was hastened by powerful elites who in the years beforehand eroded republican norms and removed safeguards to authoritarianism. Certainly the Roman example is also apt, as you convincingly argue here.But what troubles me is a point you make in the linked article in New York Magazine: “But a political system designed for a relatively small city had to make some serious adjustments as its territory and prosperity and population exploded.”  The system was ill-equipped for how Rome evolved over centuries from a city-state to a sprawling empire, and the lack of meaningful reform amplified popular frustrations and opened the door for opportunists like the Gracchus brothers to demagogue, generals like Marius and Sulla to assert political authority, and Senators — desperate to preserve the system — to embrace political violence and thus inadvertently hasten its demise. The system did not evolve enough to meet the challenges posed by expansion, and so people began to reject the system, sometimes for cynical and self-serving reasons, sometimes due to righteous anger born from real suffering, and sometimes in a misguided attempt to save the system from itself.Our America, of course, is vastly different from the Founders’ in any number of areas, and I have often wondered how well our system, even with the amendment process, can respond to the challenges of the 21st century. Especially given our partisan intransigence, our social media echo chambers, and our Super-PAC funded campaigns — things no one imagined in the 18th century — do we really have any chance of meaningful reform on healthcare, welfare, immigration, election integrity, etc.?  To put this another way, democracies work best, I think, when they combine change and continuity — keeping a foot in virtuous traditions while also adapting to new circumstances. If we can’t do the latter, what chance is there to also do the former? I mean, are we fucked?Thanks for your historical thinking on this issue — I try to tell my students that a working knowledge of history is essential to making sense of the modern world. The Sinister Symmetry Of CRT And GRT, CtdReaders continue the debate from this week’s main page over my comparisons of CRT to GRT. This next reader shares a brilliant video on the parallels between right-wing racists and woke racists:Your excellent piece reminded me of this very funny sketch:I recently read James Lindsay’s new book, Race Marxism. His analysis isn’t always watertight, and people have picked holes in the past, but his explanation on page 239 is that this conflict results from the Hegelian dialectical process at the heart of CRT (thesis/antithesis/synthesis):In a very real sense, all of this “alchemy” is meant to reinvigorate the master-slave dialectic in a contemporary cultural and legal context. Indeed, this feature of Critical Race Theory is why so many people rightly perceive that it is, for all its “anti racism” built on an undeniable engine of white supremacy that regards whites as superior, blacks as inferior, and this state being in immediate need of being abolished through critique and multiculturalism. In fact Critical Race Theory defines itself as the antithesis (and method for seeking synthesis) to the systemic “white supremacy” it believes fundamentally organises society …CRT’s version of anti-racism therefore isn’t about a liberal process of using democratic institutions to reduce racism gradually through passing laws and changing public opinion through education. It’s a deliberately confrontational process by which you challenge an idea (racism/white supremacy) with its opposite (antiracism/anti whiteness). We end up in constant racial conflict, as the Hegelians forever continue to restart the dialectic process after every failure they suffer.  This next reader, though, senses a false equivalence:You quoted a reader voicing one of the right’s standard new grievances, about alleged differences in media treatment between the Buffalo shooter and the recent NYC subway shooter. Instead of just nodding along, you should pause for a second and examine this critically, because it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. The Buffalo shooter wrote a manifesto in which he apparently explained that he intended to target black people and why. And then he did so. The NYC subway shooter, in contrast, made some rambling videos expressing a mishmash of racist views, and then, in addition, he shot up a subway. Have you ever been on the subway? Did it strike you as a bastion of whiteness or white privilege? Is it where you would go to try to kill white people (or shoot them in the legs, as he apparently did, for whatever mentally disturbed reason)? Is there any evidence that he selected white people out of the crowd? His attack was just some kind of weirdly disordered thinking, or perhaps intended in a foggy sense as an attack on New York City, whose (black) mayor he had also criticized.I think that’s a fair distinction, especially the choice of target. Another reader claims a false equivalence of a very different sort:I found your latest column unpersuasive. While I like the aesthetic symmetry of “CRT and GRT” as a title, I am not at all convinced there exists an actual intellectual symmetry of the two things as distinct ideas. Yes, both depend on and promote a race-essentialist worldview, and both undermine our nation’s ideals and identity. But that is where their symmetry ends. On a political level, CRT not only claims far more power throughout all our elite institutions, but it also holds responsibility for far more violence and destruction. Which major institution has propagated anything close to GRT? One could make a case for Fox News through Tucker Carlson. I would disagree — as would your podcast guest Briahna Joy Gray, who is on the left. But even so, that is one institution that claims any kind of power in our society, compared to all the others captured by CRT. In terms of violence and destruction, see no further than the summer 2020 riots and the various other attacks motivated by anti-whiteness. Of course, none of this is to dismiss the vile atrocities committed by white supremacists. But I don’t understand why you find the need to draw a false equivalence between the two when one of these evils is clearly a fringe element of our society, with no real threat of spreading further beyond its current limits, while the other already has near-complete elite capture.Also, a minor but important point: you wrote that “Hispanics are originally from Europe.” This is false. The reason Hispanics/Latinos are considered an ethnicity and not a race in the U.S. context is that we are a complete mix of many races. There are Asian Peruvians, Black Cubans, Indigenous Mexicans, White Argentines, and a complete mix of all of the above and more, including mestizos, mulattos, et al. Of course, Hispanics/Latinos (which are not the same circles, by the way; most of Latin America is considered both, but Brazilians are Latinos and not Hispanics, and Spaniards are Hispanics but not Latinos) are united by a common Iberian history, which has resulted in common institutions, heritage, culture, religion, and pair of languages (Spanish and Portuguese). But given the deep, centuries-old mix of indigenous peoples and African slaves and Asian immigrants beyond just Europeans throughout Latin America, it’s just false to claim that “Hispanics are originally from Europe.”Along those lines, another adds:In 2019, Mexican-Americans comprised 61.5% of all Latino Americans, so by and large, when we discuss Hispanics, we are generally discussing Mexican immigrants. Weren’t there a lot of indigenous people in Mexico and Central America at the time of the Conquest? Didn’t most of them have children, so that those children are reflected in current demographic analyses of Mexico?The 1921 census shows Mestizos and indigenous groups as the majority — usually the vast majority — in literally every Mexican state. Numbers of self-reported “white” Mexicans have increased substantially since then (though no explanation is posited for the decline in Mestizo or indigenous populations), but self-identified “whites” still are a minority at 47% of the Mexican population, with 51.5% as either indigenous or “most likely Mestizos.” Frankly, it is likely not the white groups that are congregating at the border. Your explanation seems to assume that Mexico was unpopulated at the time of the Conquest, which is a gross misrepresentation. Thanks for these complications of too breezy a statement. Another reader gets philosophical:I enjoyed your piece this week on CRT/GRT. Also, on Friday I read David Brooks’ piece on conservatism/progressivism, and it made me think of John Keats’ bitter — and ultimately incorrect — epitaph for himself: “Here lies one whose name is writ in water.” That would fit most of those who have ever walked the earth, including most “public intellectuals,” to use your phrase. Humans come and go, and we know damned well that we are likely soon to be forgotten, unless we become a curiosity for ancestry researchers.It strikes me that this is a defense for conservative “philosophy.” We don’t live a life entirely within ourselves. We pay attention to what has gone before. Progressives see a long history of oppression, identify with it, and project it into the future. Conservatives are mindful of the past, in family, ethnicity and faith; even if some of it is wrapped in a flag of “patriotism.” Tradition is important to both sides, for better or for worse. We can’t escape it, so why not find ways to discuss it civilly? Which brings me back to Keats. His eying expression of humility was mistaken. Present-day feelings of certitude, on left or right, are badly in need of humility — and that, I believe, is a conservative thought.Me too.David French On Religious Liberty, CRT, Grace, CtdFrom a “gay, Christian, moderate conservative”:I thoroughly enjoyed your episode with David French, especially since I got to hear the two of you discuss Church of Christ theology at the beginning. I grew up in the Church of Christ denomination and went to a sister school (Abilene Christian University) of the one French attended (Lipscomb). The faith journey you both described is one very familiar to me. My boyfriend also grew up in the Church of Christ tradition and we still feel a certain affinity to it, although it’s obviously not a tradition that affirms same-sex relationships.I loved that the two of you were able to have such a gracious conversation about faith and politics. I enjoy reminders that one’s stance on gay marriage is hardly the litmus test for both conservatism and Christianity that it once was. There’s so much more common ground to explore, and Christianity and conservatism are big enough for differing views — even in the midst of this bizarre cultural climate we’re in.Here’s a snippet of my convo with David: Another listener makes a recommendation:In follow-up to your conversation with David French, could you possibly interview Tim Alberta? His new article in The Atlantic, “How Politics Poisoned the Evangelical Church,” is worth your attention.Indeed. Thanks for the tip. Lastly, a sermon for Sunday:I am an Episcopal priest in Atlanta (though hopefully one not quite as woke as Douglas Murray accuses us of being). If it’s not too bold, I wanted to send you the manuscript of my sermon from last Sunday. The sermon is from a small passage for Easter 6, Revelation 22.3-4: “Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.”I started working on it, and then on Friday I heard the first part of your interview with David French. I think that interview found its way into my sermon, and I know that your ongoing conversations have affected my preaching in a positive way.The manuscript is pasted below, but I’ll close by saying again how grateful I am for your podcast, and I hope that you might consider occasionally having theologians onto your show.  I’ve loved hearing you talk about faith with Cornell West and David French, and I think it might be fascinating to have a systematic theological think through issues like CRT and gender.The sermon in full:“They’re out to get you.”  That’s what the world will tell you, over and over.  “They” — whoever they are — “really are out to get you.”Now, sometimes it’s true.  The world can be a dangerous place, after all.  But usually the message isn’t that they are after you, Jennifer, or you, Meredith, or Kevon, or Rafael, or whatever your name might be.And they’re not after you because of your character or your choices.  The message is that they are after you because of your team, because of your skin color, or where you were born, or your gender.  They’re after you because of what you represent.And again, sometimes it’s true.  Last weekend the threats were real on both sides of our country.Last weekend a young man consumed by evil drove 200 miles to Buffalo to open fire on innocent people.  But not just any innocent people.  He targeted a black neighborhood because he wanted to send a message of hate, a message of terror.  He wanted black people all across the country to believe that they had a target on their backs. And with our history of violence and terror, our black sisters and brothers heard his message.On the other side of the country another man used a gun to send the same message of hate to a different group of people.  In California the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church was enjoying a church picnic when a Chinese-born American citizen walked up and started shooting.The sheriff said the man was motivated by his hatred of Taiwan, and he sent his message of hate and terror to those innocent people.+++The messages don’t always come with bullets, and they aren’t always about race, and they also aren’t limited to one side of our national divide.When you listen with a careful ear to the issues that divide us, what gives them their power is the underlying threat that something of YOUR identity, something of YOUR autonomy, is about to be taken away.“They” are going to take something away from you because of who you are.+++I remember 20 years ago after the Twin Towers fell, the rhetoric on both sides of our political culture was that “they” hated our freedom, hated capitalism, hated democracy.  That “they” were coming for us.Two years later, our church was almost split apart by the debate over same-sex relationships.  For the progressive, the message was that “they” were coming for your right to love who you choose.  For the conservative the message was that “they” were coming to destroy the social values you had been taught were right and good.We hear those threats still today.  The uproar over cancel culture and over excesses in cultural trends doesn’t feel to some conservatives like an interesting social trend; it feels like a threat.  It feels like “they” are telling conservatives,  “We’re coming for you.”On the other side, progressives and especially progressive women heard an old threat earlier this month: “They’re coming to take away control of your bodies.”  When that Supreme Court draft was leaked, the message went forth - “They’re coming for you, they’re coming to take control of your bodies away from you.”In fact, they’re not just coming for your right to an abortion, they’re also coming to take away Obergefell and then Loving and then Brown v. Board of Education.+++So…I’ve been taking some big swings up here this morning, on things that are frankly outside of my area of expertise, and I haven’t said a word yet about God or Jesus or had any kind of gospel message.That’s about to change, but the reason I’m trying to bring up all the touchy stuff is because the call to follow isn’t just for other people and it isn’t just for when somebody cuts you off in traffic. Now let me repeat my disclaimer.  I’m not saying the threats are all imagined, or that they’re all equal.  Sometimes the threat is real.  BUT, in the face of those threats, in the face of the world’s desire to put you on notice that you NEED to be afraid, the question for us this morning is, “Should my being a follower of Jesus affect how I respond?”+++When I was first ordained Bishop Alexander told me to always keep my vows in the correct order. He meant that FIRST I was a baptized child of God, THEN I was Emily’s husband, and THEN I was a priest, and if I remembered the hierarchy of those vows my life would be properly ordered.I haven’t always gotten it right but when I’ve gotten a little unbalanced his advice has helped me get back where I need to be.And Bishop Neil’s advice helped me to see something even deeper:  we all move through the world with multiple identities and we have to keep them in their proper order.In my case I can think of myself as a man, even as a white man, as a Georgian, an American a Christian, a father, a husband, priest, neighbor, brother, and of course a really, really good singer/dancer.Almost all of those identities are important but for me to be who I aspire to be there needs to be a hierarchy to them.  I need to make sure all those identities are properly ordered.+++There’s a distinction in Christianity between being a Creature of God and a Child of God.All of us are Creatures of God.  All of us, every person who ever lived, are creatures of God.  Our first and most important identity is that we are created by a God who loves every single one of us and that, as Fr. Rhett said last Sunday, there’s not a thing you can do about it.And for those of us baptized into the body of Christ, those of us who believe in Jesus as the crucified and risen Lord we have a second and eternal identity - beloved Child of God.+++A properly ordered life embraces those two identities - beloved Creature of God and beloved Child of God - as more important than all the others we have.  And then downstream of those two come all the rest:  gender, sex, family, values, race, creed, and on and on.So am I white?  Am I black?  Am I Taiwanese or Woman or Man or Husband or parent or Democrat or Republican or even American? Yes, I am all of those things and more, but my first identity, the very core of who I am, is always beloved Creature of God, and my eternal hope is not in escaping the threats or defeating my enemies but in holding on to my identity as a Child of God, as a member of the Body of Christ.+++The world will try to disorder your identities.  The world will whisper and then shout fear & danger & division, will try to make your threatened identity the center of who you are.When evil drives to Buffalo, fear will tell you that your first identity is the color of your skin, and that it always will be.When evil drives to a church picnic, fear tells you that your primary identity, your fundamental self is as a pawn in a great ethnic & political strife.When cultural values change, when marriage is redefined, or social programs try to right historic wrongs, or when human laws try to legislate that which cannot be legislated but must be legislated, when they try to balance the rights of the mother and the rights of the unborn, fear will tell you that your core identity is not beloved Creature of God or beloved Child of God, but is your demographic or political or racial or gender identity, and that your response has to come from that threatened self.But Jesus tells us something different.  Jesus tells us to love our enemies.Jesus tells us we are all beloved creatures of God, the just and unjust alike, AND that those baptized into his death and resurrection have an ETERNAL identity greater than anything else about us, an ETERNAL hope that will live  beyond any other understanding of self.+++Our response to Jesus’ message is to understand who we really are and order our identities so that we do not respond to threats as the world does.Our call is to respond as beloved, as BELOVED children of God who share a common humanity and a common creator, and as people whose hope is not in temporary victories but in eternal life.+++It’s not easy.Hate invites you to respond with hate.  Fear invites you to respond with fear.Change makes you want to dig in your heels and hunker down and defend YOUR turf, YOUR way of life, with all that you’ve got.No wonder Jesus said we must give up our lives to follow him.+++In the Revelation to John, Jesus showed John a vision of the heavenly city.  In that city the Children of God had the name of Jesus written on each of their foreheads.Using our language of baptism, they were sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.WE are those Children of God.  Our true identity is not in any of our human distinctions but in the name of Jesus written across our faces.Our task is to understand that truth and to live it, to treat one another with that common heritage as Creatures of God even when we feel threatened by one another, and to teach our children that no matter what the world whispers to them about who they are, their truest, deepest, most fundamental self will always be … Beloved of God. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

David is a political writer and former attorney who took on high-profile cases for religious liberty. He was also a major in the Army Reserve who served in Iraq, and before that he served as president of FIRE, the campus free-speech group. David now writes for The Dispatch and The Atlantic, and his latest book is Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation. Last summer he wrote this wonderful review of my essay collection, Out On A Limb, but this is the first time we’ve spoken.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above. For two clips of my convo with David — on how many political Christians completely miss the point of Jesus, and on the “God gap” within the Democratic coalition — head over to our YouTube page.That convo is a good complement to our January episode with Christopher Rufo (the two have tussled before), so we just transcribed Rufo’s episode in full. Here’s a reminder of his stance on CRT in the schools:Starting around the 30-minute mark in the new episode, David and I discuss the tricky defense of liberalism in the face of both CRT curriculum and anti-CRT bills. We also grapple with the corrosive effects of Twitter and, in particular, the commentary surrounding the racist massacre in Buffalo this week. On that note, a reader writes:I am a member of a mainline Christian denomination and parent of young children. My personal and professional experience of social media is centered on connections with clergy colleagues and active church members attached to a wide variety of Christian denominations. When news of the racially motivated shooting in Buffalo broke, my social media relationships immediately shifted to a flurry of outrage, comments about the pox of racism built into the American way, and pithy memes noting that the root problem of all that ails us is white supremacy.For example, one friend wrote in response to the Buffalo shooting, “The root cause of gun violence is white supremacy. We will not be safe from gun violence until we end white supremacy. White fam, we are the ones who can end white supremacy. It is on us.” Presiding Bishop Michael Curry of the Episcopal Church released a statement decrying the racism behind the shooting. Members of my left-leaning church have asked and encouraged me to preach from the pulpit about the evils of white supremacy and white fragility, especially now in light of the Buffalo shooting. However, I did not hear a thing from these same people or religious bodies following the racially motivated shooting by Frank James on the NYC subway last month. Mr. James has been indicted on federal terror charges after shooting ten people. Were there no official prayers for victims and to end racial violence from religious bodies because no one ultimately died in the subway shooting? Why were there no tweets, memes, or impassioned calls to “do better” after such a horrific, calculated attack? The silence after that racially motivated shooting compared to the outcry after this month’s racially motivated shooting is noteworthy. And essential to the CRT worldview. Racism is unique to white people. Another sign of our racialized culture war comes from this listener:In your episode with Douglas Murray, you mentioned that you had to explain to someone how white people did not invent racism. I serve at the school board in Manhattan and we had the same discussion at our last meeting. The district is pushing a book called “Our Skin” to teach elementary kids how white people invented racism. Money quote:“A long time ago, way before you were born, a group of white people made up an idea called race. They sorted people by skin color and said that white people were better, smarter, prettier, and that they deserve more than everybody else,” the book declares.Here’s how Murray addresses the canard that white people invented racism:On a lighter note, here’s a fan of last week’s episode with Tina Brown:In your conversation about the Queen’s inscrutable nature and unceasing impartiality, you forget one spectacular lapse into utter bias: the 1995 referendum on Quebec sovereignty!Pierre Brassard, a Quebec disc jockey, called Buckingham Palace impersonating the (then) Canadian PM Jean Chretien begging her to support the NO side and, astonishingly, got through to Queen Elizabeth! In the conversation, broadcast live in Montreal, she actually said, “It sounds as though the referendum may go the wrong (!) way...”. She said many other things that were blatantly against Quebec separating and was willing to make a public statement. Here’s the audio (and pardon Elizabeth R’s surprisingly bad French!): While I voted Non and thought the hoax was screamingly hilarious, this referendum was about the self-determination of a nation and she was hardly a glowing example of non-interference and impartiality. Quebec separatists were apoplectic. She wouldn’t even make a clear declaration in favour of the “No” side in the Scottish referendum! Ah, well ... even Captain Kirk broke the prime directive 33 times. Self-determination must be overrated. Here’s Tina on why the best British monarchs tend to be women:Another fan of the episode writes:So I’m a stereotypical NPR-listening, NYT-reading, Anglophilic liberal, happy to watch whatever B-grade pablum PBS airs on Sunday nights, as long as it has a British accent. So of course I fell in love with Downton Abbey. Part of my stereotypical outlook is holding a certain condescension toward the lower-class examples of American culture — you’d never catch me watching a soap opera, for example. But somewhere in the last season of Downton Abbey, it hit me full-on that the show is just a soap opera for snobs. That realization was a nice, bright, uncomfortable look in the mirror. What a hypocrite I am! That said, I can’t wait for the new Downton Abbey movie that opens this week:On the subject of Americans and their relationship with the British monarchy that you and Tina Brown discussed, to me it isn’t very complicated. It’s the embodiment of our cultural heritage, so it represents roots and stability in our land that values change and progress. And the monarchy is sacramental — another quality our society lacks, and which we’ve projected onto the office of the president as compensation. Toggling from listeners to readers, one of the latter writes:I have been thinking a lot about your May 6 column on the SCOTUS leak (“How Dare They!”) and the following week’s large number of reader responses to it. First, I want to say that, although I’m fiercely pro-choice, your column was strongly persuasive and helped me to think about Roe v Wade in a very different way. I love this about the Dish — the way you introduce complexity and nuance to issues that are polarizing and thus typically presented in stark black-and-white terms. But there is one potential detail of your argument that I continue to struggle with. While I accept that, in a liberal society, such issues as abortion should be a matter of debate and resolution via the popular voice, in practice they rarely are — because of the reality of our political system. Because of our two-party system and the primary elections that determine candidacy, most moderate, centrist voters simply do not have a choice to exercise their opinion on a wide variety of issues. They cannot vote individually on issues of substance, in an a la carte fashion. They are forced to accept a homogenous party platform that, in toto, represents the least worst of two extremes. For example, if I am a pro-choice moderate conservative who supports free markets, minimal government regulation, and low taxation, and is concerned about wokeness and CRT, my only choice to cast a vote in support of access to abortion is to vote for a candidate who is antagonistic to these other issues of import to me. You cite statistics in your column indicating broad support among Republicans for a moderate stance on abortion. Yet, I would argue that relatively few of these voters are going to voice that support by voting for a Democratic candidate — especially a far-left candidate — even if this means voting for the far-right opponent. This, then, is interpreted by the GOP as proof that their constituency supports the extreme view held by the majority of the GOP candidates. If we had a center party, I may be more optimistic in sharing your view of things. But as it stands, I feel like our choice is no choice at all.I feel you. But this is unavoidable in a democracy with political parties and winner-takes-all systems. Another reader has a few more laments:I believe anti-abortion-rights activists have not fully considered the consequences of how eliminating legal abortion will impact families. It is almost certain that the rate of child poverty in America will increase if a ban on abortion takes place.  Most of the states which want to ban abortion also have small child-welfare programs. That will result in more children being born into poor economic circumstances.Another thing that will probably happen is an increase in crime. The crime rate in the US has been falling since the early ‘90s, when kids born after Roe first started reaching adulthood. There is a clear link between kids being neglected and unwanted and then turning to crime. This was documented in the book Freakonomics.I believe the pro-choice side will win this debate. But perhaps it will only win when the full, horrifying consequences of banning all abortions — such as in the Oklahoma bill just passed — comes into focus. This next reader goes meta:In your otherwise excellent compilation of reader thoughts about Roe, you had one response I want to quibble with. After quoting one reader, you wrote: “Oh please. This next reader gets specific:” — and then went on with the next quote.I don’t recall what the first reader said, and it doesn’t matter because your response was inappropriate no matter what was said. If you think the reader’s argument has no merit, omit the comment. If you have a rebuttal to the reader’s argument, offer it. Even if you disagree with the reader but lack the time or energy to formulate a proper response, that’s fine too: Just print the comment with no response.What’s not OK, ever, is to reply with just a snarky dismissal and no further comment. That’s rude to the reader, and it makes you look like a dick.That whole big collection of reader dissents was compiled and edited by my colleague, Chris, who does that every week to hold my feet to the fire. I don’t censor the reader criticism he offers — so forgive me the occasional harrumph. Another reader switches topics:I read these two excerpts in your weekly money quotes:“There were also homosexual women at the Pines, but they were, or seemed to be, far fewer in number. Nor, except for a marked tendency to hang out in the company of large and usually ferocious dogs, were they instantly recognizable as the men were,” - Midge Decter, who died the week, on Fire Island in the summer of 1980.“Well, if I were a dyke and a pair of Podhoretzes came waddling toward me on the beach, copies of Leviticus and Freud in hand, I’d get in touch with the nearest Alsatian dealer pronto,” - Gore Vidal, responding to Midge.I had known about Decter’s “The Boys on the Beach” essay for decades, maybe since the late ‘80s, but I had never read it — until a few months ago. I am 66 years old, was practically always out, loved to read all the gay literature, and I have to say, that essay got the pulse of ‘70s gay life and society better than Edmund White (his “States of Desire” was published in 1980 and I still have my copy) or any other commentator I know of, with the exception of Randy Shilts’s “And the Band Played On.”Decter had gay acquaintances, friends, and frenemies, and she saw aspects of gay life with a beady-eyed sharpness and skepticism I wish more of us had had back then. I remember when I officially came out in 1974 at 18, met a couple of good-looking guys in their late 20s/early 30s who, like the vast majority of gay men, talked about sex all the time, with a greater intensity than straight guys I knew. So I asked them how many guys they had been to bed with and they said maybe 500 or 600. Asked them if they were afraid of getting diseases, and they said “no” because they just went to the public health clinic to get a shot. And right there, I sensed that at some point, there would be a gay healthcare catastrophe. I was not the only who had that sense, but it was very censored in the community.I tend to agree about Decter’s accuracy and perception, however laced it was with disgust. It’s a riveting piece — proof that sometimes being alien to a subculture makes you a better observer of it. She and Larry Kramer were essentially on the same page when it came to gay male culture in the 1970s. And yes, the omens were there. And now there’s monkeypox, which seems as if it might have found the same transmission route as HIV. Gulp.Lastly, because we ran out of room this week in the main Dish for the new VFYW contest photo (otherwise the email version would get cut short), here ya go:Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that status in your entry and we will give you a free month subscription if we select your entry for the contest results (example here if you’re new to the contest). Happy sleuthing! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

She needs no introduction — but in magazine history, Tina Brown is rightly deemed a legend, reviving Tatler, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, before turning to the web and The Daily Beast (where I worked for her). Her new book is The Palace Papers. We talked journalism, life and royals.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above, or on the right side of the player, click “Listen On” to add the Dishcast feed to your favorite podcast app. For two clips of my convo with Tina — on Meghan Markle’s epic narcissism, and why women make the best monarchs — head over to our YouTube page. Having Tina on the pod was the perfect excuse to transcribe our popular episode with Michael Moynihan, who used to work for her at The Daily Beast — which also hosted the Dish for a few years. So we’re all old friends. From the Moynihan chat:Andrew: I was talking to Tina Brown about this not that long ago, with the great days of the big magazines in the '80s and '90s. Really, when you look back on that time, it was an incredible festival of decadence and clearly over the top before the fall.Michael: I love Tina. I did a thing — you can look this up — an interview with her, when her Vanity Fair Diaries came out, for The Fifth Column. Just Tina and I sat down and talked for an hour and a half, and it was one of the best things I think we’ve recorded, and got one of the best responses. Because people miss those stories.Perhaps Bill Kristol should check out the clip with Moynihan on how to change your mind on stuff you get wrong:A listener looks back to last week’s episode:Wonderful interview with Douglas Murray, with the two of you riffing off each other with brilliant dialogue. Very warm and affirming as well. I particularly enjoyed your discussion of the religious dimension as one aspect of our present dilemma. I know you would want to provide variety for the Dishcast, but please consider having him on again.Another fan:This was the most memorable episode in a long time (although they are all great). Of course, your dialogue was choir-preaching, and so I need to be careful in avoiding confirmation bias. That said, I found Murray’s elegant way of encapsulating the obvious — which I fail to express myself — truly invigorating. I rewound and listened to many parts several times over. I ordered his book today.Another listener dissents:I find the armchair psychoanalysis regarding ressentiment — as the organizing principle of what is happening in our culture today — to be one of the least compelling arguments made in the episode. Why not go ahead and attribute our perpetual unwillingness in the West to recognize what is great about it to Christianity’s concept of original sin? Or maybe read psychoanalytic literature on why an individual or group of people who are objectively improving might hold onto beliefs of the self or society as rotten? These seem just as likely as Nietzsche’s argument. Ultimately, what a person speculates to be the primary motivator of another person or group reveals a lot. Your speculation that it’s mostly ressentiment suggests you want or need to demonize the CRT crowd. This is tragic given that this is precisely what you and Douglas accuse the CRT crowd of doing. Another listener differs:I don’t agree with everything you and Douglas Murray write, but thank you for talking about the resentment and bitterness that’s driving politics and culture today. It’s gone completely insane. I used to work for a small talent agency, and during the pandemic I coached some actors over Zoom. During the George Floyd protests, one of my clients was up watching the news all night, not getting any sleep. I told her, look, you want to be informed and want to help. But you have to take care of yourself first or you’re no help to anyone. Go to bed and catch up on the news tomorrow. People criticized me for this kind of advice, saying I was privileged, that I just wanted to look away and not examine myself for my own inherent racism, etc. I couldn’t understand why people were being so unreasonable.I’m also a Mormon. After George Floyd was murdered, our ward started to discuss racism. Mormonism has a checkered past when it comes to things like Black men and the priesthood. Or even language in some of the scriptures. These are important conversations that our church needs to have. There were good things that happened, like Black people in the ward shared more about their experiences during meetings. But almost immediately it became weird. The women’s group did a lesson on Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility,” for example. We didn’t actually ever talk about the things I was hoping we’d talk about — how Brigham Young stopped Black men receiving the priesthood, for example. We were just told we all needed to acknowledge our white privilege and feel guilty about it. There was a part about redlining. There was no acknowledgment that some of the white people in this ward lived in low-income housing, basically had nothing, and had been stressed even further by the pandemic. It just felt unnecessarily divisive. I have no idea what the Asian members made of this talk, because it basically excluded them. There were so many holes in these theories, but I wasn’t brave enough to point them out.So it was a real relief to hear you and Murray talk about the way these ideas have infiltrated churches. The Mormon thing is typically like, “God wants you to be happy. Live this structured life, show compassion, work hard, love your family, and be happy.” But the DiAngelo ideas felt like, “you can’t even be saved, at least not if you’re white. Some people don’t deserve to be happy; they should only feel guilt.” It was easier to bring in a fad book and talk about property values than to talk about the awful passage in the Book of Mormon where it says dark-skinned people are cursed, but other people are “white and delightsome.” I felt like the second the door opened to have a serious conversation about the church and race, they immediately jumped the shark instead.From a fan of opera and ballet:Douglas Murray mentioned Jessye Norman and how her obituary was racialized. Well, in January of 1961, Leontyne Price made her Metropolitan Opera debut, and she and Franco Correlli received an ovation that was around 50 minutes long ... possibly the longest in Met history, or among two or three longest. There have been so many great black singers at the Met, such as Shirley Verrett, Kathleen Battle (who was loved by James Levine but whose voice I never liked), Eric Owens, Grace Bumbry, and many others. Here’s a snip of Price’s Met debut:Balanchine choreographed Agon (music by Stravinsky), arguably his greatest dance, for Diana Adams (white) and Arthur Mitchell (black) in 1957. They danced the pas de deux, which is an erotic tangle of bodies. Balanchine wanted the black/white tension. Here is a bit of it:And to my beloved Jessye Norman, whom I saw only once, here she is at her best:Another listener rolls out some poetry:I greatly enjoyed your conversation with Douglas Murray. He is fierce! Your mention of Clive James’s “The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered” reminded me of a similarly minded poem from Nina Puro. (I suspect one of them inspired the other.) I LONG TO HOLD THE POETRY EDITOR’S PENIS IN MY HANDand tell him personally,I’m sorry, but I’m goingto have to pass on this.Though your pieceheld my attention throughthe first few screenings,I don’t feel it is a good fitfor me at this time. Please know it receivedmy careful consideration.I thank you for allowingme to have a look,and I wish youthe very best of luckplacing it elsewhere.Shifting away from the Murray episode, here’s a followup from a intrepid Dishhead:I was excited to see my letter published on the violent toll homelessness takes on communities recently. I’ll be listening to the podcast with Maia Szalavitz soon, and I’ve got Johann’s book on harm reduction to read as well. (I loved the episode with Johann, bought his new book, loved it, and stopped being so online for about a week before backsliding ...)Shortly after I wrote that last letter to you, I realized that I wasn’t satisfied with just writing indignant letters about the bloody cost of complacency on homelessness. It’s really the story of Ahn Taylor — a sweet 94-year-old lady stabbed by a homeless man as she was walking in her neighborhood — that made me understand that complaining is not enough.So I’ve started a non-profit, Unsafe Streets, to take on this challenge. It’s sort of a “Take Back the Night”-style public safety crusade. It’s early days still, but we have a website, including pages for NYC and San Francisco, a Twitter feed, and a crowdfunding campaign. Next on my agenda is to create a page for Los Angeles, a detailed policy platform, and then to recruit a board and apply for 501c3 status.I’ve been keeping up with the Dish when I can (LOVING the conversation with Jonathan Haidt, and I HIGHLY recommend this complementary Rogan episode.) I’ve been busy with the kids and trying to get Unsafe Streets going in my free minutes.She follows up:I just listened to Maia’s episode, and I am pretty unsatisfied with her proposed solutions. Non-coercive acceptance and decriminalization is fine for people who are using drugs they bought with their own money in the privacy of their home. But public drug use, public intoxication, and the associated “quality of life” crimes (public defecation, indecency, etc.) make public spaces unsafe and uncomfortable for everyone else. Laws against these crimes should be enforced, which means arresting people and taking them to jail or some kind of treatment. Injecting fentanyl and passing out on the sidewalk is a very antisocial and harmful behavior, and should not be “decriminalized.”I agree with Maia that this is a complicated mix of addiction and severe mental illness. But I don’t think the cost of housing argument holds up. (A brief scan of the news will show you that there in fact ARE homeless encampments in West Virginia.) I think she was unfair in her characterization of Michael Shellenberger’s proposal, which includes tons of resources to expand access to and quality of treatment. Overall, Maia’s perspective is very focused on the benefit to the addict, but discounts the costs to the surrounding community. Thanks for keeping a focus on this subject!Another listener looks to a potential future guest:Hello! You invite your readers to submit guest ideas here. I submit Kevin D. Williamson — another nuanced “conservative,” Roman Catholic, Never Trumper, and admirer of Oakeshott. Oh, and he was fired after five minutes at The Atlantic for a previous statement about abortion.Thanks for the suggestion. Lastly, because we ran out of room this week in the main Dish for the new VFYW contest photo (otherwise the email version would get cut short), here ya go:Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that status in your entry and we will give you a free month subscription if we select your entry for the contest results (example here if you’re new to the contest). Happy sleuthing! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Douglas Murray is a British writer and commentator, primarily for The Spectator, and his latest book is The War on the West. It’s a powerful narrative of the past couple of decades, in which a small minority waged ideological war on the underpinnings of Western civilization: reason, toleration, free speech, color-blind racial politics. You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player embedded above, or right below it you can click “Listen in podcast app,” which will connect you to the Dishcast feed. For two clips of our conversation — on the seductive power of ressentiment and the case for gratitude, and on many Americans’ ignorance of history outside the US — head over to our YouTube page.My convo with Murray complements the one I had with Roosevelt Montás, the great defender of the humanities at Columbia University and beyond — his episode is now available as a full transcript.As far as last week’s episode with Bari Weiss, an addendum: she used our conversation for her own podcast, “Honestly,” and her version includes at least a half hour of conversation you won’t find in the Dishcast version — namely on the early marriage movement and my role in it. Here’s a snippet from that section:This listener liked the episode:You and Bari addressed the (increasingly popular) argument that if the illiberal left has taken the gloves off, then its opponents should do the same. I thought your response was commendable, and it reminded me of something Hitch said during a debate on free speech many years ago. He referred to the scene from A Man for All Seasons in which Sir Thomas More argues with Roper over whether a man should be arrested for breaking God’s law. It’s a marvellous exchange that I have often reflected upon in recent years:Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man's laws, not God's — and if you cut them down — and you're just the man to do it — do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety's sake.Someone at Reason — Peter Suderman, I think — observed last year that politics is becoming outcomes-based rather than process-based, which expresses much the same point, I think. All of which is a long-winded way of saying that I’m glad you and Bari are willing to stand up for liberalism when so many of your peers have come to view it with disdain.I love that section from A Man For All Seasons. It’s why I chose Thomas More as my confirmation saint. But it’s difficult to know the best way to stand up for liberalism when it comes to gender ideology in schools, as Bari and I discuss in this clip:Another fan of the Bari episode gets more personal:I am the mother of a trans-identifying child — now 23 years old. (I can’t give my name for fear of alienating her.) You captured the rollercoaster of emotions many parents going through this feel — the fear that she has adopted this ideology as a coping mechanism to deal with underlying mental health issues and that she will do irreparable harm to her body. And that we are politically homeless. I can’t vote for anyone who would support Trump. But Biden and his team have it wrong when they quote the lie of “better a trans son than dead daughter.” I agree with DeSantis on many aspects of the so-called “don’t say gay” bill. I don’t think it’s appropriate to discuss sexual orientation and gender ideology with young children. I also don’t think it’s appropriate to review the periodic table with them. That doesn’t mean I'm anti-chemistry. What I wish for my daughter is that she not be beholden to gender stereotypes, that she be comfortable in her own body and that she avoid a lifetime of medical intervention with life-long negative consequences (including infertility) which cannot ultimately transform her into a man. If she were anorexic, we’d have support and options to return her to health. Because her coping mechanism is trans ideology, we get no support from medical or psychiatric professionals, from schools or from most liberals.You captured all that in the podcast. Thanks for getting the word out.Another listener points to another trans story:I saw this interview with an ex-transgender woman and thought you might find it interesting:I found particularly interesting the parts where he indicates that he found a group of “activists” that encouraged him to transition when what he really needed was therapy and sobriety. It’s also interesting that young men/woman fleeing the labels and baggage of “gay” or “lesbian“ may pursue gender reassignment, rather than unwrapping their trauma and accepting themselves for who they are.I just wish all the nuances of this were better aired. Another fan of the Dish anticipated our coverage this week with a “pre-emptive email”:I wonder whether the Supreme Court leak has caused you to reconsider your stance on the culture wars and whether it was the woke who are really the big enemy here. After all, while certain elements on the far left do much damage to themselves and to their own cause, their biggest achievements seem to be about gender-neutral toilets and pronouns, while it is the reactionary right that actively tries to curtail hard-won rights such as the right to vote, or the right to legal and safe abortion. Is it only a culture war when the left does it? Even when you have admitted that both sides are guilty, there seems to be a grudging reluctance to accept that one side is significantly more dangerous than the other, or to pretend as if it was the left’s fault all along and the right was merely reacting to it. Following on from January 6th and the wave of right-wingers across the globe currently dominating our news agenda (Putin, Trump, Bolsonaro, Orban, Le Pen, et al), it seems evident that there is a radical asymmetry in the scale of the threat that each side poses. Yes, there is much on the left that deserves to be called out, but it is nothing like as dangerous or as damaging as the very real risk that our liberal democratic norms are overturned by reactionaries in the name of a kind of Theocratic Nationalism. An approach that says “A plague on both your houses” seems to me the height of fatuity. Who is the bigger threat here, Donald Trump, or Bernie Sanders? There seems to be a skewed kind of moral equivalency going on. It reminds me of those US conservatives who used to say “Yes the Tea Party is terrible and there is real racism, but Obama is just as guilty for stirring them up.” This simply will not do. From the Tories and Brexit, to Putin and Ukraine, Republicans and abortion, is it not clear that everywhere you look at the moment, it is the right — the conservative, reactionary, radical right — that poses a greater and more urgent threat to our democratic way of life? There’s a balance to be struck here — and I’m not saying it’s easy. But the way in which the far left empowers the far right and vice-versa is an important part of the toxic dynamic. I’ll just note that, when push came to shove, I voted for Biden. There is no conceivable scenario in which I would vote for a deranged wannabe-tyrant like Trump. Next up, “a looong-time reader who discovered you in the early aughts”:After a discussion this evening with my housemate I was inspired to look for your It's So Personal threads.  I don't seem to see them in the Substack, and it looks like your dish.andrewsullivan.com site is no longer active. Can you make this thread available to revisit? The whole thread is compiled here. How I framed it at the time:Perhaps the best posts of 2009 were penned by readers, and the most illuminating, gripping and emotional posts were related to late-term abortion, in the wake of the assassination of the abortion doctor George Tiller. I’ve never seen the power of this blog medium so clearly and up-close: one personal account caused a stream of others. How could old-school reporting have found all these women? How could any third-person account compete with the rawness and honesty and pain of these testimonials? It was a revelation to me about what this medium could do.Another listener looks ahead:David French just wrote the op-ed, “A conservative Christian quietly battles against right-wing hysteria,” and he would be an excellent podcast guest.”David is actually scheduled to record a Dishcast later this month, so stay tuned. Another suggestion:Hope you are weathering Covid ok and are feeling better. Suggestion: check out the staggeringly brilliant new essay by N.S. Lyons, “The World Order Reset: China’s Ukraine Catastrophe, the Rise of Trans-Atlantis, and a New Age of Power.” You’ve linked to one of his essays previously, saying it depressed you for a week. You should try to interview this mystery person. Everybody is wondering who Lyons really is. It would be a real coup for your podcast/Substack.Thanks for the suggestion. We’ve actually been in touch. You can send your own guest idea here: dish@andrewsullivan.com. Browse the entire archive for the Dishcast here.Lastly, because we ran out of room this week in the main Dish for the new VFYW contest photo (otherwise the email version would get cut short), here ya go:Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that status in your entry and we will give you a free month subscription if we select your entry for the contest results (example here if you’re new to the contest). Happy sleuthing! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Bari was an opinion editor at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times before leaving to create her own op-ed page on Substack, “Common Sense.” She’s also the author of How to Fight Anti-Semitism, and for some reason one of the most reviled figures on Left Twitter, despite being one of the most gifted editors of her generation. We talk groomers and culture war desperation and the amnesia of recent triumphs.This was a joint podcast, and you’ll be able to hear a somewhat longer version of the discussion next week on Bari’s pod, “Honestly.” You can listen to our version right away in the audio player embedded above, or right below it you can click “Listen in podcast app,” which will connect you to the Dishcast feed. For two clips — on wokeness enabling the far right, and on the agonizing choice when it comes to gender theory in schools — head over to our YouTube page. New transcript just dropped: my conversation with John McWhorter, which is still our most downloaded episode on the Dishcast. We get into his latest book, Woke Racism, and how the successor ideology hurts black kids:First up in Dishcast feedback this week, a “brief note of appreciation from a longtime reader and subscriber”:I’ve been following the Dish since the inception of the blogosphere, and your Substack is a welcome addition to my intellectual life, especially the podcasts, which seem to get better and better. The last two — with Nicholas Christakis and Jonathan Haidt — have been especially wonderful. (I’ve also benefited considerably from Johann Hari’s excellent new book, which has largely taken me off social media). There are episodes that have annoyed me (e.g. the one with Anne Applebaum), but I listen because I don’t want to be part of an echo chamber.Speaking of the Haidt pod, a listener dug up a gem from my favorite philosopher:I appreciated the episode and Haidt’s recent piece in the Atlantic that invokes the Tower of Babel. The essay you mentioned by Oakeshott on Babel was not, as you worried, easily found, but it’s nonetheless attached:The Haidt episode “sparked many new thoughts” from this listener:The word “proportion” was mentioned in passing, but I think that word is crucial to understanding the real dysfunction wrought by social media. We have lost all sense of proportion in this post-Babel world. Whether it’s the trans debate — a conversation that really only affects one percent of the population — or CRT in schools, it’s difficult to talk about these heated culture-war topics while holding them in proportion to the real problems facing our society. The power (or fear) of going viral on Twitter makes proportion impossible, which is one of the reasons why journalism is in such a bad place. Because nuance and context are hard, journalists and media figures — particularly cable news anchors — appear to be simply unequipped to deliver information in a way that holds these things in balance. Consider the Hunter laptop story. Why was this story “buried” by the media? Was it a conspiracy in which corporate elite journalists just didn’t want Hunter Biden to look bad? Or, more likely, do they intuitively understand that in the post-Babel world, they don’t have the skills and tools to talk about this story, which may not have been the biggest of deals but also didn’t look great in the lead up to a pivotal election? They didn’t want “But her emails” 2.0 — another viral story that had no sense of proportion. Most people couldn’t even tell you what, exactly, was corrupt about Clinton’s emails; they just knew they existed because that’s all anyone talked about, and since it was all anyone was talking about, it must be bad, bad, bad! The media simply doesn’t know how to function from a place of nuance; it can’t communicate information in a way that holds that information in proportion to its relevance, context, and importance. Is this the fault of social media and viral dynamics? Is it just really bad journalism? Or do journalists have such a low opinion of the polity that they believe most people won’t be bothered to try to understand complicated stories? Thank god for podcasts!This next listener also tackles Twitter:I think it is worth pointing out, as you have, that Twitter is at best 80 million US users (per Newsweek / Statista in 2021) whereas Twitter reported 38 million monetize-able daily active usage in the US in 2021. This number is probably closer to actual usage to account for dormant / duplicate accounts. Normal Americans, outside of radicals (which aren’t normal), don’t engage in the elite masturbatory thing that is Twitter. I am in a demo that should use it but have never had an account, because I view it as a complete and utter waste of time. The US Census has the 2021 population at 330 million with 22% under 18 (call it 73 million). I assume some portion of those are on Twitter, but they can’t vote. At the low end, that leaves 180 million voting Americans not on Twitter. So I think it’s worth reiterating that Twitter is not real life (or a majority of voters). If you were to break it down by ideological lines, I am sure it is further skewed in one direction, you needn't guess which. Today’s “journalists” investigative efforts often seem to largely rely on copy pasting tweets as the “public reaction” — it is no wonder why they are out of touch. Furthermore, as Jesse reminded us during this week’s freakout over Elon Musk buying Twitter, “Twitter Is Not America”:In the United States, Twitter users are statistically younger, wealthier, and more politically liberal than the general population. They are also substantially better educated, according to Pew: 42 percent of sampled users had a college degree, versus 31 percent for U.S. adults broadly. Forty-one percent reported an income of more than $75,000, too, another large difference from the country as a whole. They were far more likely (60 percent) to be Democrats or lean Democratic than to be Republicans or lean Republican (35 percent).This next listener dissents over the Haidt convo:I try not to be a scold, but sometimes the temptation is too great. Early in your talk you talked about how you didn’t understand young kids these days — why they are killing themselves at a high rate, since everything for them is so much better than it was in the old days. It sounds just like all of us old guys not getting youngsters. Haidt did talk about how he learned to approach unfamiliar cultures like an anthropologist — a good place to start for us old folks. While I agree with you about the proliferation of gender types, it was not so long ago that homosexuality raised the same kinds of questions that you ask, and it was looked at the same way. Some people questioned the reality of such a thing, or saw it as a simple choice that perverse people made, or as a psychiatric illness that required treatment, and of course as a crime. I don’t think you intend to imply any of those things, but you do seem to veer in that direction. How people’s identity is created is still an open question — and someday we may know more. That said, I agree with you that medical interventions for children is very very premature and should not be happening. Let people grow up first. You seem to imply that biology supports a simple dichotomy, but sexual expression is more complex than that. As for cultural/religious acceptance, Joseph Campbell, in The Hero Of A Thousand Faces, discusses some civilizations that saw gender as fluid and containing both male and female elements.One more thought: although Plato then, and others now, did raise questions about democracy, I fear that the Republican answer is to emulate the worst counter-examples, such as their current infatuation with Orbán’s near dictatorship. Prof. Haidt mentioned Karen Stenner’s work, The Authoritarian Dynamic, in which she reports that 20% of the population has an authoritarian personality type. She also talks about the conditions that stimulate it to express itself — fear and anxiety, the kind that is stirred up by demagogues and unscrupulous politicians, namely Trump. Stenner’s book also has suggestions on how to tamp down the fear. Maybe a conversation with her is in order.Thanks for the tip. My best response to my reader’s first point is probably at the beginning of my chat with Bari, where I try to make distinctions between the gay and trans movements, and why the conflicts are inevitable and intrinsic. As for fluid gender, I agree! I don’t believe in a gender binary, just a sex binary. In fact, one reason gender expression exists at all — and is comprehensible at all — is precisely its tension with a fixed, binary biological reality. But I also think this over-states the relevance of “gender identity” for the vast majority of humans. Most of us don’t get up every day thinking of how we are a man or a woman and where we fit on a spectrum — because we don’t really have many conflicts. This looms much larger for trans people for whom it is a daily challenge, and to a lesser extent for gay people whose affect contrasts with the stereotypes of their sex. But for most of us, our gender expression is simply our personality packaged in a binary form of biology. And this isn’t just on a scale of Barbie to G.I. Joe. And seeing it that way — as gender ideology does — strikes me as a regression, not a way forward.This next listener “loved the Haidt interview, except for one jarring bit”:You pronounced the Chinese as stupid for suddenly pursuing Zero Covid. Here’s a scary possibility: They know something you don’t know. Suppose the Chinese detected a Covid variant with a 20% death rate, rather than 1.5%. Gotta save face, gotta stamp it out. What we’re seeing is a reasonable consequence. Or it could be a variant immune to SinoVac. I’m not laughing at them, and, with difficulty, not yet condemning them. I’m worrying.Chill, baby, chill. The chances of a virus crossing from animals to animals to humans in the next decades of rapid climate change is very high. The chances of it wiping out humanity is not negligible. F**k with the planet the way we have, and the planet is at some point going to f**k you. I know this sounds fatalistic — but in my adult lifetime, I’ve contracted two new viruses, both of which have killed millions. This next listener worries about the political center in America regaining control:There was much to agree with in your Dishcast with Haidt about the effects of social media, particularly with regards to how it amplifies polarization. But this analysis feels a bit like blaming kerosene for a fire instead of the arsonist. The biggest share of responsibility for where we are today lies at the feet of the center-right, center-left, and the institutions that supported them. Free trade, the war on terrorism, the Iraq war, the financial crisis, and the extremely tepid recovery thereafter were all the brainchildren of the center and various elite institutions. They have been complete and utter disasters for most Americans. What is more, the outright refusal of many to take accountability for these disasters — indeed the doubling down and moralizing tone in Haidt’s defense of the center — only leads to greater resentment and polarization. If these are the people who are expected to lead us into brighter days, we are doomed.Point taken. Lastly, a listener looks ahead to our next episode:First I wish you a speedy recovery from Covid and your hip surgery. Please do rest sufficiently; I know a lot of people who neglected to do that and are now paying the price.I am a recent subscriber. After listening to a gazillion of your podcasts on Spotify, I realized it was the decent thing to do! Although I do not always agree with you (especially on the EU, which you seem to misunderstand), I want to thank you for your work and for broadening my horizons, i.e. about gay culture, which I ignorantly thought was synonymous with gay pride parades. And please continue to invite people you disagree with — it’s such an important message, even though, frankly, those episodes are not always the most interesting ones.Since you are talking to one of my intellectual heroes in your next episode, Francis Fukuyama, I was wondering if I could suggest one or two questions. His End of History and the Last Man is still widely misrepresented by people who either never read it or willingly distort it. Fukuyama is actually one of the very few people who foresaw the possibility of what we are going through now — in that very book. Yet his responses to these deeply ignorant and unfair criticisms are, in every interview of him I have ever read or heard, unfailingly courteous, measured and constructive. I am just wondering how he does it. I would have blown my top. Where does he get the energy?Although of course he’ll talk about his latest book, if I can make an additional suggestion, please get him to talk about Political Order, his magnum opus in two volumes, and how he responds to the very different views developed in Graeber and Wengrow’s Dawn of Everything. I look forward to hearing you again, when you feel better!Yes, he’s a model of reason and restraint. And thanks for the tips. We won’t have time to debate his many works, but I’ll do my best. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Haidt is a social psychologist and Professor of Ethical Leadership at the NYU Stern School of Business, and he co-founded Heterodox Academy. His latest book is The Coddling of the American Mind, but our discussion centered on his new piece for The Atlantic, “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid,” a history of social media.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or click the dropdown menu to add the Dishcast to your podcast feed). Read the full transcript here.  For two clips of our convo — on why the Internet nosedived in 2014, and what we could do to fix Twitter — head over to our YouTube page.For more on the precarious state of the liberal order, check out the full transcript of our episode with Jonathan Rauch we just posted. Jon being the optimistic liberal and me the pessimistic conservative, we debated Trump, the MSM, and Russiagate.Meanwhile, a listener remarks on last week’s episode:If Dr. Christakis’s appearance was part of a book tour, it worked on me. I’m going to buy his latest book. I’m reminded again of all the significant voices I’ve heard since I subscribed to the Dish. If I fail to resubscribe in the future, it will be only because I didn’t know that payment was due. I’ve definitely got my money’s worth from this subscription.Here’s a clip of Christakis and me talking about why friends — especially male friends — rip on each other:Here’s another listener on the “wonderful interview with Professor Christakis (a personal hero of mine)”:Your comment about the uniqueness of Christianity, with respect to love, rather surprised me. Are there not very revolutionary (and non-obvious) similar attributes in Buddhism? Or even certain aspects of Judaism (or any number of other philosophical/religious traditions that predate Christianity)? That somehow the faith that you happened to be raised in is the system that uniquely changed the world seems, frankly, a bit parochial to me. And if it did change the world, why was it that it took another 1700 years for its promises to be at all realized? (Full disclosure: I’m partial to Pinker’s argument that the Enlightenment was the singular inflection point in history.)  So my first request would be for you to interview an academic with broad knowledge of other faiths/philosophical systems to have a conversation (not a debate!) about the uniqueness of Christianity (and as you mentioned in the interview, the Catholic church). If that treads on your personal belief, then I would certainly understand your reluctance to have such a conversation.My second request is that you would have an interview with an academic about theodicy. While I’ve read a number of layman’s discussions of this topic, I’d love to hear an honest, intellectual discussion on this subject.I didn’t mean to suggest that the Buddha wasn’t also deeply instrumental in shifting human consciousness. Judaism and Islam also have deep traditions of mutual respect and love. But the radicalism of agape, a universal love to be expressed in action every minute, across tribe and race and region, is one of Christianity’s core legacies. Theodicy was well-covered on the Dish blog, but a pod convo is a great suggestion. This next listener finally got around to our December episode with David Wallace-Wells on Covid — a topic that Christakis and I covered last week:I'm a bit late in feeding back on this interview, but I just caught up with it on my daily dog walk this morning. David is obviously very well-informed on Covid and seems (as you note) to be an “honest broker” of information, which is relatively rare nowadays given the extent to which everything is politicized. That said, I was taken aback that he was unaware of where Covid ranked in terms of causes of death in America today. Heart and stroke and cancer both kill far more people than Covid (approximately 850K and 600K per year, respectively). Interestingly, we seem to have learned to live with these levels of systemic death, much of which could be prevented through lifestyle changes.You covered a lot of Covid ground and I was pleased to see that David avoided the standard condemnation of alternate public health approaches in some red states (Florida et al) and countries such as Sweden, acknowledging that Covid presents complex issues and the solutions are not always clear. One size does not fit all. By now it should be obvious that the widespread condemnation of the Trump administration’s Covid actions was misplaced and utterly political. In fact, America, under two administrations, has pursued most of the same policies as the rest of the world with middling success. And the results have not been markedly better (or worse) in 2021 than in 2020.I thought you shortchanged the whole discussion of therapeutics and failed to even mention the appalling fact that we are now two years into the Covid epidemic and there is still no standard, effective protocol established for early, outpatient treatment. There are countless studies showing that many lives could have been saved by simply promoting safe, readily available, over-the-counter therapeutics like vitamin D to strengthen immune systems and regular nasal wash to kill viral particles at the point of entry (the nasal passages) before they have a chance to circulate and replicate.  Nor was there even a mention of the successful therapeutic efforts of doctors like Tyson and Fareed in California. There are many other examples around the country of doctors using cheap, repurposed drugs (anti-inflammatories, anti-virals, etc.) with excellent safety profiles to successfully treat Covid patients. Rather than sharing these stories, we hear endlessly about the next dose of experimental vaccine and expensive new pharmaceuticals with significant side effects and no long-term safety records.In summary, the Wallace-Wells interview provided listeners with a fairly thorough summary of the current, approved Covid narrative, but failed to even acknowledge the contrarian views of tens of thousands of medical scientists and practitioners around the world who have signed the Great Barrington Declaration, rejecting the damaging public health approach taken throughout most of the developed world (lockdowns, quarantine, mass vaccination during a pandemic, etc.) — an approach that ran counter to virtually all established public health policy for handling epidemics.Speaking of going against the conventional wisdom on Covid, Jerusalem Demsas has a great piece on “the four pandemic predictions about the economy that never materialized”: the eviction tsunami, the “she-cession,” the housing-market crash, and the state- and local-government deficit explosion.Listeners are still gushing over the Fiona Hill episode:I absolutely adored your interview with Ms. Hill. Your camaraderie was delightful, and I loved hearing about how she and you both took your tests and were admitted to gifted school programs. I loved her take on Putin as well. And Trump:But the biggest highlight of your discussion, in my opinion, was at the end where you both suggested ideas for how to get America out of the quandary we now find ourselves. I read/hear far too often about how we got here and what the problems are and far too little about what we should do about it. I loved the idea of strengthening unions and investing in small communities. I could easily see either a Republican or Democratic candidate who ran on a platform that tries to seriously tackle wealth inequality and our failing local communities winning an election by a landslide. Andrew Yang perhaps? Whoever it is, this is the time for a new kind of New Deal. We need new ideas and new leadership. I’m almost to the point where I simply will refuse to vote for anyone over 60. In any case, thanks for actually making a case for potential solutions instead of just wallowing in what ills us as so many others have done.This next listener, though, thinks I’m not focusing enough on tangible stuff: You should talk about material issues. Most of the young people in France support Le Pen (per Eurointelligence). Young people around the world are turning to left- and right-wing populism (Boric in Chile, Orbán in Hungary, etc.), since centrist politics have failed them. Why is this? Financialization of the economy, cutthroat competition in the labor market with mass immigration, elite overproduction, deindustrialization, decline of labor unions, austerity, and the rise of China. You will not have any “liberal democracy” to preserve if you do not address material issues. If you are my age, you have lived through one elite failure after another, with politics dominated by the boomers. What do you have to lose by voting for the political “hand grenade”? Completely rational.As always, keep the dissents and other commentary — including guest recommendations — coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com.Because we just ran out of space on the main page for the new contest photo (Substack has a space limit for emailed versions of posts), here’s the new challenge this week:Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that status in your entry and we will give you a three-month sub if we select your entry for the contest results (example here if you’re new to the contest). Happy sleuthing!The results for last week’s window are coming in a separate email to paid subscribers later today. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Nicholas is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale, where he directs the Human Nature Lab and co-directs the Yale Institute for Network Science. His latest book is Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live, and also check out Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society. We talk Covid, plagues, and friendship as a virtue.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player embedded above, or right below it you can click “Listen in podcast app,” which will connect you to the Dishcast feed. For two clips of my convo with Nicholas — on how the two plagues of AIDS and Covid are different, and on the mutual abuse that strengthens a friendship — head to our YouTube page.Also, heads up: a new transcript is here — for the popular episode with Dominic Cummings. The architect of the Leave campaign had a rare podcast discussion with me, and now you can read it in full.Here’s a clip of Cummings describing his split with Boris:Speaking of brilliant Brits from County Durham, last week’s episode with Fiona Hill was also a big hit with listeners. Here’s one:Just an utterly lively, entertaining, informative interview — and not only regarding Eastern Europe. I loved getting to hear about your respective experiences growing up in different parts of England. Bravo!Here’s a clip of Fiona and me talking about our mixed feelings over leaving home:Another listener:I thoroughly enjoyed this interview with Fiona — and you did too, I could tell. I can’t always grab the nettle of the Newcastle accent, but I could listen to that woman for hours! The Ireland-Ukraine analogy gave me a lot to consider. That insight alone was worth the listen. Let me suggest one more interesting (if more obscure) analogy: James Madison’s ill-considered and ultimately failed invasion of Canada in 1812-13. I imagine David Frum, a good Canadian lad, will be able to comment on the similarities between Putin’s misbegotten “strategy” and Madison’s “war-hawk” fantasy about liberating the United Empire Loyalists from the Crown. (Oh-boy, did he get that one wrong!)Another reader jumps on my response to a dissent last week:“Yep, it was Obama who turned Aleppo into a graveyard...” This is glib and beneath you. The reader was referencing the fact that Russia was given a base in Syria and its combat aircraft now operate there on account of the deal Obama struck with Putin after his “redline” was crossed and he needed a way out. No, Obama wasn’t solely responsible for the debacle in Syria, but he was responsible for Russia now being there (necessitating Israel coordination with Russian military).This next reader goes another round over Churchill:You wrote, “But Churchill? One of the greatest statesmen in history equated with the worst president in history? Nah...” Winston Churchill was a magnificent, stalwart wartime leader. Yes, from mid-1940 through late-1941, he may have been the single most important person frustrating the war aims of the Third Reich. And from 1942 to 1945, he managed to keep Britain sitting at the same table as the US and the USSR. But Churchill was a failure as a war strategist — from the Dardanelles fiasco in the First World War to the “soft-underbelly” Italy slog of the Second. And it was hardly statesmanlike of him to insist on overriding military professionals and screwing things up in the process. But your “one of the greatest statesman in history” claim is most inapt when we look at post-war Churchill and his opposition to decolonization and the dissolution of the empire. He was way too slow, way too begrudging.I still agree with 84.3% of everything else you say.Haha. Any decent assessment of Churchill should contain some of his giant flaws. But still … A fan of the Dishcast asks, “Why don’t you have more academic philosophers on your podcast?”Your episode with Jim Holt was great (though he is not an academic philosopher, he seems to know his way around many issues), as was the Kathleen Stock episode. But I think it would be really nice to mine this field of philosophy for great discussion. People like Brian Leiter, Alex Byrne, Robert Paul Wolff, and Becky Truvel would make great guests. There is so much going on in academic philosophy that can be interesting and deep, and I think your listeners could really benefit. I mean, if you could get a Alasdair Macintyre or Charles Taylor, that would be incredible. But I’d settle for just about anything — even another visit with Holt.We have had on academic philosophers, such as Cornel West, as well as academics talking philosophy, such as Roosevelt Montás and Steven Pinker, but thanks for the recommendations. Back to the Jim Holt episode, this next reader, responding to the loving criticism that Jim and I leveled at Hitch, crafts a lengthy defense:Thank you for inviting us to listen in on that conversation, particularly the reminiscences about Christopher Hitchens. I often visit his old lectures, interviews, and debates via YouTube — either to learn something or just for a laugh. Hearing from those in his private life always adds an extra dimension to even some of those public events, and it’s much appreciated. Some skepticism of his work recently re-emerged, ten years after his death. In particular, via the Dish, I read the Douthat piece on Hitchens being a “victim of decadence,” and now Holt has raised some similar points: Was Hitchens too often wrong? Was he merely a contrarian? Or was it that, as Douthat puts it, “his great talents were expended on causes that have not exactly stood the test of time”?Douthat and Holt each reference the war in Iraq, of course, because that’s a piece of low-hanging, ripe, juicy mainstream opinion fruit. But even if society has concluded the war was in error, were Hitchens sentiments wasted here? I’m not so sure. While I was always deeply skeptical of the war, I did find myself pausing to think over his empathetic stance on freeing Iraqis from a psychopath, often articulated from the vantage point of the Kurds — a perspective far too humane to have ever eked through Dick Cheney’s pursed lips. Such thinking, rooted in freeing an oppressed people, is hard for me to view too harshly and impossible for me to consider totally aligned with the hawks, who were probably designing the Mission Accomplished banner before a single boot touched the ground.Hitchens’ legacy perhaps ought not be defined by any particular issue or essay, but by that theme of liberation, argued over a lifetime. His work was often based on what he called socialism — but was, whatever the name, a keen eye cast toward the disenfranchised, overlooked, and oppressed. While he possessed an elite mind who graduated from elite institutions and wrote for elite publications while hosting parties for elites, he nonetheless managed, in his writing, to stand apart with those who felt apart.We’re privileged that the Dishcast gives us access to the minds of such elites — the Frums and Applebaums — to comment on the world around us. But they are also part of the elite machinery that erected that world, and it shows in their commentary. Hitchens’ ability to convey a more humanistic worldview remains a necessary rarity. Without most of the naïveté of today’s left, he forcefully challenged conventional assumptions and narratives popular among the elite, even as he ostensibly made plans to get drunk with them.Perhaps to the mind of his detractors, Hitchens’ brand of commentary missed the mark or felt cheap in some way. Indeed, Andrew, you seemed dismissive of his opinions on impeaching Clinton. But as seemingly half of Substack bemoans the crumbling of liberal institutions, it’s worth remembering that Hitchens was one of the best at pointing the finger at the moldy hypocrites rotting those institutions from the inside. When Hitchens commented to you that “all” the US presidents should have been impeached, I heard at least a kernel of truth that presidents have barely, if ever, been held accountable for a very long list of scandals, abuses of power, wars, wastes of public money, et cetera. It’s fair to say that Hitchens did more than take down liars, dictators, and hypocrites; he also exposed us to the plights of people around the world with an empathy and urgency that could only come from someone who visited North Korea, walked among the Kurds, voluntarily waterboarded himself, or worked alongside Cuban coffee farmers. Was some of this contrarianism (or even performance art), as you two speculated? There’s certainly reason to wonder.However, it’s hard to see mere performance when watching him on old episodes of Firing Line. It’s hard to see mere performance when reading his exploration of the effects of Agent Orange. Or chastising his own on the left, too eager to overlook 9/11 as America’s fault. Or seeing him continue to reflect and share so much as he was dying.Even I, an obvious admirer of his, bristled on occasion at his smugness, as I did when you recalled to Holt his seeming delight in your drifting from the Catholic Church. And I take Holt’s point about cherry-picking easy targets in the American Bible Belt as he crusaded against religion. Though to be fair to Hitchens’ late life tirades against religion, he also took on every religion and many better armed foes than American evangelicals — my favorite of which has to be this endlessly entertaining Munk debate with (slaughter of?) Tony Blair:For whatever flaws one can find, I still cherish his humanistic approach, and while I must concede that I didn’t hear you or Holt specifically criticize that, I also didn’t hear much discussion of it at all. To my ear, the critical tone examining some of his work did feel both nitpicked and cherry-picked. I suppose that’s understandable in the confines of what felt more like a chat with and about old friends than a typical podcast.I’m most grateful for this homage to Hitch. And I agree with it — especially the humanistic and democratic impulse that suffused his work. This was a man who would engage anyone, who could be found still chatting with students hours after he’d given a talk, whose dinner table was a constant symposium. Holt and I were being a little mischievous — if only because some have idolized a man who hated idols. One more listener this week:When your conversation with Jim Holt turned to being gay and how today’s gay youth come of age in an accepting environment, I had the impression that you were trying to get Jim to admit that through almost universal societal acceptance, the gay community lost something. Are you in some way nostalgic for a time when being gay was a form of otherness? I’m not nostalgic in any moral way. I don’t want to go back. But there was something lost — inevitably. Our reader may want to check out my 2005 essay, “The End of Gay Culture.” It’s included in Out On A Limb, my collection of 30 years of writing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

Fiona Hill was an intel analyst under Bush and Obama and then served under Trump as senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council. Currently a senior fellow at Brookings, her new book is There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the 21st Century. She also co-authored a book called Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin. It was a really pleasant chat — especially talking about our parallel paths from Britain to America. You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or click the dropdown menu to add the Dishcast to your podcast feed). Read the full transcript here. For two clips of my convo with Fiona — on why a self-reliant country would pick a tyrannical ruler in Trump, and on the pathos of leaving your hometown for more opportunity — head to our YouTube page. Also, heads up: a new Dish transcript just dropped, this time with Cornel West — who believes, unlike Jon Stewart and his panelists, that “we’ve got to fight the notion that whiteness is reducible to white supremacy.” The Christian socialist is a powerful foe of tribalism:Below are many readers over my latest column, “The Strange Rebirth Of Imperial Russia.” First up, the dissenters:You wrote, “But Putin is not without allies. China, Brazil, India, Israel — they’re all hedging their bets, alongside much of the global South.” That was an excessively glib statement on your part. Israel? I think you need to back-up and examine this. In terms of the politics of Middle East conflict, Israel has been successfully Finlandized by Russia, severely circumscribing its freedom of movement in matters military and diplomatic.The tenor of discussion within the Jewish State on this very topic is brisk and contentious. Israel is the ultimate democracy — the acme of public democratic input, sometimes to a fault. I know you are no friend of what I would call the Jewish National Project, and I don’t expect you to be. I’ve taken your measure on this subject long ago. But I do expect you to be better informed and for your critiques to demonstrate greater political acuity.Yes, Israel has been seriously compromised diplomatically re: Ukraine by the godfather role Russia plays in Levantine politics, but it has nothing to do with “ally” status. The Russian hand is inside Israel’s pants and clutching its balls.  There is no alliance.I am absolutely a friend of the Jewish National Project. My issue is with the way Israel treats the United States, and the completely lop-sided nature of that relationship. I think it’s deeply unhealthy for both parties. Another dissenter asks:Why do you keep accusing Israel of supporting the Russians? It was Obama who placed Russia on Israel’s border (the war in Syria) and Israel has to coordinate with Russia to prevent Iranian missiles. Stop your simplistic view.Yep, it was Obama who turned Aleppo into a graveyard and Biden who invaded Ukraine. Please. A much longer dissent on Israel:I believe your characterization of Israel grossly misrepresents the extremely difficult position it has been in since Russia invaded Ukraine. First, 43 countries did not vote in favor of calling on Russia to end the war in Ukraine, but Israel voted for the UNGA resolution demanding an end to the unconscionable violence. Query why you thought to include Israel on your list of Russian “allies” and not Armenia, Cuba, South Africa, Iran, North Korea or Vietnam — to name only a handful of the 43. Second, Israel has provided a significant amount of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, including setting up an Israeli-staffed field hospital in the Lviv region, sending over 100 tons of medical supplies, hospital generators, water purification systems, winter coats, sleeping bags and other items, assisting fleeing Israelis and Ukrainian Jews seeking to move to Israel, and taking in non-Jewish Ukrainian refugees who are not eligible or looking to immigrate to Israel. Thousands of Russian- and Ukrainian-Israelis have also come together in Tel Aviv and other major Israeli cities to protest the war. For a small country of approximately nine million citizens, Israel is punching far above its weight in aid and support provided to Ukraine. This level of humanitarian commitment is obviously not being provided by the other countries you listed as Russian “allies.” Israel is walking a thin tightrope between the two countries. Prime Minister Bennett is at the forefront of global efforts to end the fighting and serve as a mediator, while also in the unenviable position of having to protect large Jewish communities in each country and the interests of his own nation (keep in mind the need to avoid provoking Syrian-based Russian troops on Israel's northern border).I recognize that this is a lengthy response to just one sentence in your column, but I think it’s important. It’s a false moral equivalence to say that Israel is “hedging its bets” with Russia; rather, the more accurate framing is that Israel is doing its best to uphold its Jewish and democratic values as a “light unto the nations” while also taking into account its own interests — which it cannot be faulted for, given that we know what happens to Jews when they don’t have a country committed to protecting the Jewish people.Speaking of threats to the Jewish people, Sam Ramani last week addressed the presence of neo-Nazis in Ukraine:This next dissenter shifts gears:You are spot on with your latest column — except in this one regard: Russian imperial/nationalistic mysticism. With roots going back hundreds of years, Russian mysticism does NOT always rely on historical Mongolian roots for its exceptionalism. Rather the opposite: it locates exceptionalism where it can find it. You should look up the doctrine of the Third Rome — which dates, as I remember it, to something like the 14th or 15th Century.  Sure. I was talking specifically about Gumilev’s and Dugin’s weird alternative. Another reader looks to Christianism:Your take that the church in Russia is a “Christianist” tool is shared by many Western church leaders. This op-ed explains what’s happening in the non-Russian world of Orthodoxy in reaction to Kirill’s support of Putin and his ideology.Another continues a previous dissent thread:In response your reader comparing Trump to Churchill, you wrote:The second is that comparing Trump to Churchill is obscene. Maybe if Churchill had joined Hitler in the early 1930s to endorse occupying the Sudetenland, we’d have a parallel, or if he’d praised Nazi intelligence over MI5. But I think you ran right past one of the dissenter’s main points. The dissenter listed a number of policies and actions Trump took or advocated that were indisputably hostile to Russian interests: increased US energy production, attempts to export LNG to Europe, pushing for more NATO spending from other members, etc. It’s hard to think of an actual policy Trump enacted or advocated that served Russian interests. Many, including you, point to his statements in Helsinki, but we know years later that he was basically right that US intelligence got the entire Russia story dead-wrong (and that active and former intelligence officials got the Hunter Biden laptop story dead-wrong).Joe Biden, on the other hand, has made North American energy production more difficult, approved pipeline construction into Germany, said that the US would essentially tolerate a “minor incursion” into Ukraine, and taken other actions that the Russians surely could not believe their lucky stars would be taken by an American president. Yes, he’s gotten onboard with heavy sanctions, but recall that his approach was minimalist at first (recall, we needed to wait “around 30 days” to see if the initial sanctions were enough). And Biden only agreed to heavier sanctions after Western Europe began imposing them.So, it’s difficult to reconcile the actual public record with your retort to last week’s dissenter that Churchill could only be compared to Trump if Churchill had “joined Hitler . . . to endorse the Sudetenland.” The record seems, if anything, to point precisely in the opposite direction.My reader’s points about Russian policy under Trump are dead-on. It’s one reason I find the whole collusion narrative unpersuasive. But Churchill? One of the greatest statesmen in history equated with the worst president in history? Nah. And lastly, more on biolabs!The explanation for this is easy. I am somewhat familiar with the program, since a close friend was the scientific director of a similar US program in another relevant country. The idea really was to employ biologists and people with the relevant lab experience in the former Soviet Union — while also tracking pandemic threats to livestock. As this friend — an experienced veterinarian (and not a US national, indicating that this was not a secret program) — explained, “a single person with third-semester laboratory skills could do massive amounts of damage to US and Western agriculture.” For that reason, the labs were put into place from Ukraine across the Caucasus to Central Asia as an employment opportunity. And yes, there was a degree of hush-hush about it, because the idea was not to loudly advertise the threat one was worried about.But you don’t have to take my word for it — a respected media outfit with experienced people on the ground has broken down the story, here. I do think it is important to get the story about all of this out there, against the somewhat deranged claims. Happy to help get the word out. As we mentioned on the main Dish, because the main column was so long this week, packed with so many links, we ran out of space on that page — otherwise the emailed version of the Dish would be cut short in readers’ in-trays. So our weekly recommended reading “In the Stacks” and the next window contest is seen below. In The ‘Stacks* Is Putin, in fact, winning? Biden’s mouth has become a minefield.* For Dems in the New York Assembly, it’s pay equity for thee and not for me, and it’s probably a broader trend.* When it comes to “the race game,” Michael DC Bowen wants out. He calls for “personal deracination” — a kind of Benedict Option.* Major props to Filipovic for going to Notre Dame to “debate issues I don’t believe should be up for debate” — abortion — and for “doing the slow work of change.”* What’s worse than banning books? Snuffing them out before they hit the page. * Ever heard of Mercy Otis Warren? A Founding Mother of sorts.* After getting squeezed out of the NYT and going through the censorship of Russia Today in the East and YouTube in the West, Chris Hedges finds a safe haven in Substack. Welcome!The View From Your Window ContestWhere do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that status in your entry and we will give you a three-month sub if we select your entry for the contest results (example here if you’re new to the contest). Happy sleuthing!The results for last week’s window are coming in a separate email to paid subscribers later today. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe