The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comDave is a political reporter. He’s worked for The Washington Post, Slate, Bloomberg Politics, and he’s currently at Semafor. He’s also a contributing editor at Reason. In 2017 he wrote a book called The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock, and he’s also a Daily Dish alum.For two clips of our convo — on how the MSM doesn’t talk like ordinary people, and the role of Biden’s age in the next election — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: growing up in Delaware; going to high school in England not far from my hometown; the UK vs US media when it comes to objectivity; writing about Labour and anti-Semitism; voting for Ralph Nader before turning libertarian; his “pathological” travel as a reporter; coding his own blog in the early blogosphere; not wanting to be a Helen Thomas in the press corps; his memories of covering Obama, Gretchen Whitmer, Sharice Davids, Michael Moore and others; taking Trump seriously in 2015; having a nose for what the GOP base finds compelling; the party’s broken promises on immigration; Reagan’s amnesty; the MSM’s bias and arrogance on immigration; how Mexican-American Dems often use the term “illegals”; Jesse Singal’s intrepid coverage of trans kids; “platforming is not privileging”; Dave’s focus-group of normie friends from his hometown; gender reveal parties; the protest of the NYT’s trans coverage “causing harm”; Hunter Biden’s love-child and the White House not acknowledging her; Trump’s three marriages; Kamala’s dismal popularity; Rathergate; the Tom Cotton op-ed controversy; the right-wing media bubble; the unwillingness of the MSM to integrate conservative voices; January 6th; the depressing prospect of a Biden-Trump sequel; and Dave discussing prog rock and his favorite band, King Crimson.Browse the Dishcast archive for another conversation you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Jean Twenge on the key differences between the generations, Matt Lewis on ruling-class elites, and Lee Fang on how public policy is shaped by moneyed groups. Please send any guest recs and pod dissent to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comErick is a radio host and writer. He was an old-school blogger at RedState, serving as editor-in-chief, and he later became a political contributor for CNN and Fox News. Today he hosts the “Erick Erickson Show” on WSB Radio in Atlanta and runs a popular substack of the same name. He’s also in Reformed Theological Seminary working toward a PhD in theology.For two clips of our convo — on why evangelicals see Trump as a savior figure, and the severity of Trump’s looming case in Georgia — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Erick growing up in Dubai; his family hosting parties for US sailors; moving back to the “insanity” of Louisiana; finding a permanent home in Georgia; his early career as an election lawyer; leaving his firm to become a blogger; his near-death experience on a plane; his near-death illness; his wife’s remarkable survival with a rare cancer; his personal candor with blog readers and radio listeners; the nasty and threatening encounters that he and his family had to endure because of his criticism of Trump; the fluke of Trump getting three SCOTUS picks; the court decision that finally overturned Roe; the resulting political challenge the GOP faces on abortion; the Hobby Lobby case; the role of Ukraine in 2024 election; Tim Scott as a happy warrior; Trump’s bitter campaign of retribution; the curious inability of DeSantis to gain more traction; Trump’s boxes of documents; the nihilism of the illiberal right; Erick’s optimism that the GOP will right itself; Hispanic and black voters moving to the right; and Erick urging his fellow Republicans to think more locally when it comes to politics.Browse the Dishcast archive for another conversation you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Dave Weigel on all things politics, Jean Twenge on the key differences between the generations, and Matt Lewis on ruling-class elites. Please send any guest recs and pod dissent to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comDr. Tabia Lee is an educator and consultant. She was the faculty director for the Office of Equity, Social Justice, and Multicultural Education at De Anza College until she was fired for her heterodox views on DEI. (Her GoFundMe is here.) She’s also a cofounder of Free Black Thought.For two clips of our convo — on teaching kids as individuals, and the wrong way to ask for pronouns — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Lee as a gifted-and-talented student; her mentoring kids as a kid; graduating high school in two years; critical thinking as a core value; intellectual humility and curiosity; Lee teaching public school in LA; California voters banning affirmative action in 1996; how teacher ideology clouds the classroom; humanism over identity politics; Lee as a pioneer of pronoun use in the early Internet; “inquiry-based” teaching and holistic instruction; the race of students being just one of many factors; not focusing on stereotypes; the moral certitude of DEI; the need for viewpoint diversity; the “neo-reconstructionism” of Kendi and DiAngelo; the dangers of teaching as activism; the abandonment of SAT and other standardized testing; the wasteful spending in public education; and the attacks that Lee faced as a heterodox DEI director.Browse the Dishcast archive for another conversation you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Erick Erickson on the showdown between Trump and DeSantis, Dave Weigel on all things politics, Jean Twenge on the key differences between the generations, and Matt Lewis on ruling-class elites. Send your guest recs and pod dissent to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comDavid is an extraordinary investigative reporter, a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker, and an old acquaintance. Several of his stories and books have been adapted into major motion pictures, including The Lost City of Z, Old Man and the Gun, and Killers of the Flower Moon. His new book is The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder — and the film rights have already been acquired by Scorsese and DiCaprio.For two clips of our convo — on the hell of sailing around Cape Horn, and the horrors of scurvy — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: the bygone era of analog journalism; the hacks of Grub Street; David’s ability to write vividly about gore — despite his fear of blood in real life; the intricacies of sailing an 18th century ship; the crazed search for treasure and glory; the role of Lord Byron’s grandfather on the HMS Wager; the racial, class and age diversity of the crew; the incompetence of the captain; the catastrophe of running aground; the drama of mutiny; the tension of feuding camps; the mix of gallantry and brutality; the all-consuming despair of starvation; the ravages of disease; the upholding of civilizational norms even at the ends of the earth; how new leaders emerge under desperate circumstances; the beneficence of the indigenous people called “savages”; the arrogance of hindsight; the court-martials faced by the broken men when they returned to England; reuniting with family members who think you’re dead; and how nautical language has endured in common phrases today.Browse the Dishcast archive for another conversation you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Tabia Lee on her firing as a DEI director and Matt Lewis on ruling-class elites. Please send your guest recs and pod dissent to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comDeneen is a writer and academic. Based at the University of Notre Dame, he is Professor of Political Science and holds the David Potenziani Memorial College Chair of Constitutional Studies. His books include The Odyssey of Political Theory and Why Liberalism Failed, and his new one is Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future.For two clips of our convo — on his book using Marxist analysis in defense of conservatism, and whether the government should give you money to stay home with kids — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Patrick’s Irish-Catholic upbringing in the oldest town in CT — “an idyllic New England town” that became a “shell of itself”; his unexpected route to academia; working-class Rutgers vs elite Princeton; how society needs meritocracy — but it’s irrelevant when it comes to morality; Disraeli and noblesse oblige in the UK; migration and Brexit; “woke capitalism’s patina of social commitment”; the tribal wars of the Reformation; the Hobbes/Lockean settlement; how Locke shifted property from inheritance to a set of skills; the cruelty of the growth economy; usury; the absence of any common good in Succession; the donor class of both major parties; the geographic and class sorting of Americans into separate bubbles; Michael Sandel and “thickness”; Uganda’s anti-gay laws; and whether we should bring back Sabbath laws.Browse the Dishcast archive for another conversation you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Tabia Lee on her firing as a DEI director, David Grann on an 18th-century mutiny that’s a “parable for our own turbulent time,” and Matt Lewis on ruling-class elites. Please send your guest recs and pod dissent to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comBen is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Semafor, a global news company. He was an old-school blogger at Politico and others, the first editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News, and the media columnist for the NYT. His new book is Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral. I wrote what he called a “savage and delightful” review of his book, but we remain friends and went at it cordially.For two clips of our convo — on the addictive power of blogging, and Ben’s tough call over publishing the Steele dossier — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: his early career on the cop beat and in Eastern Europe; getting hooked on blogs after 9/11; his kid throwing his Blackberry in the toilet; the launch of the Daily Dish and its “mass intimacy”; the MSM (and me) “massively screwing up” the Iraq invasion; Ben covering marriage equality due to the Dish; the blog functioning as “Twitter before Twitter”; the Green Revolution in Iran; the Palin debacle and Trig; the torture program; why the Dish left the Daily Beast; the emotional turmoil of ending the blog; the “under-news” of Gawker; its indifference to to gay men’s privacy; the role of Jezebel; the redemption of Nick Denton and “20 percent nicer”; Gawker killed by Hulk Hogan and Peter Thiel; Buzzfeed and sponsored content; the Shitty Media Men list; Americans’ contempt for the MSM; Steve Bannon; how social media is perfect for right-wing populists and woke mobs; Substack reviving the spirit of blogging; the fall of Buzzfeed News and Vice; Semafor’s embrace of dissent; and Ben’s thoughts on my “savage and delightful review” of his book.Browse the Dishcast archive for another conversation you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Tabia Lee on her firing as a DEI director, Patrick Deneen on a post-liberal future, and David Grann on an 18th-century mutiny that’s a “parable for our own turbulent time.” Please send your guest recs and pod dissent to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comWhere are we in the war between the West and Russia in Ukraine? We asked Sam back to help us figure it out. He’s a tutor in the Department of Political Science at Oxford and a member of the Royal United Services Institute in London. He’s an expert on Russia’s wars in Chechnya and Syria, and he’s been to Russia and Ukraine many times in the course of getting his International Relations DPhil. His forthcoming book is Putin’s War on Ukraine: Russia’s Campaign for Global Counter-Revolution. I learned a lot in this conversation and so will you.For two clips of our convo — on whether Russia or Ukraine is winning, and the EU’s surprising response to the war — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Putin’s Pyrrhic victory in Bahkmut; the unexpected support for Ukraine from Meloni; the bromance between Boris and Zelensky and now Rishi; the odd airing of dissent within Russia; how Putin is spinning his failures; Lavrov’s propaganda that Hitler was partly Jewish; how Ukraine is now a proxy war for the West; Russia’s self-fulfilling prophecy of Ukraine joining NATO; Prigozhin bad-mouthing the Kremlin; the possibility of his Wagner Group going rogue; the Russian far right and Dugin; the prospects of a Ukrainian offensive; the chance Zelensky could take back Crimea; the dangers of the war spilling into Russia; the increased risk of nukes as the war grinds on; how Putin could save face in a ceasefire; the stretched limits of US support for Ukraine; how electing DeSantis or Trump could affect that support; Putin exploiting the culture wars; the wild card of war breaking out in Taiwan; and the election next year in Russia.Browse the Dishcast archive for another conversation you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Ben Smith on going viral, Tabia Lee on her firing as a DEI director, Patrick Deneen on a post-liberal future, and David Grann on an 18th-century mutiny that’s a “parable for our own turbulent time.” Please send your guest recommendations and pod dissent to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comJohn is an animal advocate and social media professional (@JohnOberg). He has served as the director of new media for The Humane League and the director of communications for Vegan Outreach, but now he’s an independent advocate funded by individual donations. He’s also a powerlifter — not something you usually associate with vegans. In this episode he tries to convince me to give up meat.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 — though Spotify sadly doesn’t accept the paid feed). For two clips of our convo — on whether humans are evolving into vegans, and dispelling the notion that all vegans are scrawny — pop over to our YouTube page.Other topics: the profound influence that John’s mother had on his advocacy from a very young age; their lonely protest against deer culling; vegan stereotypes and gay stereotypes; the cruelty of animals to other animals in nature; the greater sentience of some creatures over others; the horrific conditions of factory farming; Ag-Gag laws; how to provide protein to people without killing animals; “the protein myth”; the Impossible Burger and other food recs from John; the proliferating types of non-dairy milk; incentivizing corporations to make vegan options; and meeting people halfway with veganism rather than demonizing them. Browse the Dishcast archive for another discussion you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Sam Ramani on Ukraine, Ben Smith on going viral, Tabia Lee on her firing as a DEI director, and Patrick Deneen on a post-liberal future. Send your guest recs and pod dissent to dish@andrewsullivan.com.A quick bit of fan mail for Chris Stirewalt:Just wanted to say your conversation with Stirewalt was f****n’ great!  Entertaining, funny, and really educational. Loved it.Another fan focuses on this segment:Listening to Chris talk about goat porn and golden showers on Ted Cruz almost made me pee my pants! Absolutely hilarious.A listener dissents:I had to stop listening once it became clear that you and Chris seem to be of the opinion that the legacy media share equally with the 30-year-old disinformation industry in cleaving the American voters into hateful camps. While you did recognize that Rush was a pioneer in taking advantage of the abrogation of the Fairness Doctrine to voice his BS, you also blithely acknowledged that he was “talented entertainer.” Let’s face facts: Adolph was full of hateful bile that led to the eventual destruction of Germany along with millions of innocents but the guy was really entertaining. The legacy media, for all of its faults and biases, is not equivalent to the collective disinformation industry. Wokeness does not equal lies, character assassination, conspiracy mongering, calls for the overthrow of the “deep state,” civil war, summary execution of suspected drug dealers, ad nauseam. Criticize the legacy media all you want, but don’t equate them with Fox and its many copycats as part of the critique. Whataboutism is tiresome and lazy.If you want my view of the different kinds of media bias at play — and why the right is worse — this piece is a good overview. I make many distinctions. From a baseball fan:Are my ears playing tricks on me or did I just hear Chris Stirewalt attribute “Hit ‘em where they ain’t” to Pee Wee Reese? If I did hear this, it’s the worst piece of fake news this 72-year-old guy has heard on the Dishcast. Apparently that quote by Willie Keeler is commonly misattributed to Reese. Here’s one more clip from the Stirewalt pod — on why the cult of Trump is so strong:Staying on the topic of Trump, a reader dissents:I was not planning to send you a second scathing email in two weeks, but here we are. Your latest column on Trump was surreal. “Guys, a wildfire is about to burn down all these houses. This is bad! But you must admit, the fire is beautiful! Look at the gracefully leaping orange-golden flames. Such flair and energy! It speaks to something deep inside me, I remember sitting by a campfire as a kid …“But yes, the fire is bad, so we must fight it using this beat-up old fire truck. God, I hate the truck! It’s ugly and rusty, the paint is peeling, the engine makes a weird grinding noise, there’s a coffee stain on the driver’s seat. The truck is boring, just sitting there like a lump. No entertainment value at all! In a direct contrast between the fire and the truck, there will surely be some people who simply favor the shiny and pretty over the dull and old!“Anyway, uh, we ought to stop the fire before it burns down all these houses, so let’s get inside this crappy truck, which I hate, and go fight the fire… even though the fire is lovely and exciting and fun to look at…” (you gaze into the flames, their reflection dancing in your eyes)I wan to insert that gif of Cher slapping Nick Cage’s face in Moonstruck and yelling, “Snap out of it!” Yes, the fire truck certainly is beat-up and rusty, and I too wish for a newer and better model. But if you value the houses, and you recognize that they will burn unless enough people act, the right thing to say is, “Guys, let’s get in the truck and go put out the f**king fire!”My core political objective right now is avoiding a second Trump term. How much clearer can I get? My concern with the loony left is both substantive on the issues, but also rooted in my view that they are empowering Trump, not weakening him. Another reader quotes me:“Trump is more likely than not returning to the White House as of now.” No offense, but have you not been paying attention for the last two years?

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comChris is a political analyst and author. He worked at Fox News for more than a decade until they fired him in the wake of the 2020 election, when he was part of the election team that accurately called Arizona for Biden. He’s now the politics editor for NewsNation and a contributing editor for The Dispatch. His new book is Broken News: Why the Media Rage Machine Divides America and How to Fight Back. He’s also a blast.For two clips of our convo — on how the unbundling the news corrupted it, and why Trump voters can’t quit him — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Chris’ upbringing in West Virginia; working as a sports writer alongside “crabby profane smokers”; transitioning to local TV; my young days on Fleet Street; loud newsrooms and gossip at the pub; the benefits of news being bundled and magazines stapled; the unbundling force of the Internet; how blogs challenged and checked legacy journalists; covering the Iraq War; the demonization of the Clintons; some history of The Daily Dish (e.g. Palin); the perverse incentives of seeing stats on posts; how hatred drives the most traffic; losing readers to keep principles; the shift to social media; the loss of any gatekeeping; the roots of online tribalism; why Canadians and African-Americans are often the best comedians; Steve Kornacki’s The Red and the Blue; Russiagate; Trump’s rape case; Alvin Bragg’s blunder; Murdoch and Ailes; Shep Smith’s integrity; the social costs of political dissent; how cable news is designed for personality cults; Carlson and his firing by Fox News; Peretti and Denton; Ben Smith’s new book; and the 2024 election.Browse the Dishcast archive for another discussion you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Ben Smith on going viral, Tabia Lee on her firing as a DEI director, John Oberg on veganism, and Patrick Deneen on a post-liberal future. Send your guest recs and pod dissent to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comNigel Biggar is an Anglican priest, academic and writer. Formerly the Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Oxford, he now directs the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics & Public Life and chairs the board of the UK’s Free Speech Union. The author of many books on ethics, his controversial new one is Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning.For two clips of our convo — debating what makes an empire worse than others, and whether the British started or just exploited the wars in their colonies — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: writing his book as a response to revisionism; the 1619 Project; the difficulty he had getting it published; the various motives of British colonialism and its slow development; how anti-slavery stemmed from the Enlightenment and Christianity; the colonists who fled poverty and religious persecution; the Irish Famine; the contempt and fear and racism toward native peoples; the natives who welcomed trade and protection; whether plagues were intentional or unavoidable; non-European empires and human sacrifice; the ubiquity of slavery throughout history; the unique evil of the transatlantic trade; maroons who kept slaves of their own; Zionism; the colonists who prized foreign cultures; the hypocrisy of British subjects in America exploiting natives; the Indian MP in the 1890s; Indians fighting alongside the British in WWII; the decolonized who embraced the liberal institutions of the Brits; the Chinese who fled communism for the colony of Hong Kong; the diversity of Boris’ cabinet; and the historic triumph of Rishi Sunak. Browse the Dishcast archive for another discussion you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Tabia Lee on her firing as a DEI director, Chris Stirewalt on Fox and the MSM, Ben Smith on going viral, John Oberg on veganism, and Patrick Deneen on a post-liberal future. Send your guest recs and pod comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.