The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comSpencer is a writer and podcaster. He’s currently an associate editor at the Claremont Review of Books and the host of the “Young Heretics” podcast. He’s also the author of How to Save the West: Ancient Wisdom for 5 Modern Crises and the editor of Gateway to the Stoics. You can follow his latest writing on Substack.For two clips of our convo — on finding God in the humanities, and why so many gays throughout history have been drawn to the Church — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Spencer’s upbringing in NYC and London and elsewhere; his rigorous schooling in Britain; his dad the prominent novelist; his lapsed Catholic mom and lapsed Jewish dad; Spencer as a teen converting to Christianity — “conversational, not doctrinal”; coming to terms with his homosexuality; Yale for undergrad and Oxford for a PhD in the Classics; his initial calling as an actor; learning Latin and ancient Greek; how the Greeks had two words for forgiveness; the Gospels; Aquinas; the Scientific Revolution; how evolution is compatible with Christianity; James Madison; Tocqueville; the suffering that brings one closer to God; the waning of both the humanities and religion in American life; climate doomerism; postmodernism; Judith Butler; the transing of gender-dysphoric kids; Alasdair MacIntyre; and how genetics is “necessary but not sufficient” for seeking truth.Browse the Dishcast archive for another convo you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: David Brooks on his new book How to Know a Person,” his fellow NYT columnist Pamela Paul, and the authors of Where Have All the Democrats Gone? — John Judis and Ruy Teixeira. Also: David Leonhardt, Cat Bohannon, and McKay Coppins.Have a question you want me to ask one of those future guests? Email dishpub@gmail.com, and please put the question in the subject line. Send any guest recs, pod dissent and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

Philosopher and legal thinker Martha Nussbaum discusses her new book 'Justice for Animals' and explores topics such as the concept of justice for animals, sentience and the ability to feel pain in animals, and the evolutionary basis of instinct in animal behavior.

Ian Buruma, historian and journalist, talks about his new book and shares interesting anecdotes from his life growing up in The Hague, studying art history and Chinese, and living in various cities. He discusses the complexities of human behavior, the injection of comedy into dark subjects, and the manipulation of truth by political forces. He also explores the complexity of Trump's character and questions his success and popularity.

Leor Sapir, a writer and researcher at the Manhattan Institute and frequent contributor to City Journal, discusses topics such as the sudden increase in girls seeking transition, the medicalization of trans kids impacting their future orgasms, childhood experiences living on a kibbutz in Israel, serving in the IDF, the Dutch protocol for transing gender-dysphoric kids, and the shifting rhetoric surrounding gender identity.

Entrepreneur and Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy discusses his upbringing as the son of Indian immigrants, the impact of victimhood narratives, the intersection of his Hindu faith with a Catholic education, and the compatibility of Donald Trump's worldview with Christian values.

Freddie DeBoer, a prolific writer and academic, discusses topics such as the hypocrisy of helicopter parents, the relative evil of US foreign policy, his communist upbringing, the destructive nature of performative identity politics, and the loss of black lives after the summer of 2020. They also explore the impact of social media, left-wing personal takedowns, comparing atrocities committed by different regimes, and the moral position and aspirations of the left.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comSohrab is a founder and editor of Compact: A Radical American Journal, and he’s a contributing editor at The American Conservative. He spent nearly a decade at News Corp. — as the op-ed editor of the New York Post and as a columnist and editor with the WSJ opinion pages in New York and London. His first appearance on the Dishcast addressed what he sees as “the failures of liberalism.” This time, we debate his new book, Tyranny, Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty — and What to Do About It.For two clips of our convo — on whether low wages are worth the low prices they create, and how hedge funds destroy companies — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: debating the rhetorical use of “coercion”; how the private sector isn’t truly private; “scheduling precarity” — when bosses restrict shifts; how unpredictable shifts harm kids; byzantine contracts; the Hollywood strike; AI and human likeness data; how workers and bosses aren’t symmetrical; Adam Smith wanted labor protections; Hayek and Friedman supported the welfare state; the dominance of private equity firms; turning newspapers into ghost papers of syndication; Wall Street’s obsession with cash flow over investment; remembering that workers are also consumers; the cost of clothing is nothing compared to the past; the sheer variety of the free market; when workers can’t afford the products they make; why half of fast-food workers rely on welfare; a low-wage job is better than no job; why Sohrab champions the New Deal, the Wagner Act, Tripartism and Sabbath laws; my upbringing in a stagnant, state-run economy in England; Thatcher and Blair as capitalists who spent a ton on public goods; sectoral bargaining in Europe; the miracle drugs of Big Pharma; the Silicon Valley Bank collapse; declining life expectancy in the US; the opioid crisis; Trump’s vacant policy agenda; and Sohrab supporting Hawley/Vance/Rubio but also giving credit to Biden for his economic and trade policies. Browse the Dishcast archive for another convo you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Freddie deBoer on his new book How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement, Vivek Ramaswamy on his vision for America, and Leor Sapir on the evolving treatment of gender dysphoria. 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.comMoynihan is one-third of The Fifth Column — the sharp, hilarious podcast he does with Kmele Foster and Matt Welch. He was previously the cultural news editor for The Daily Beast, a senior editor at Reason, and a correspondent and managing editor of Vice.It’s a fun summer chat with an old friend. We recorded the episode a few weeks ago, on July 24. For two clips — on the conspiracy theories of RFK Jr., and the deepening rift within the Israeli government — pop over to our YouTube page.Other topics: his Boston upbringing with a “union guy” father and being the first college grad in his family; on the agony of writing as a profession; on the “laziness” of many top writers; on flawless ones like Michael Lewis and John Updike; Moynihan’s review of a new book on Orwell; why Animal Farm was passed over by publishers; Orwell’s distrust of intellectuals and losing many friends on the left; his love of Englishness; wondering how he would react to mass migration and postmodernism; Kingsley Amis and his cohort being the original “lol alt-right”; Enoch Powell and his “Rivers of Blood”; the elections in Spain and the far-right party’s floundering; immigration in Sweden; Brexit; violence against Venezuelan immigrants in Brazil and Colombia; why Islamism is barely discussed anymore; Trump and DeSantis on Social Security; the debate over sex changes for kids; the success of the gay rights movement through persuasion; Brendan Eich; the propaganda around Covid; what Moynihan calls the “the Mis/Disinformation Industrial Complex”; lab leak; Elon Musk; the AIDS denialism of Duesberg and Maggiore; Holocaust deniers; Marty Peretz; Kissinger; Vidal; Hitch of course; Oppenheimer and McCarthyism; Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs; Hollywood’s double-standard when it comes to pro-communist films; “Angels in America”; the big increase in black deaths after BLM in 2020; amnesia over Afghanistan; and the first time I ever did poppers. Good times.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: Vivek Ramaswamy on his vision for America, Sohrab Ahmari on his new book Tyranny Inc., and Freddie deBoer on his new book How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement. Also, in the fall: Ian Buruma, David Brooks, Spencer Klavan, Leor Sapir, Martha Nussbaum, Pamela Paul and Matthew Crawford. A stellar roster! Please send any guest recs and pod dissent to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

Journalist Josh Barro joins the podcast to talk about his political hero, Biden. They discuss the economy, stimulus packages, inflation, national debt, and Biden's strategies to address student debt. Other topics include the role of the Fed, the US economy's recovery from Covid, and the intersection of economics and politics.

Investigative journalist Lee Fang discusses the impact of wokeness on poor communities, Biden administration successes, CCP surveillance tactics, journalism censorship, and neoliberal tactics deflecting from wage issues. Also touches on working-class reform pushed by GOP figures, paralysis of progressive orgs by wokeness, and the right's targeting of Wall Street.