The Good Fight

James Kirchick is a writer and a columnist at Tablet. His most recent book is Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington.In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and James Kirchick discuss how the Cold War shaped attitudes toward homosexuality; the (dis)similarities between homophobia and anti-Semitism; and what we can learn from the hard-won progress on gay rights about how to make progress in other areas.This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight.If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone.Email: podcast@persuasion.community Website: http://www.persuasion.communityPodcast production by John Taylor Williams, and Brendan RuberryConnect with us!Spotify | Apple | GoogleTwitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasionYoutube: Yascha MounkLinkedIn: Persuasion CommunityLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Danielle Allen, Harvard professor, discusses the enduring relevance of the Constitution. Topics include building a political system that invites more participation, exploring the flaws and achievements of liberalism, misconceptions surrounding the Declaration of Independence, institutional reform for American democracy, societal traps, and finding hope in a pessimistic political climate.

Renée DiResta is a writer and the technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory.In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Renée DiResta discuss how we can turn down the temperature on debates around social media and find real solutions; why terms like “censorship” and “misinformation” fail to capture the complex difficulties in reforming social media; and why, as a resident of San Francisco, she supported the school board and District Attorney recalls. This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight.If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone.Email: podcast@persuasion.community Website: http://www.persuasion.communityPodcast production by John Taylor Williams, and Brendan RuberryConnect with us!Spotify | Apple | GoogleTwitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasionYoutube: Yascha MounkLinkedIn: Persuasion CommunityLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ed Luce is the US national editor and columnist at the Financial Times. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Ed Luce discuss the electoral toll of Trumpism; why Democrats who focus on identity politics fare poorly at the polls; and whether Ron DeSantis poses as great a threat to democratic norms and institutions as Donald Trump.This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight.If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone.Email: podcast@persuasion.community Website: http://www.persuasion.communityPodcast production by John Taylor Williams, and Brendan RuberryConnect with us!Spotify | Apple | GoogleTwitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasionYoutube: Yascha MounkLinkedIn: Persuasion CommunityLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Russ Muirhead is the Robert Clements Professor of Democracy and Politics at Dartmouth College and a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives. His latest book, co-authored with Nancy Rosenblum, is A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy.In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Russ Muirhead discuss how legislators can find sensible compromise even amidst vehement disagreement, why we misunderstand the popularity of conspiracy theories, and what Democrats can do to broaden their coalition and defeat right-wing populists.This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight.If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone.Email: podcast@persuasion.community Website: http://www.persuasion.communityPodcast production by John Taylor Williams, and Brendan RuberryConnect with us!Spotify | Apple | GoogleTwitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasionYoutube: Yascha MounkLinkedIn: Persuasion CommunityLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sam Harris is a neuroscientist, philosopher, author, and the host of the Making Sense podcast. He rose to prominence as a member of the “Four Horsemen” of New Atheism, which also included Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens.In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Sam Harris discuss the intellectual case for atheism; why both left and right have become more extreme in recent years; and the prospects of a more rational politics in the near future.This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight.If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone.Email: podcast@persuasion.community Website: http://www.persuasion.communityPodcast production by John Taylor Williams, and Brendan RuberryConnect with us!Spotify | Apple | GoogleTwitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasionYoutube: Yascha MounkLinkedIn: Persuasion CommunityLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lis Smith is a veteran political strategist affiliated with the Democratic Party. Most recently, she was senior adviser to Pete Buttigieg in his 2020 presidential campaign. Her memoir is Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Lis Smith discuss what she looks for in a successful candidate; the lessons she takes from years of courting independents and voters from across the aisle; and why she believes that Biden should run for reelection.This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight.If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone.Email: podcast@persuasion.community Website: http://www.persuasion.communityPodcast production by John Taylor Williams, and Brendan RuberryConnect with us!Spotify | Apple | GoogleTwitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasionYoutube: Yascha MounkLinkedIn: Persuasion CommunityLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shashank Joshi is Defence Editor for The Economist and serves on the Advisory Board at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London.In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Shashank Joshi discuss the state of the war in Ukraine, whether European solidarity will survive a cold winter, and why countries like India and China remain tied to Russia.This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight.If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone.Email: podcast@persuasion.community Website: http://www.persuasion.communityPodcast production by John Taylor Williams, and Brendan RuberryConnect with us!Spotify | Apple | GoogleTwitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasionYoutube: Yascha MounkLinkedIn: Persuasion CommunityLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joshua Coleman is a psychologist and senior fellow at the Council on Contemporary Families. He is the author of Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict.In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Joshua Coleman discuss why there is a growing number of estrangements between parents and their adult children, how political identification has increasingly become a source of family conflict, and the best strategies for how estranged parents and adult children can heal their relationships.This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight.If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone.Email: podcast@persuasion.community Website: http://www.persuasion.communityPodcast production by John Taylor Williams, and Brendan RuberryConnect with us!Spotify | Apple | GoogleTwitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasionYoutube: Yascha MounkLinkedIn: Persuasion CommunityLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Heather McGhee is an author and policy advocate with a focus on reducing inequality. She is Board Chair for the organization Color Of Change and a former CEO of the think tank Demos. McGhee is the author of The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together . In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Heather McGhee discuss why progress for one ethnic group need not come at the expense of another; how racial animus has been used in the past to divide Americans who share fundamental interests; and whether the recent focus on "race-sensitive" public threatens to reignite zero-sum competition between different racial groups.This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight.If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone.Email: podcast@persuasion.community Website: http://www.persuasion.communityPodcast production by John Taylor Williams, and Brendan RuberryConnect with us!Spotify | Apple | GoogleTwitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasionYoutube: Yascha MounkLinkedIn: Persuasion CommunityLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices