An entrenched anxiety is taking hold throughout America. You can feel it in the air and see it in the rise of guns, doomsday preppers, and mask wars. The deep economic and social insecurity at the root of our anxiety comes from political decisions made since 9/11 that starve the public to benefit the private.

The elections of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, the Black Lives Matter movement, the global pandemic, and our endless war on terror have exposed our failures and electrified our anxiety.

Today, we talk about the cost of our public discontent and endless war.

GUESTS:

Evan Osnos - A staff writer at The New Yorker, a CNN contributor, and a senior fellow at Brookings Institution; his most recent book is Wildland: The Making of America’s Fury
Samuel Moyn - Teaches law and history at Yale; his most recent book is Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War

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Cat Pastor and Colin McEnroe contributed to this show.

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Open Air with Cheri Huber - February 19, 2003