The Glenn Show

Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.comIn lieu of a regular episode this week, I’m presenting a version of our latest livestream. Last week we debuted what I hope will be an ongoing feature of these livestreams: viewer call-ins. Nikita has been working on setting this up for a while now, and as you’ll see, we’ve still got some kinks to work out. We were able to take a number of calls from viewers, and on that score, this experiment was a resounding success.Anybody can tune into our livestreams as they happen, and we’re making this one available to everyone, but normally if you’d like to watch the video later, you’ll need to become a full subscriber. The Glenn Show is almost entirely viewer supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get weekly episodes of The Glenn Show earlier than their public release, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content.Become a full subscriber at https://glennloury.substack.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit glennloury.substack.comIt’s the middle of the summer, it’s hot, and John McWhorter and I are back for another Substack subscriber only Q&A session. In this episode, we take questions about leadership in the black community, critical listening, Percival Everett's novel James, immigration, white women studying black women's history, right-wing identity politics, and the Free Press.The Glenn Show is supported by listeners like you. To watch and listen to the full version of this episode and get all kinds of other benefits, become a full subscriber at https://glennloury.substack.com.

Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.comVideo Links0:00 Glenn and Cornel’s early correspondence 2:20 Cornel: “Brother Glenn ain’t never been just a black conservative” 9:34 Ground News ad 11:10 One-eyed and two-eyed reason 19:33 The Loury family legacy 25:01 Does race still matter? 34:32 The black intellectual in a declining empire 45:56 Keeping nihilism at bay in the black community 51:42 Keep the funk, and die with a smile on your face 55:40 The Democratic Party plantationRecorded July 18, 2025Links and ReadingsGlenn’s memoir, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black ConservativeToni Morrison’s book, The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and MeditationsRalph Ellison’s book, Shadow and ActThomas Sowell’s book, The Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political StruggleCornel’s book, Race MattersTa-Nehisi Coates’s book, The MessageCornel’s book, Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight against ImperialismTa-Nehisi Coates’s book, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American TragedyColeman Hughes’s book, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind AmericaMahalia Jackson’s rendition of Clara Ward’s, “How I Got Over”John Coltrane’s album, A Love SupremeNiall Ferguson’s book, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American EmpireGlenn’s book, Race, Incarceration, and American ValuesFyodor Dostoevsky’s novel, The Brother’s KaramazovJoseph Conrad’s novel, Victory: An Island TaleCornel’s 2024 Gifford Lectures This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe

Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.comVideo Links0:00 Zohran Mamdani’s win in the NYC Democratic primaries 12:07 Ground News ad 14:05 The War on Terror and the War in Gaza 28:54 Should Trump fear Mamdani? 32:02 Glenn: Trump is running the table 42:26 John: Glenn, you’re getting caught up in the Trump Show 48:05 Buckley, Reagan, Goldwater, and the legacy of conservatism 53:56 Glenn’s encounters with Willian F. Buckley 59:30 Remembering Stephan and Abigail ThernstromRecorded July 7, 2025Links and ReadingsJohn’s NYT column, “Wokeness Will Always Be with Us”Peter Beinart’s NYT guest essay, “Democrats Need to Understand That Opinions on Israel Are Changing Fast”“One Last Time” from HamiltonAdam Clayton Powell’s “What’s in Your Hand” speechSam Tannenhaus’s new book, Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed AmericaGlenn’s 1991 appearance on Firing LineStephan and Abigail Thernstrom’s book, America in Black and White: One Nation, IndivisibleGlenn’s 1997 Atlantic review of America in Black and White This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit glennloury.substack.comSupport The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.comMy latest book, Self-Censorship, is coming out in a couple weeks, and I’m excited to share it with you. As a kind of apéritif, Mark Sussman and I livestreamed our wide-ranging discussion of all things self-censorious. We talk about the book, of course, but also the economics of addiction, the trouble with streaming music, the best and worst of airplane socializing, and many other topics. It’s a good introduction to the book, which you can preorder now on Amazon, Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, or wherever you get your books. In this stream, Mark and I discuss the incoherence of racial and ethnic nomenclature, the utility of self-censorship in political coalition-building, uncovering consensus within the spiral of silence, objectivity in public discourse, the joy and pain of in-flight chit-chat, the truth-seeking value of debate, de gustibus non disputandum est, the paradox of choice, what we’re self-censoring about today, anti-antisemitism, Václav Havel and the power of the powerless, minor and major self-censorship, speaking your mind without tenure, Israel and self-censorship, risking deportation for self-expression, the return of Old Glenn / New Glenn, and the line between cowardice and strategic silence. Anybody can tune into our livestreams as they happen, but if you’d like to watch the video later, you’ll need to become a full subscriber. The Glenn Show is almost entirely viewer supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For less than the cost of an IPA at your local dive bar, you’ll get weekly episodes of The Glenn Show earlier than their public release, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content.Become a full subscriber at https://glennloury.substack.com

Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.comVideo Links0:00 The return of the “speech is violence” argument6:05 Who’s the arbiter of “misinformation” and “disinformation”?8:06 The University of Virginia topped FIRE’s college free speech rankings14:08 The Victorianism of the Woke22:10 The comedian as gadfly24:40 Do we need to “protect” Jewish students from pro-Palestine speech?31:23 Harvard Derangement Syndrome37:13 FIRE’s defense of Amy Wax39:59 Using Title IX to restrict speech46:24 Complicating the left-right speech distinction49:34 FIRE enters the AI debatesRecorded June 2, 2025Links and ReadingsFIREGreg and Nancy Strossen’s forthcoming book, War on Words: 10 Arguments against Free Speech—and Why They FailLisa Feldman Barrett’s 2017 NYT op-ed, “When Is Speech Violence?”FIRE’s 2025 College Free Speech RankingsFIRE’s Scholars Under Fire DatabaseRajiv Sethi’s post, “Under Fire”Glenn’s forthcoming book, Self-CensorshipMusa al-Gharbi’s book, We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New EliteGreg and Rikki Schlott’s book, Canceling the American Mind: How Cancel Culture Undermines Trust, Destroys Institutions, and Threatens UsThe IHRA definition of antisemitismSteven Pinker’s NYT guest essay, “Harvard Derangement Syndrome”Greg’s Atlantic essay, “Trump’s Attacks Threaten Much More Than Harvard”Cosmos Institute This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit glennloury.substack.comSupport The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.comI’m back with my creative director Nikita Petrov on our latest livestream. As you may know, Nikita is Russian. He’s spent some time in the US, but he’s still got a lot of questions about how we do things here and why. This was recorded the day before the Independence Day holiday, and we thought it would be a perfect opportunity to address some of Nikita’s questions (and yours) about the strange folkways of the American peopleIn this installment, we talk about the meaning of the American flag, ChatGPT’s 50 unique facts about the US, voter ID laws, the validity of the 2020 election, border security and immigration, ICE, the attempted assassinations of Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide (if that’s what it was!), Christian Zionism, advice for aspiring authors, free speech, the Big Beautiful Bill, taxes, spiritual conflict within the family, the X-Files, and third-party politics.Anybody can watch our livestreams as they happen, but if you’d like to watch the video later, you’ll need to become a full subscriber. The Glenn Show is almost entirely viewer supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For less than the cost of three tacos at your neighborhood food truck, you’ll get weekly episodes of The Glenn Show earlier than their public release, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content. Go to https://glennloury.substack.com

Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.comVideo Links0:00 How Jens got interested in American gun violence2:45 What’s “unexpected” about the origins of gun violence?5:29 Race and the culture of gun violence9:30 Ground News ad11:20 Are high rates of gun violence a cultural issue or an equilibrium?17:09 Is urban gun violence the result of rational behavior?24:34 The link between Kahnemanian “fast thinking” and violent conflict36:46 Are gun violence interruptions scalable?40:52 The role of urban design in reducing crime and violence47:31 Jens: Gang-motivated crime may not account for as much violence as its seems50:43 Rehabilitating “Broken Windows” 53:47 Jens’s “pathological pragmatism”Recorded June 13, 2025Links and ReadingsJens’s new book, Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun ViolenceDaniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking, Fast and SlowWilliam Julius Williams’s book, Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Social PolicyJane Jacobs’s book, The Death and Life of Great American CitiesMelissa Kearney’s book, The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling BehindGeorge Kelling and James Q. Wilson’s classic Atlantic article, “Broken Windows” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit glennloury.substack.comSupport The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.comIn my latest livestream with my editor Mark Sussman, we talk about the state of the academic labor market, teaching writing to undergrads, Zohran Mamdani’s remarkable victory in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, the wisdom or folly of a federal minimum wage, the work of Thomas Sowell and upcoming conference in his honor, and race and economics. We take questions on libertarianism, self-censorship, black conservatism, AI and teaching, and how to coax Glenn to your town to read from his forthcoming book, Self-Censorship. Full subscribers have access to the full audio and video of this recording. We at The Glenn Show rely on the generosity and support of our subscribers. So if you’re already a subscriber, thank you for all you do. And if you’re not one, consider becoming one. It’s about the cost of one beer a month, and less than that if you purchase a full year’s subscription.Sign up at https://glennloury.substack.com

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit glennloury.substack.comSupport The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.comThis month, John and I tackle questions about grade inflation, the Great Courses, Chapt GPT, race and public art, Ta-Nehisi Coates on Palestine, the end of race-based affirmative action, Trump, Christopher Rufo, and my most recent appearance on the Tucker Carlson Show.The Glenn Show is supported by listeners like you. To watch and listen to the full version of this episode and get all kinds of other benefits, become a full subscriber at https://glennloury.substack.com.