Talk Cocktail

Is America Now A Fascist Country?

The word fascism gets thrown around a lot in the context of Donald Trump. As if he somehow were its progenitor. But the fact is Trump is merely the most contemporary and American exploiter. Right wing nationalist trends, fascist trends, are happening throughout the world. The underlying reasons are many and complex, but the response to those reasons and the way in which it portends towards fascism has been pretty consistent.

Fascism is not some abstract idea, but a clear definable set of attitudes that people like Trump or Le Pen or Nigel Farage know how to exploit and magnify. For all of us experiencing it, it’s like a disease. Only if we know and understand the warning signs can we prevent it. And to help us to understand this, I am joined by Yale Professor Jason Stanley, the author of How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them.

My WhoWhatWhy.org conversation with Jason Stanley:

Marvin Kalb on The New McCarthyism and the Threat to Democracy

The founders understood that a free press was a bulwark against tyranny. In the system they set up, they understood that they created inherent tensions between leaders and the press. Historically, those tensions have served us well in that it has motivated both sides to do better.

Sometimes the tensions have burst forth into full-scale political warfare. Trust-busting, Teapot Dome, Watergate, and Joe McCarthy are a few examples. McCarthy knew, as despots all know, that if he could undermine the press, make them the enemy, you can get away with a whole lot.

In 1954 Ed Morrow, the most noted journalist of his time also knew and understood the importance of the free press as a load-bearing pillar of all of our democratic institutions. Morrow believed that if McCarthy had gone further in his vilification of the press, our very democracy could be at risk. He instilled that idea in one of his young proteges, Marvin Kalb. Kalb, concerned about the current state of affairs, has just written Enemy of the People: Trump's War on the Press, the New McCarthyism, and the Threat to American Democracy

My conversation with Marvin Kalb:

The Geopolitical Downsides of Fracking Are Downright Scary

I think it’s fair to say that when most of you hear about fracking, the first thing that comes to mind is the potential environmental damage. This has been a big story over the past several years. What you might not think about is how fracking is changing the geopolitics of the world. How it’s helping America towards energy independence, which in a counterfactual way, may not be a good thing. But at the same time, it’s also impacting Saudi Arabia and Russia in ways that affect power politics throughout the world.

It’s not only geopolitics. The fracking industry in Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and New Mexico is impacting politics right here at home. Just ask candidates running in those states. Add to this the importance of the industry’s deep, symbiotic ties to Wall Street, plus a cast of characters in the fracking business that could easily produce a modern day ‘Giant’ or ‘Dallas’. Bringing all of this together is my guest, Bethany McLean in here new book  Saudi America: The Truth About Fracking and How It's Changing the World.

My WhoWhatWhy conversation with Bethany McLean:

Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth.

We hear much loose talk these days about all the things that are supposed to unite us as Americans. But there are far more important and powerful forces that divide us.

At the center of that divide is the subject of class. Even more than race, the class divide lies at the base of the chasm that separates what John Edwards once called “two Americas.”

The symbols are everywhere: Starbucks America versus Dunkin’ Donuts America. Educated versus non-educated. Walmart versus Whole Foods. But these are just symbols for the manifestations of a long history of class conflict in America.

How they're playing out today is reflected in Sarah Smarsh's new memoir

Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth.

My conversation with Sarah Smarsh:

Why Adam Smith Still Matters, And What We Have Not Understood

We are ten years out from the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the beginning of the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression. The shock waves of those events are still with us today and they take many forms

Not the least of which has been the loss of faith in the efficiency of markets, the underlying ideas of modern economics, the role of the state in intervening in those markets, and the moral and political consequences of capitalism itself.

However, any conversation about these ideas does not begin with the crisis ten years ago, but probably should begin with enlightenment thinkers and with Adam Smith. Considered by many to be the father of modern economics.

Jesse Norman, a highly regarded Member of British Parliament, takes a deep dive into Smith in his new book Adam Smith: Father of Economics.

My conversation with The Honorable Jesse Norman:

Tight and Loose Explains the World

We spend hours and hours talking about the divides in America and the world today. Red and Blue divisions, class divisions, social sorting, urban vs. rural, left vs. right, progress vs. conservative and the ways we look for the world to make sense.

But what if there were an overlay to all of this? One that, while not exactly putting us in neat little boxes, does help explain a core reason for so much of contemporary division.

Michele Gelfand, a Professor of Psychology at the Univ. of Maryland,Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World

takes us inside this idea in

My conversation with Michele Gelfand:

The Myth We Still Tell About the Fall of Lehman Bros.

We are ten years out from the fall of Lehman Brothers, and the worst financial crises in the lifetime of most of us. But what are we actually marking, and more importantly, what have we really learned?

So much of the debate, to this very day, as to what caused the crash, and the bursting of the housing bubble is so caught up in political rhetoric, confirmation bias, and rear end covering, that it's still hard to tell.

But certainly after 10 years we know more than we did then, and perhaps it’s time to ask some real questions and to try and put it into some kind of better perspective. To do this, I’m helped by Sebastian Mallaby, the Paul A. Volcker senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations and a long time journalist, public speaker, and a contributing columnist for the Washington Post. His recent article in the Washington Post was “The Dangerous Myth We Still Believe About the Lehman Bros. Bust.”

My conversation with Sebastian Mallaby:

The Global Elite's Effort to Change the World

It is an accepted axiom of modern life that disruptive change is all around us. Almost every aspect of our lives has felt some or all of this change. It’s equally true that what were once the traditional institutions of government and public policy, that moderated and even sometimes democratized that change, no longer exist. This too is part of the disruption. In this process, there have been winners and losers, just as there have been during every great social and scientific upheaval, the last, perhaps, being the industrial revolution over a century ago. This time, however, partly because of the nature of change, the speed of communication, the complexity of technology, globalism, and overall distrust, the consequences have been even more profound.

It’s all led to a large measure of social upheaval, anger, and fear that we see today. Perhaps the progenitors of change have been too young or too naïve to understand the consequences of their action, and those that did understand have been too blinded by greed. It’s a combination that has shaken the country to its very core, and which made Trump possible.  This is the one of the underlying ideas of Anand Giridharadas in his new book Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.

My WhoWhatWhy.org conversation with Anand Giridharadas

The Browns of California

Joan Didion referred to California as the “golden land.” “The place where the dream was teaching the dreamers how to live. That it was a metaphor for some larger, insidious process at work in American society. One that became a parable of the American penchant for reinvention and for discarding history and starting tabula rasa.”

That may have once been true for California. But today, when California is the the fifth largest economy in the world, what happens in California does not stay in California. The state’s actions, leadership and history often resonate around the globe.  One of the things that’s so critical to understanding that history, is The Browns of California: The Family Dynasty that Transformed a State and Shaped a Nation.  That's the subject of a new book by Miriam Pawel.

My conversation with Miriam Pawel:

Voter Suppression 101

Just a couple of weeks ago, I interviewed a distinguished and respected journalist and author, who said that voter suppression to him was like the Loch Ness Monster. A lot of people talked about it, but no one had ever really seen it. I tell this story because I’m afraid that his attitude is far too prevalent, and his confusion between voter fraud and voter suppression all too common.

While widespread voter fraud may be a fragment of Kris Kobach and Donald Trump’s imagination, it should never be conflated with voter suppression, which is very real, anti-democratic and infused with a degree of racism that particularly, since a 2003 Supreme Court decision, has become almost the regular order of things in multiple parts of the country. As we sit two months out from the midterm elections, the basic right of millions of Americans are under threat, at precisely the time when the future of the country is at stake as never before. This is particularly true in states with high profile races like Georgia and Florida, where voter suppression may truly affect the outcome.

I look at this with Carol Anderson who is the Charles Howard Candler professor and chair of African-American Studies at Emory University and the author of One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy

My WhoWhatWhy.org conversation with Carol Anderson:

17 Years in Afghanistan....What Have We Accomplished?

Next month we mark 17 years since the US invasion of Afghanistan, certainly the longest single military effort in US history.

Our original goal was to destroy Al-Qaeda and oust the Taliban that were protecting them. Since that time, a great deal has happened, and mostly the law of unintended consequences has been the victor. Security and political stability still seem elusive. US government understanding of the country and the region still seems sketchy at best, and corruption still seems rampant. And even with all of that, some think real peace is still possible. Where we are today and what’s really happening on the ground, and what the US can do, even if it had the will and competence to do it, are subjects that I talk about with RAND senior foreign policy expert Laurel Miller.

My WhoWhatWhy.org conversation with Laurel Miller:

Make A Decision!

We make hundreds, sometimes thousand of decisions a day. What to wear, what to eat, what route to take to work, and what to put on our to-do list. But these are tactical decisions. They get us from point a to point b. But what about the big strategic decisions? The big ones that impact our lives and the lives of others, now and for many years to come.

The decisions about who we marry, were we want to live, what career we want to pursue. These are often irrevocable, or at the least profound, decisions that have long term consequences.

How then do we make these decisions? How

do leaders, CEOs, generals and even presidents make decisions? Is there a right or wrong way? Do algorithms help and has technology made it easier or harder? The fact is that often by the time all the facts are in, the time optimum or imaginative action may have long since disappeared. The disconnect between external events and our ability to process them, lies embedded in the decision making process.

From George Bush saying he is “the decider,” to battlefield commanders; from the halls of business schools, to the basement of the Pentagon, from leaders that operate only on instinct, devoid of facts, to those that suffer from analysis paralysis, our lives are shaped by decisions we and other make. But could we do it any better?

These are just some of the questions asked by best selling author and thinker Steven Johnson in Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most

My conversation with Steven Johnson:

Why DNA Kits May Not Really Tell Us Who We Are

Perhaps more than at any other time in contemporary history, we have a deep need to understand who we are, what tribe to we belong to, and how, in a rapidly changing, interconnected and homogenized world, do we fit it. Who are we in relation to everyone else.

Just look at the advertising for home DNA testing and you’ll get the idea. Since it’s less clear everyday, where we are going, it feels most comfortable to look back at our ancestry and at least be clear about where we came from and how it defines who we are.

The problem is, that’s complicated to. Who we are is the result not just of our DNA or our heredity, but of an array of complex and shifting forces that we also have no control over. This is the reality that Carl Zimmer explains in She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity

My conversation with Carl Zimmer:

Parenthood in an Age of Fear

By every objective measure, unless you live on the Southside of Chicago, the world is a safer place today than it’s been for long time. As people like Steven Pinker have repeatedly pointed out, almost every form of violence is less today than it was 50 or even 100 years ago.

So why is everyone so afraid, especially parents?  Sure we’re afraid that our kids won’t have opportunities greater than ours, and we’re afraid about being ready to pay for their education, and we’re afraid that they will fall in with the wrong crowd.

But we’re also afraid of them going out to play, of riding a bike, of them being alone, or just being on a playground that doesn't have the proverbial good housekeeping seal of approval.

We want our kids to succeed and ultimately to feel at home in the world. But does mean overprotecting them in ways driven only by fear? Those are some of the questions that Kim Brooks as in Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear, based on and motivated by her own awful experience.

My conversation with Kim Brooks:

A Conversation with John McCain

The last opportunity I had to interview JOHN McCAIN was back in September of 2000, in the thick of the Bush v. Gore campaign and after he had lost the Republican primary to George W. Bush.

We talked about his book, FAITH OF MY FATHERS, and even then talked about patriotism vs. nationalism, money in politics, the cynicism of  young voters, the consequences of deregulation during the Reagan years and about the opening up of Vietnam and Bill Clinton's upcoming trip there.

Here is a condensed version of that conversation:

Freedom and Chaos in Egypt and the Middle East

Often understanding global affairs, particularly in the Middle East, is like a game of three-card monte. What’s in view is never really a reflection of what’s going on underneath. What’s more, alliances, loyalties and truth is ever shifting and almost always hidden.

Such has long been the case in Egypt. As the Arab spring descended on Tahrir Square in February of 201, what once seemed like the hope for freedom and democracy gave way to ongoing authorianism. And like the three-card monte game, for a while it was impossible to tell who was with who, and who was on what side, including the United States.

David Kirkpatrick, an international correspondent for the NY Times, led the papers coverage of the Arab Spring, first in Tunisia and then in Egypt and Libya. He has reported from virtually everywhere in the region, but also brings the perspective of having coved Washington, two presidential elections, and the rise of the Christian right in the US.

In his new book Into the Hands of the Soldiers: Freedom and Chaos in Egypt and the Middle East he bring us a unique and sobering perspective on the Middle East, and the US, which always seems to get it wrong.

My conversation with David Kirkpatrick:

Are Americans Afraid of Optimism?

We live in an age of paradox. Crime and murders are down, yet we are more fearful than ever about gun violence. Technology has made life easier in so many ways, yet Silicon Valley is becoming the boogeyman and technology is and will be replacing jobs with greater and greater speed. Diseases that were once a death sentence are now manageable, but healthcare costs are escalating and the divide among those that can and cannot afford quality healthcare is growing. And we’re not living as long as we used to, and other nations have a better quality of life.

Millions and millions of people in the developing world are experiencing a standard of living never imagined possible, yet some would pull up the bridges and have us disconnect from that world, all while the doomsday clock moves closer to midnight. Tribalism divides us, social media, politics, and economics reinforces that divide, and the 24/7 always on culture makes it happen faster and faster. So, where is there any reason for optimism in all of this?  This is where Gregg Easterbrook takes us in It's Better Than It Looks: Reasons for Optimism in an Age of Fear.

My WhoWhatWhy.org conversation with Gregg Easterbrook:

The Kids Are All Right

Millions of words have been written about millennials and the Democratic Party. The debate about how left they are, how involved they are, how can, or will they be mobilized to participate in the midterms are all subjects of feature stories and cable news fodder. It all goes with the old adage, the origins of which are a bit murky, that if you're not a liberal when you're young you have no heart, and if you're not a conservative by middle age you have no head.

The fact is there are many young conservatives, be they Young Republicans, College Republicans, or members of many other groups. Some are traditional conservatives, some libertarian, some Trumpian, and some trying to define a new millennial approach to what it means to be a conservative or a Republican.

Clearly like the divisions on the left, the gap between Donald Trump and Edmond Burke is wide, but filled with opportunity and consequences for the GOP of tomorrow. Journalist Eliza Gray takes a look at this in her recent article in The Washington Post Magazine: “The Next Generation of Republicans: How Trumpian Are They."

My WhoWhatWhy.org conversation with Eliza Gray:

The Case for the Impeachment of Donald Trump

Almost from the day he was elected, certainly from the day her took office, people have been talking about the impeachment of Donald Trump. His basic failure to divest his business holdings, his refusal to abide by ethical norms, nepotism, cronyism, his odd and still not fully known relationship with Russia and Vladimir Putin, and his disregard for the intelligence community, have all stoked the fires.

But are there legitimate grounds for impeachment, as laid out by the constitution? What kind of constitutional crisis might be precipitated by such efforts, and how do we define, political vs. legal impeachment and would that even matter? After all, so much of what our founders did was designed as a bulwark against the corruption that we see playing out each and every day at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

To try and put all of this rhetoric in context is constitutional scholar Ron Fein, the co-author of The Constitution Demands It: The Case for the Impeachment of Donald Trump.

My conversation with Ron Fein:

Even Power Has Been Subject to Change. Here's How

Look at any book of quotations, and the subject of power is one of the most discussed topics. Sometimes it seems everyone has an opinion on it. And why not? It is at the heart of all of our relationships, at home, with family, kids and spouses and at work, with our bosses and our coworkers.

Certainly the Me Too movement and racial politics have both provided fertile ground for both the understanding of and the exercise of power. It’s one of the things we most desire, and at the same time we are afraid, or put off by it.

Our relationship to power begins when we are young. It’s imprinted from grade school, right on through high school, which is everyone's mosh pit of power dynamics.

Power and how we talk about it has changed since the days of Michael Korda, and Cyndi Suarez understands this. She is the author of The Power Manual: How to Master Complex Power Dynamics

My conversation with Cyndi Suarez:

When Does No Drama Make For A Better Show and a Better Government?

Deep inside our first reality TV presidency, one designed, whether you like the policy or not, to squeeze maximum drama from every encounter, it’s almost hard to remember that the Obama presidency was 180 degrees away. It was built on the idea of “no drama.”

In the current context, it may look almost dull. It was professional, competent and the apogee of the work of hundreds, who’s life's work was to serve their country, and leave it better than they found it.

That’s why perhaps now, more than ever, we need the bracing reminder of what competence, rational decision making, and hard work were really like in the exercise of government.

Brian Abrams does this in his comprehensive oral history of the Obama administration, Obama: An Oral History.

My conversation with Brian Abrams:

 

The Iran Nuclear Deal and The View from Tehran

For George Bush, it was once part of the Axis of Evil. For Donald Trump, Iran seems only to be part of an axis of firing up his base, placating Israel, and being supine to the Saudis. The Iran Nuclear Deal was far better and more enforceable than anything we will ever see with North Korea. Iran, according to those on the ground, the IAEA inspectors and other parties to the deal often referred to as the JCPOA, was a deal that Iran more or less was abiding by.

Now with the US having pulled out of the deal and imposing new sanctions, the Europeans, the Chinese, and the Russians, the other parties to the deal, are trying along with Iran to hold all the pieces together. The problem and complexity is that it’s about both proliferation and economics. And while the administration is filled with Iran hawks, many of whom still seek regime change in Iran, there’s no telling where all of this will wind up. In a global neighborhood it remains a tinderbox: what’s next for Iran, for Syria, and for the region.

To try and bring all of this together and provide an Iranian perspective, I’m joined by Ambassador Seyed Hossein Mousavian, one of the foremost authorities on the subject of Iran.

My WhoWhatWhy.org conversation with Seyed Hossein Mousavian:

The Mouth That Roared - How Rush Limbaugh Changed America

It began as a crazy idea. DJs would get bored with music and start talking to the audience. They would take calls, tell stories, and even talk a little politics, sports, and pop culture. Early on, it produced some enduring national personalities like Jean Shepherd, and Brad Crandall, Long John Nebel, and Larry King, and Barry Gray, and Joe Franklin. It was known first as Spoken Word Radio. Later, it would give way to an even more colorful and cantankerous cast of characters. People like Joe Pyne, Alan Berg and Morton Downey Jr..

Talk radio moved to the big cities with folks like Don Imus and Howard Stern. In New York, Bob Grant would redefine the formula beginning in the early 70s. In fact so much of Trump on race, comes directly out of the Bob Grant playbook. Grant was the soundtrack for the New York that Donald Trump came of political age in.

The Fairness Doctrine would be repealed in 1987 and suddenly radio would be set up to have political power. Then in 1988, a little known Sacramento newscaster and talk show host named Rush Limbaugh would be let loose nationally. He took the freedom of being untethered from the Fairness Doctrine, combined it with the formulas that had already proven successful in talk, added conservative politics in a sardonic and entertaining tone, and the rest is radio history. It began 30 years ago last week, and it certainly changed our entertainment, news, and the political landscape.

To bring this all into focus, I'm joined by Michael Harrison, the editor and publisher of Talkers Magazine, the "bible of the talk radio industry."

My WhoWhatWhy.org conversation with Michael Harrison:

Our Crises of Connection - Why We Need to Gather Now, More Than Even

How many gatherings do you really enjoy? Certainly not meetings. But what about social events? How many times have you felt awkward at a party, an event or even just a gathering of friends. How often have you had the feeling that everyone else was invited for dinner, and you were only invited for cocktails?

And if you were the host, you made sure that all the napkins and silverware was just right, but what about the inner workings of the gathering? How did you prepare?

In a world where networking and face to face gatherings are the rare exception to being transfixed to screens, shouldn't we pay more attention to those face to face encounters? Priya Parker look at our crises of connection in The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters

My conversation with Priya Parker:

Is Hope or Change Ever Possible After Trump?

Once upon a time, hope and change formed the basis of our political discourse. That now seems so long ago. Remember a time when the Koch brothers were the enemy, when we thought John McCain was the far right, when those of us on the left thought the FBI and the justice department needed watching?

In just ten years, we’ve gone through the looking glass. Now up really down, down is up, black is white and our enemies are embraced.

Our divisions over culture, politics, race and class have been weaponized. And demographics, geography, social media and technology make it so we seldom have to interact with anyone that disagree with us.

In this atmosphere of tribalism on steroid, is any kind of positive national politics still possible? Clearly on a local or community level, there is some reason to be optimistic. However on a national level, have we digressed to a point where even the instruments of our founding father, may not bring us back.

Dan Pfeiffer is a bit more optimistic in his new book Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump

My conversation with Dan Pfeiffer:

GDP = GREATLY DECEPTIVE PROSPERITY

Wherever you are in the political spectrum, we should at least be able to agree on a set of facts about the forces reshaping our society. The cost of housing, particularly in our cities, continues to rise. The cost of higher education, healthcare, and quality day care continue to take a larger and larger share of individual and family incomes.

Income inequality is growing. The impact of automation and AI is only in its infancy. The freelance and gig economy, and recent political and legal moves, have shattered the ability of workers to bargain collectively. All at a time when the social safety net of Medicare, Social Security and pensions are under siege.

What was once the middle class is being hollowed out. While there is no question that some people are doing well in this economy, as evidenced by the fact that retail sales are up, housing sales, particularly driven by women, are holding steady, and the technical unemployment numbers are low. There is no question that as the song lyrics go, “there’s something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear.” Whatever it is, the net result is hurting and squeezing a lot of people.

Alissa Quart takes us onto the front lines in Squeezed: Why Our Families Can't Afford America.

My WhoWhatWhy.org conversation with Alissa Quart:

Why Teams Are The New Normal

Look at any business or education sector today and discussion of teams often dominates the agenda. Teams and partnerships, particularly in business, have become not just the new normal, but almost a requirement.

However for every Hewlett and Packard, Jobs and Wozniak and Brin and Page, there are many partnerships and teams that don’t work. So what’s the secret sauce? Why are some more than the sum of the parts and some carry within them the seeds of their own destruction

Science and business journalist Shane Snow digs deep into this phenomenon in Dream Teams: Working Together Without Falling Apart.

My conversation with Shane Snow:

PUTIN’S INDECENT PROPOSAL

When Putin singled out Americans he’d like to have sent to Russia for interrogation, a lot of attention was focused on former US Ambassador Michael McFaul. He also mentioned others, including very prominent international businessman, Bill Browder. More significantly, Putin talked about the Magnitsky Act, which Browder birthed with the help of the United States Congress.

We often throw terms around today in our political and geopolitical debate like capitalist and community and oligarch, but very few who use these terms really understand the essence of what they mean. One of those that does understand is Bill Browder. He rebelled against communism as a teenager, became a very successful capitalist, and made millions in Putin’s Russia. What he didn’t know was just what kind of price he would pay for getting involved in the ever-entangled web of Putin, oligarchs, and a system 180 degrees from our own, a system of men and not of laws.

The ultimate result was the brutal death of Browder’s lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky. Browder has since carried on Magnitsky’s legacy at great personal risk to himself. Putin’s remarks underscore that Bill Browder’s ongoing quest for justice for the murder of Sergei Magnitsky has taken a dark turn under the presidency of Donald Trump.

My WhoWhatWhy conversation with Bill Browder:

Lazy Thinking, Intellectual Cowardice and Safe Spaces On Today's College Campus

Not since the civil war have we been as tribal as a nation as we are today. What’s worse, is that today, through the power of modern communication, social media, bifurcated business models, and 24/7 news, we can be siloed from dawn to dusk. We never have to associate with people whose views are different than ours. We never have to friend people with uncomfortable or different points of view. We get our news, our products and even sometimes our meals, only from people that agree with us.

It’s all very comfortable. But what have we lost in the process. Intellectual challenge, empathy, understanding, compassion, bravery, and getting out of our comfort zone are all lost. All so we can be cocooned in the warm bath of confirmation bias.

And as bad as this is in society at large, no where is it worse than on college campuses. A world where “safe spaces” mean don’t challenge me. 50 Years ago college campuses were alive with ferment and yes, even revolution. Today, to many campuses represent a world of intellectual cowardice and laziness.

No one knows this better than former Williams College student, Zachary Wood. He writes about this experience in Uncensored: My Life and Uncomfortable Conversations at the Intersection of Black and White America.

My conversation with Zachary Wood:

Men Behaving, Or How To Prevent More Trump Supporters In The Future

There is a boy crisis in America. Girls are graduating from college in far greater numbers. Their numbers in law schools, business schools and in post graduate programs are exceeding boys, and the imbalance keeps growing.

Concurrently, everyday we see bad behavior on the part of men. Harvey Weinstein, Charlie Rose and the president are the tip of the proverbial iceberg. They are just the poster boys for bad behavior.

So how to stem the tide? The answer perhaps lies in understanding today's boys and the hope that by setting them on a better path as teenagers, there is hope for the 21st century.

Dr. Adam Cox has been working on just that for years. His latest work on the subject is Cracking the Boy Code: How to Understand and Talk with Boys

My conversation with Adam Cox:

Today's Struggle With Russia Is More Than Cold War 2.0

Not since the apogee of the Cold War has Russia been so paramount in our national discourse. But Churchill’s “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” is a very different Russia than the former Soviet Union. Although as Churchill pointed out, Russian national interest still seems the key.

Vladimir Putin, while Russian to the core, is somehow different from Khrushchev, and Brezhnev and Gorbachev, or the Tsars that came before.

Our conflicts and tensions with Russia today are also different. We risk making a big mistake if we don’t understand modern context. If we don’t understand that this is not just Cold War 2.0, but rather a global conflict whose antecedents may be the Cold War, but whose reality is sui generis to the world in the 21st century.

Former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul pulls of this together and a lot more in From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia.

My WhoWhatWhy.org conversation with Ambassador Michael McFaul:

 

What's the Matter With America?

Back in 2004, a full fourteen years ago, Thomas Frank published a book entitled What’s The Matter with Kansas? In it, he looked at how a segment of the population was consistently voting against their own economic self interests. He argued that so called “culture war” issues, played to emotions that overrode economic concerns.

Twelve years later that trend reached its apogee with the election of Donald Trump. Therefore it’s important to remember that Trump didn’t create the economic, class and cultural divisions in America, he merely exploited them.

Those trends, fed by changes in the nature of work, technology, communication, and global economics have resulted in a society that is, in many ways, not recognizable from the America of yore.  Given that, it's important to remember that the American people played a role in creating this environment, do they now have the power to fix it? Can they put Humpty Dumpty back together again?

Thomas Frank, like the Simon and Garfunkel song, has spent a long time, looking for America to try and find the answer to this question. He reports it in his new book Rendezvous with Oblivion: Reports from a Sinking Society.

My conversation with Thomas Frank:

Silicon Valley: The Origin Story...Live As It Happened

When we talk about change, about creative disruption, about all the ways that the world, both local and global is different, it all seems to have it’s genesis in Silicon Valley.

The games, the apps, the communication and the nature of life and work itself. But these changes were not the result of some kind technological immaculate conception. Sure they were engineered, and 0s and 1s and transistors were all a part. But this also had a cultural underpinning, based on the people, the characters and often the geniuses that migrated to the Valley

Hollywood is often been referred to as High School with money. If that’s true, then Silicon Valley has all the element of Hollywood, but its results have truly changed the world.

Capturing the zeitgeist of the Valley though all its’ ups and downs is Adam Fisher in his book Valley of Genius: The Uncensored History of Silicon Valley (As Told by the Hackers, Founders, and Freaks Who Made It Boom)

My conversation with Adam Fisher:

Driven to Succeed...A Conversation with Dr. Ned Hallowell

Be it the troubled minds, young and old, that commit mass shootings, the incredible and successful talents that commit suicide, or those that seek solace in alcohol or opiates, mental illness is all around us.

What’s encouraging is that we are finally talking about it. Not enough and not openly enough. But remember back in the 50’s there was a reluctance to even talk about cancer.

Times change. And one of the things that precipitates that change is the courage of individuals that are willing to come forward and tell their story. Suddenly when we see our friends, neighbors, even our doctors and other people like us, reveal all, suddenly that shroud falls away sunlight does it’s job.

Edward Hallowell, one of our most distinguished psychiatrists and a leading authority in the field of ADHD, has now pulled back the curtain on his own life to reveal a story of dysfunction, hope and ultimately of survival and success. He shares the story with me and in his new memoir Because I Come from a Crazy Family: The Making of a Psychiatrist.

My conversation with Ned Hallowell:

Nationalism and Culture Need Not be A Zero Sum Game

We hear over and over, that we are a nation of immigrants. Unfortunately, we’re hearing it in a boiler factory. We are hearing it over the cacophony of noise about race, about change and about security and raw politics.

What’s lost is the reality of the very personal immigrant experience. What it’s like to be a stranger in a strange land. To straddle two nations, appreciate both, and not look at nationalism and culture as a zero sum game.

The immigrant experience demands a degree of self awareness that is not present in most Americans. That by itself changes that way that immigrants see themselves and the world around them. It creates a kind of heightened reality, appreciation and skepticism that most of us don't have the privilege of seeing.

That’s why we need people like award winning journalist Alfredo Corchado, who’s recent book is Homelands: Four Friends, Two Countries, and the Fate of the Great Mexican-American Migration.

My conversation with Alfredo Corchado: 

THE AGE OF POLITICAL PERSUASION IS OVER To Attract the Next Generation, Politics Must Be About Advocacy, Organization, and Winning

Fifty years ago, during the last great social and political upheaval in America, young people lead the way. The mantra of the day, of not trusting anyone over 30, defined the generational and political divide.

Today we face an altogether different, but equally powerful social and political dislocation. Except that this time we wonder, where are the young people. Where are the millennials, where is the rising generation.

Perhaps it’s why the Parkland kids struck such a resonate note. With David Hogg reminding us that the children will lead us.

But in our current divide, all sides of boomers and gen X, red and blue, are battling for the hearts, minds and soul of the millennial generation. The left has the advantage of the natural state of liberalism in the young, but the right has the organization, the business savvy and the money.

How this plays out may truly impact the fate of the republic. This is the subject of a series of stories by journalist Michael Hobbes.

My WhoWhatWhy.org conversation with Michael Hobbes:

Groucho Was Right!

Groucho Marx famously said, upon resigning the Friars club, that he would “never want to belong to any club that would have him as a member.” That line has been used since by those that are afraid of not belonging. What better way to prevent being excluded than saying, or convincing yourself, that you don’t want to join?

The facts, and our world today, tell us something entirely different. Not only do we want to belong, but we want to belong to groups that are exactly like us. While tribalism may be built into our DNA, the added anxiety and fear in our culture today, puts that tribalism on steroids.

This tribalism is enhanced by our hi-speed 24/7 world. It accentuates fear of the other, it drives our identity politics, and it fuels our confirmation bias driven life. In short, the more we want or need to belong, the more we are divided. All leading us to the conclusion that Groucho had the right idea.

This is also the idea put forth by Howard J. Ross in his new book Our Search for Belonging: How Our Need to Connect Is Tearing Us Apart.

My conversation with Howard Ross:

Freedom of the Press and Freedom From Fake News

The founders were wise enough that they made freedom of the press first among equals, as a constitutional guarantee. They also even understood fake news in the form of the pamphleteers of the day. But they never could have imagined bots and trolls and social media, as a way for that fake news to be disseminated at light speed. We’ve seen how lies beak from the gate quickly, and the truth can seldom seem to catch up.

For those that aren’t monitoring the news 24/7, and for the vast majority of the country that has neither the time nor resources to fact check every story, or each new online site, how are we to determine, as Stephen Colbert would say, the truthiness of stories.

We’ve seen lately that algorithms alone simply don’t work. So how can the human element be brought in, in a way that is informative and yet not intrusive? In a process that allows for advocacy, opinion and human bias, but still respects facts, expertise and professionalism? The answer might be Newsguard.

Steven Brill is the founder of American Lawyer, Court TV, Brill's Content and the Yale Journalism initiative. He’s recently confounded NewsGuard.

My conversation with Steven Brill:

Can Something That's Popular, Still Be Creative and Good?

There's an old axiom with respect to quality and culture that says if something is popular, it can't be very good. Certainly that's true for fast-food, overhyped action movies and maybe even some crummy literature. However, there's a way that creativity can be combined with commercial success that brings out the best of both. What's more, creativity in this regard, is not something that's limited to those that are born geniuses.

To examine this, I talked to Allen Gannett, the author of The Creative Curve: How to Develop the Right Idea, at the Right Time.

My conversation with Allen Gannett:

A Dinner in Camelot: How Far We Have Fallen

A few weeks ago , the press reported aggressively on the fact that Kim Kardashian had visited the White House. Just as it had the visits of Kid Rock and Ted Nugent before her. With homage toDr. Seuss, Oh, how far we have fallen.

On April 29, 1962, John F. Kennedy welcomed a group of Nobel Prize winners to the White House. Other guests included William Styron, James Baldwin, Mary Welsh Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway’s widow, who sat next to the President and grilled him on Cuba policy. Also there were John Glenn, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Researcher Linus Pauling, and Pablo Casals. Actor Fredric March gave a public recitation after the meal,

Held at the height of the Cold War, the dinner celebrated American achievement, and symbolized a time when ideas and facts were esteemed, divergent viewpoints could be respectfully discussed and the great minds of an age might all dine together in the glamour of “the people’s house.”

It was about this event that Kennedy said, “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House — with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”

To revel for twenty minutes on what used to be, you’ll want to listen to Joesph Esposito, the author of Dinner in Camelot: The Night America's Greatest Scientists, Writers, and Scholars Partied at the Kennedy White House. 

My conversation with Joseph Esposito: