Listening to America

Clay's conversation with Amy Irvine, the author of the 2018 book Desert Cabal: A New Season in the Wilderness. Ms. Irvine published the book on the 50th anniversary of Edward Abbey's blockbuster Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness. Desert Cabal is a careful and nuanced conversation with the late Edward Abbey, who died in 1989. Wasn't his romance with the wilderness the benefit of white privilege? And wasn't he mostly pretending he was alone in that windblown trailer at Arches National Park? Amy Irvine believes that the wilderness is healing in every way and that America's National Parks, Monuments, Forests, etc., are endangered by the agenda of the Trump administration. She sees hope in finding people to trust, care for, and rebuild America by living well but also protesting in the streets when necessary.  Interview recorded March 19, 2025.

Clay talks with noted chef, author, activist, and visionary Sean Sherman, an Oglala Lakota man who is changing the world of indigenous food. Sean is the author of an award-winning book, The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen, and another book, Turtle Island, which is coming out in November. They discuss the white conquest of the North American continent, the shattering of Native American ways and traditions, the forced assimilation policies that have brought disease to Native communities, and how surplus white food — white flour, cheap cheese, sugary sodas, and noodles — have been dumped by the USDA farm program on Native communities. Sherman created an extremely popular restaurant in Minneapolis, Owamni — claiming one of the most coveted dining reservations in the Midwest. Based on the stunning success of his efforts so far, Sean Sherman is planning more restaurants in places like Bozeman, Portland, and Rapid City and freely sharing his ideas with Native communities who want to reform their diets and achieve food sovereignty. This interview was recorded on March 17, 2025  

Occasional guest host and LTA videographer Nolan Johnson joins Clay to talk about the epic Lewis and Clark Airstream journey of 2025, wherein Clay will follow the Lewis and Clark Trail from Jefferson’s Monticello in Virginia to Astoria, Oregon, and back again. Historian James Ronda said the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-06 was “America’s first great road story.” Clay plans to get himself on all the great rivers of the journey: Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, Clearwater, Snake, and Columbia. Nolan will join Clay at several Lewis and Clark sites across America, with video cameras and his celebrated drone work. Nolan and Clay talk about several adventures that have already been scheduled, including an absurd pontoon float from Fort Yates, North Dakota, up to Bismarck and beyond. Clay will begin his transcontinental travels in early May in North Carolina and make stops at Monticello, Harpers Ferry, and Philadelphia before joining the Ohio River at Pittsburgh. It’s a grand adventure, and we already ask, “What could go wrong?” This interview was recorded on March 22, 2025.

Clay's interview with Walt Dabney, who worked for over 30 years in the National Park System, including serving as America's Chief Ranger for five and a half years in Washington, D.C. Mr. Dabney is lecturing around the country about the threat to public lands from those who would return them to the states or privatize them altogether. Mr. Dabney refutes three myths about public lands: first, that the U.S. Government has no right to own property; second, that the U.S. Government retains public domain for nefarious reasons; and third, that individual states were promised at the time of their statehood that public land would be deeded over to them. All demonstrably untrue, says Walt Dabney. Although he's worried about current moves to reduce the size of National Monuments and allow greater resource extraction on public lands, Mr. Dabney believes the public will rally to protect and preserve one of the best things about America: our National Parks, National Monuments, game preserves, wildlife refuges, and National Forests. This interview was recorded March 19, 2025.

Clay interviews Beau L’Amour, the son of Louis L'Amour, the celebrated author of multi-million best-selling Westerns. Beau L’Amour is the manager of his father’s literary estate. By his passing at 80 in 1988, Louis L’Amour wrote just under 100 novels and more than 250 short stories. All of his books are still in print. Clay and Beau talked about changing views of the frontier, white-Native relations, and the role of violence in the American West. How well does Louis L’Amour hold up in our culturally sensitive time? Beau L’Amour is currently revisiting his father’s novels and providing afterwords in the books, sharing the backstory of their creation, their connection to film and television, and their place in the larger achievement of the famous author. Louis L’Amour, more than 30 years after his death, still ranks every year among the top 50 most popular writers in the world. You can read Clay’s essay about his talk with Beau L’Amour here. Their conversation was recorded on March 17, 2025.

Clay is joined by one of his favorite guests and favorite people, historian Joe Ellis of Vermont. The discussion is about the Trump administration’s attempt to pull the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 out of the historical dust and apply it to what it regards as undesirable foreigners in the United States. Two Alien acts, the Sedition Act, and the Naturalization Act were passed by a Federalist Congress during a war scare in 1798, the so-called Quasi War. The Alien Enemies Act permitted the president to deport any foreign person he regarded as a national security threat, without due process, without a hearing public or private, and without the benefit of counsel. In the presidential campaign of 2024 Donald Trump declared that he would be invoking the Alien Enemies Act, which is still on the books. He has begun to deport what he regards as Venezuelan gang members and other undesirables (as he sees them). The federal courts now will have to determine if the Alien Enemies Act is a legal tool in President Trump’s campaign to control immigration to the United States. Joe Ellis provides vital and essential historical context for this vexed issue. This interview was recorded on 22 March 2025.

Guest host David Horton interviews Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, about his life as a diplomat. Jefferson served for five years as the American minister to the court of Louis XVI just before the French Revolution. Then, he served three years as America’s first Secretary of State — trying to keep the United States from being drawn into the chaos of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. As president, Jefferson “solved” the problem of the Mississippi River by buying the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon in 1803, which doubled the size of the United States. Jefferson then sent his protégé Meriwether Lewis to inventory that vast territory. Jefferson was an admirer of Adam Smith. He believed that the less governments intruded into the free flow of goods and services in the world, the more efficient economies would be, and more prosperity would result. In the third segment of the program, Clay and David talked carefully about the trade, tariff, and foreign policy situation that has unfolded in the first months of the second Trump term. This interview was recorded on March 12, 2025.

Russ Eagle is the guest host for a discussion of Clay’s recent cultural tour of Cuba. Clay, Russ, and guests spent 10 days in Cuba, traveling in a small bus across the island. They began in Santiago, where the Cuban Revolution touched off on July 26, 1953, and ended in Havana, once one of the most vibrant cities in the Caribbean. It is still full of creative people exhibiting extraordinary resourcefulness under difficult circumstances. They visited two Bay of Pigs museums, one in Little Havana in Miami (pro-insurrection) and one at the Bay of Pigs itself (pro-Castro). They spent an afternoon swimming in the Bay of Pigs! Clay performed as Theodore Roosevelt at San Juan Hill, followed by a thoughtful refutation by a Cuban professor of law. At the end of our journey, they visited Ernest Hemingway's villa outside Havana and the fishing village from which he took his boat, Pilar, out to sea in search of marlin.

Clay is joined by Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky and Dr. Casey Burgat to discuss a new book, We Hold These “Truths”: How to Spot the Myths That are Holding America Back. The book aims to tackle 13 myths at the core of political dysfunction: lobbyists are evil, Congress doesn’t do anything, the Supreme Court has become too political, and there is a demand that we keep politics out of sports. Clay and his guests try to make sense of how much weight they should give to the vision of the Founding Fathers, who Lindsay notes were not saints or Platonic sages but men (and a few women) who put together what they hoped would be a self-sustaining American republic. They grieve the death of civics education in America’s schools, without which we are all subject to political notions that may have no factual or historical basis. And no, says Casey Burgat, we do not want term limits for members of Congress.

Hampton Sides, a celebrated author known for his deep dives into history, discusses Captain James Cook's controversial third voyage. He reflects on navigating the complex legacies of figures like Cook in today's world, where colonial narratives are under scrutiny. Sides shares insights into the harsh realities faced by sailors, the moral ambiguities of exploration, and Cook's flawed but human character. The conversation also touches upon Sides' future work, focusing on the tragic Sand Creek Massacre, highlighting the need for inclusive storytelling in American history.