Keen On Democracy

"We didn't have to grow up with that." — Ross Greene, on school shootingsOne of the most persistent worries these days is that our kids aren't okay. With most of the blame, of course, now being placed on the ubiquity of social media. But psychologist Ross W. Greene, author of the bestselling Lost at School, has a new book out today called The Kids Who Aren't Okay which doesn't place all the blame on social media. Indeed he argues that if we focus only on the internet, we'll fail to understand the broader psychological struggle that many of our kids face today.It's not that Greene is in total denial about the destructive nature of social media. But none of his leading reasons for today's crisis in schools are associated with technology. His top three:●      School shootings●      High-stakes testing●      Zero-tolerance policies with a focus on punishment rather than empathyThe new book, Greene impishly promises, has things in it that will offend just about anybody on both the left and right. He calls out teacher unions for failing to support legislation against restraints and seclusions—pinning kids to the ground, dragging them to locked rooms. And he criticizes both parties for bipartisan policies that have made it harder for educators to educate.The definition of good teaching, Greene insists, is meeting every kid where they're at. Standard testing is exactly the opposite. If you try to treat everybody exactly the same, he warns, you will meet nobody where they're at. We need to get busy teaching kids how to collaborate on solving problems, he says—otherwise they'll turn out like us—only worse. Five Takeaways●      Social Media Isn't in the Top Three: Greene's top factors making it harder to be a kid: school shootings, high-stakes testing, and zero-tolerance policies. If we focus only on social media, he says, we'll miss the rest of the picture.●      We're Still Pinning Kids to the Ground: Schools still use restraints and seclusions—pinning kids down, dragging them to locked rooms. Legislation has been available since 2011. The two largest teacher unions have yet to support it.●      High-Stakes Testing Is the Opposite of Good Teaching: Good teaching means meeting every kid where they're at. Telling every kid they have to get over the same bar by the end of the school year is exactly not what the doctor ordered.●      Fairness Means Treating Every Kid Differently: If you try to treat everybody exactly the same, you will meet nobody where they're at. Meeting each kid where they are isn't unfair to the rest—it's fair to everyone.●      This Book Will Offend Just About Anybody: Greene calls out both political parties, teacher unions, and policies on both sides of the aisle. Somebody's got to wade in, he says. Somebody's got to call it. About the GuestRoss W. Greene, PhD is the author of Lost at School and The Explosive Child. He is the founder of the nonprofit Lives in the Balance and the inventor of the Collaborative and Proactive Solutions approach. He has worked with nearly 3,000 kids and their caregivers.ReferencesBooks mentioned:●      The Kids Who Aren't Okay by Ross W. Greene — his new book on reimagining support, belonging, and hope in schools.●      Lost at School by Ross W. Greene — his bestselling earlier work on kids with behavioral challenges.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: The kids who aren't okay (01:17) - Are most kids struggling? (02:51) - Top three factors: Not social media (04:11) - Is this an American problem? (05:15) - Distrust of authorities—even PhDs (06:47) - Which kids are struggling most? (08:04) - Where's the cultural rebellion? (09:55) - Helicopter parenting (11:34) - Wading into the culture wars (13:00) - Restraints and seclusions: We're still pinning kids down (15:10) - Were schools always this punitive? (17:23) - Why teachers are underpaid and leaving (18:57) - Public vs. private schools (19:59) - Is this about money? (21:07) - Every kid is different (24:06) - The problem with 'fairness' (26:27) - Medication: Not black and white (28:34) - Social media: Correlational, not causal (31:54) - What happens to kids who aren't okay?

"I wake up at 3 AM, check my phone to see what fresh hell has come out, and it's usually two words: 'Trump threatens.'" — Peter BaleWe're reversing the lens today. Rather than examining America from the inside, we're peering at it from the outside in—from New Zealand, at the bottom of the world. Peter Bale is a longtime media executive who's had senior positions at CNN, Reuters, and News Corp. He's now back in his native New Zealand, waking up at 3 AM to check his phone. The news, he says, is usually two words: "Trump threatens."Much of our conversation centers on the former NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. She led New Zealand's COVID response, Anthony Fauci style, with daily press conferences and a scientific mastery of the facts. An estimated 20,000 lives were saved. But she also became the target of profound misogyny and physical threats that no New Zealand Prime Minister had ever experienced. She now lives in Boston—teaching at Harvard's Shorenstein Center—because she can't safely live in her own country.Bale describes a dark MAGA-style underbelly in New Zealand that surprised him when he returned after 50 years abroad. Christian nationalists, anti-Maori sentiment, "Christchurch skinheads." US platforms—especially X—have given permission to speak in ways that would have been unacceptable. When the President uses that rhetoric, Bale notes, the permission for personal calumny is quadrupled.We also discuss the Epstein files (the media failed to connect the dots), Will Lewis's destruction of the Washington Post ("utterly reprehensible"), and whether America is finished. Bale's answer: "I don't think America is ever done. Every time people perceive it to be done, it has a political or economic renewal." The question is who comes after Trump—Vance or somebody even more threatening—and who will keep waking Peter Bale at 3 AM. Five Takeaways●      The View from 18,000 Miles Is Punch-Drunk: Bale wakes at 3 AM to check his phone. The news is usually two words: "Trump threatens." Small countries like New Zealand depend on the international rule of law. When that breaks down, they feel it acutely.●      Jacinda Ardern Became New Zealand's Fauci: She led the COVID response with daily press conferences and saved an estimated 20,000 lives. But she became the target of profound misogyny and physical threats. She now lives in Boston because she can't safely live in New Zealand.●      "They Are Us" Was the Right Three Words: After an Australian livestreamed himself killing 51 Muslims in Christchurch, Ardern flew there immediately, wore a head covering, and said of the victims: "They are us." It hung in the air as exactly what needed to be said.●      Trumpism Has Gone International: New Zealand has its own dark underbelly—Christian nationalists, anti-Maori sentiment, "Christchurch skinheads." US platforms have given permission to speak in ways that would have been unacceptable. When the President uses that rhetoric, the permission is quadrupled.●      America Is Never Done: Every time people perceive it to be finished, it has a political or economic renewal. Its ability to rebuild itself constantly is astounding. The question is who comes after Trump—Vance or somebody worse. About the GuestPeter Bale is a longtime media executive based in New Zealand. He has held senior positions at CNN, Reuters, News Corp, and the Center for Public Integrity. He ran WikiTribune and has been a close observer of both American and international media for decades.ReferencesPeople mentioned:●      Jacinda Ardern was Prime Minister of New Zealand during COVID. She now teaches at Harvard's Shorenstein Center because she can't safely live in her own country.●      Mark Carney has articulated what Bale calls the "Carney doctrine"—medium-sized countries standing up to US unilateralism.●      Will Lewis presided over cuts at the Washington Post that Bale calls "utterly reprehensible," including eliminating international bureaus and the books section.●      Michael Wolff has spent three years trying to interest mainstream media in Trump-Epstein connections. Trump's defense: "I'm not a schmuck enough to use email."About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: Reversing the lens (01:00) - Punch-drunk 18,000 miles away (03:00) - The Carney doctrine and standing up to Trump (05:00) - Whatever happened to Jacinda Ardern? (08:00) - Ardern as New Zealand's Fauci (09:00) - The Christchurch mosque shooting: 'They are us' (11:00) - The dark heart of New Zealand politics (13:00) - Has New Zealand caught Trumpism? (15:00) - The collapse of trust in media (16:00) - Peter's role in New Zealand media funding (18:00) - Opinion vs. reporting: What went wrong (21:00) - The Epstein files and media failure (25:00) - Will Lewis and the Washington Post disaster (28:00) - Will America survive? (30:00) - America is never done

"Great minds think alike? It's completely wrong. It's not that great minds think alike; it's that different minds are great." — David OppenheimerIt's diversity week. Yesterday, Brian Soucek argued in favor of what he calls the "opinionated university" to protect free speech. Today David Oppenheimer, law professor at UC Berkeley, on The Diversity Principle: The Story of a Transformative Idea. Oppenheimer reminds us that diversity isn't a modern invention. It traces back to Wilhelm von Humboldt's University of Berlin in 1810, which admitted Catholics and Jews to what would otherwise have been an entirely Protestant institution. And to John Stuart Mill, whose On Liberty—written with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill—might be renamed On Liberty and Diversity.Oppenheimer's case for diversity is partly moral, partly utilitarian. Diverse boards result in more profitable corporations, he says. Diverse science labs make more significant discoveries. Diverse classrooms generate better ideas. The phrase "great minds think alike" is, he says, the product of a poor mind. Different minds are great. That's where the greatness comes from.Oppenheimer takes seriously Clarence Thomas's critique of diversity. Thomas argues that racial diversity assumes Black people all think alike, which is its own form of liberal racism. But Oppenheimer responds by citing Thomas's "brilliant" dissent in Virginia v. Black, where he argued that cross burning isn't political speech but terrorism. That insight, Oppenheimer says, came from Thomas's lived experience as a Black man. The other justices, all white, couldn't see it.The unsung hero in Oppenheimer's history of diversity is Pauli Murray. Born 1910 into the segregated South, Murray coined the term "Jane Crow," influenced Thurgood Marshall's arguments in Brown v. Board, saved the sex discrimination clause in the Civil Rights Act, hired Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the ACLU against the judgment of the men who thought her "meek," and ended her life as an Episcopal priest. Now recognized by the church as a saint, Oppenheimer cites Murray as not just a great theorist of diversity, but also as a paragon of a diverse life. Maybe every week should be diversity week. Five Takeaways●      Different Minds Are Great: The phrase "great minds think alike" is, Oppenheimer says, the product of a poor mind. Different minds are great. That's where their greatness comes from.●      Diversity Traces Back to 1810: Diversity isn't a modern invention. It traces back to Humboldt's University of Berlin in 1810, which admitted Catholics and Jews. Mill's On Liberty might be renamed On Liberty and Diversity.●      Clarence Thomas's Critique Is Serious: Thomas argues that racial diversity assumes Black people all think alike—its own form of liberal racism. But Oppenheimer responds by citing Thomas's own "brilliant" dissent in Virginia v. Black, which came from his lived experience as a Black man.●      Pauli Murray Is the Model of a Great Mind: Murray coined the term "Jane Crow," influenced Thurgood Marshall's arguments in Brown v. Board, saved the sex discrimination clause in the Civil Rights Act, and hired Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Oppenheimer cites her as a paragon of a diverse life.●      Mill Warned Against Majoritarianism: On Liberty is instructive today. When everyone agrees, listen harder to those who disagree. The majority is not only often ill-informed but often wrong. About the GuestDavid Oppenheimer is a Clinical Professor of Law at UC Berkeley School of Law. He is the author of The Diversity Principle: The Story of a Transformative Idea and co-director of a center on comparative equality law. He attended Harvard Law School and spent his final year at Berkeley.ReferencesPeople mentioned:●      John Stuart Mill wrote On Liberty with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill. Oppenheimer argues the book might be renamed On Liberty and Diversity.●      Wilhelm von Humboldt founded the University of Berlin in 1810 on principles of diversity, admitting Catholics and Jews to a Protestant institution.●      Pauli Murray coined "Jane Crow," influenced Thurgood Marshall, saved sex discrimination in the Civil Rights Act, hired RBG, and became an Episcopal saint.●      Charles William Eliot was President of Harvard who brought diversity principles to American higher education, encouraging the "clash of ideas" among undergraduates.●      Clarence Thomas offers a critique of diversity that Oppenheimer takes seriously but ultimately rejects, using Thomas's own dissent in Virginia v. Black.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: A legal week on diversity (01:32) - Diversity traces back to Humboldt's Berlin, 1810 (02:08) - What is diversity? (03:19) - Mill and On Liberty: The philosophy of diversity (05:08) - Great minds don't think alike—different minds are great (06:13) - Mill against the tyranny of the majority (07:23) - Is diversity utilitarian? (09:14) - Charles William Eliot brings diversity to Harvard (11:04) - Harvard vs. Princeton: Who welcomed outsiders? (12:47) - What's the strongest argument against diversity?

"They are changing venture capital from a 30% tax to 0% tax. If Robinhood succeeds, it makes Sequoia and Andreessen's business model untenable." — Keith TeareThe Silicon Gods must have their blood. And they've finally come for the funders of disruption, the venture capitalists, who are now being disrupted by something called Public Venture Capital (PVC). That, at least, is the view of That Was The Week publisher Keith Teare, who leads his newsletter this week with Robinhood's new venture fund. This new stock-trading app for millennials is going after Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz—not by competing on deal flow, but by charging 0% carry instead of 20-30%. Robinhood promises it blows the doors off traditional venture capital.But Keith urges caution over PVCs. Robinhood is packaging late-stage private assets—companies like Databricks that would have IPO'd years ago but are staying private longer. By the time retail investors get access, employees are already cashing out through tender offers because they think the peak is near. The poster child: Figma, which did secondaries at $12 billion after Adobe's $20 billion acquisition failed. A lot of (dumb) people bought at the top and are now slightly less stupid.Fortunately, this week's tech roundup isn't just about get-rich-quick investment schemes. We also discuss Yasha Mounk's sobering experiment: he asked AI to write a political philosophy paper and found it "depressingly good"—publishable in an academic journal. Keith reframes this supposed "death of the humanities" as automation, not democratization. The humans aren't being leveled up; they're masquerading as producers while AI does the work. But craft still matters. When technology relieves humans of the mundane, he hopes, it elevates the special.Lastly but not least, we get to the abundance debate. Peter Diamandis and Singularity University have promised something called "exponential abundance" by 2035. Keith is sympathetic. I am not. The only thing I'm willing to guarantee is that we'll still be talking abundantly about abundance in 2035. And that the Silicon Valley Gods will have their blood. Five Takeaways●      Robinhood Is Charging 0% Carry: Sequoia and Andreessen take 20-30% of profits. Robinhood takes nothing. If they scale, the traditional VC model becomes untenable.●      But You're Buying at the Top: These are late-stage assets. Employees are selling through tender offers because they think peak valuation is near. Ask the people who bought Figma at $12 billion.●      AI Is Automating the Humanities: Yasha Mounk found AI could write "depressingly good" political philosophy. This isn't democratization—it's humans masquerading as producers.●      Craft Still Retains Its Power: Technology relieves humans of the mundane—and elevates the special. Creativity that breaks through will always command attention.●      The Abundance Debate Continues: Diamandis says abundance by 2035. Keith agrees land is already abundant. Andrew calls this "such a stupid thing to say." About the GuestKeith Teare is the publisher of That Was The Week and Executive Chairman of SignalRank. He is a serial entrepreneur and longtime observer of Silicon Valley. Keith joins Keen On America every Saturday for The Week That Was.ReferencesCompanies mentioned:●      Robinhood is launching a publicly listed venture fund, raising up to $1 billion at $25/share with 0% carry. They already have $340 million in assets including Databricks.●      Figma is cited as a cautionary tale: after Adobe's failed $20 billion acquisition, it did secondaries at $12 billion—many bought at the top.●      Polymarket is a prediction market platform that Robinhood has responded to by adding prediction markets to its offerings.People mentioned:●      Yasha Mounk wrote about AI writing "depressingly good" political philosophy papers that could be published in academic journals.●      Peter Diamandis and Dr. Alexander Wisner-Gross of Singularity University argue that exponential abundance is coming by 2035.●      Packy McCormick wrote about power in the age of intelligence.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: If it's Saturday, it must be revolution (02:11) - Robinhood's venture fund announcement (03:17) - What is Robinhood's day job? (07:43) - Secondary markets and tender offers (10:33) - Democratization or late-stage risk? (14:09) - Is Robinhood just gambling? (16:08) - Private vs. public market returns (19:02) - Is finance merging with betting? (24:23) - Blowing the doors off Sequoia and Andreessen (26:27) - Yasha Mounk: AI automating the humanities (28:47) - Where does power go in the age of AI? (30:42) - Craft retains its power (31:33) - The abundance debate (34:00) - Is land abundant? Andrew loses patience (00:00) - Chapter 15 (00:00) - Chapter 16 (00:00) - Introduction: If it's Saturday, it must be revolution (02:11) - Robinhood's venture fund announcement (03:17) - What is Robinhood's day job? (07:43) - Secondary markets and tender offers (10:33) - Democratization or late-stage risk? (14:09) - Is Robinhood just gambling? (16:08) - Private vs. public market returns (19:02) - Is finance merging with betting? (24:23) - Blowing the doors off Sequoia and Andreessen (26:27) - Yasha Mounk: AI automating the humanities

"150 universities have adopted neutrality policies just since October 7th. I'm on the losing end of this trend." — Brian SoucekUniversities keep claiming what they see as the moral high ground of neutrality. But Brian Soucek, who holds the MLK chair at UC Davis School of Law, believes that's a dangerous myth. In his new book, The Opinionated University: Academic Freedom, Diversity, and the Myth of Neutrality in American Higher Education, Soucek argues in favor of the biased university. His argument is that even (or, perhaps, particularly) when universities stay quiet, they're actually taking sides through their policies, their hiring, their building names, their actions. Silence isn't neutral. It's ideological.This fetish with neutrality is gaining in popularity, Soucek warns. Since October 7th, an estimated 150 universities have adopted neutrality pledges—pushed by well-funded efforts from the Goldwater Institute and others. Every pledge has a vague moral carve-out: universities will still speak when their "mission is at stake." But everyone has a mission and they are all different. That's the whole point. Soucek claims the moral high ground of pluralism. That's why he wants Boston College to be different from Yale, UC Davis different from University of Austin. The flattening of higher education into some imagined neutral sameness is what terrifies this classical liberal.The real crisis, Soucek insists, isn't self-censoring students or woke professors. It's the external threat of federal funding cuts, hostile state legislatures, a Trump administration that has declared DEI illegal without exactly making it so. Universities are staying quiet because, as one UC president put it, "We don't want to be the tallest nail." But Harvard's faculty spoke out through the AAUP, and it changed the conversation. For Soucek, silence isn't safety. It's surrender. Eventually everyone will become the tallest nail. And will be flattened by a hammer-wielding ideological foe.On the promise or threat of AI, Soucek is blunt: the idea of objective algorithms deciding what statues to take down or what books to read sounds to him "completely dystopian." We'd lose something essential if we stopped allowing communities to make these contested decisions differently, he says. For Soucek, that's not a bug of an otherwise unbiased university. It's the feature of any credible institute of higher learning. Five Takeaways●      Neutrality Is a Myth: Universities claim neutrality but act in non-neutral ways—through policies, hiring, building names. Silence is a choice, not an absence of choice.●      150 Universities Signed Neutrality Pledges Since October 7th: Well-funded efforts from the Goldwater Institute are pushing this flattening of higher education. Soucek sees himself on the losing end.●      The External Threats Are the Real Crisis: Not self-censoring students. Federal funding cuts are existential. Universities are staying quiet so as not to be "the tallest nail."●      Pluralism, Not Homogeneity: Different universities should have different missions. That's why University of Austin is fine. New College Florida—where changes were imposed from above—is a disaster.●      AI Objectivity Is Dystopian: Letting algorithms decide which statues to take down or which books to read? We'd lose something essential. Contested decisions should stay contested. About the GuestBrian Soucek is Professor of Law and holds the Martin Luther King Jr. Chair at UC Davis School of Law. He is the author of The Opinionated University: Academic Freedom, Diversity, and the Myth of Neutrality in American Higher Education. He earned his JD from Yale Law School and his undergraduate degree from Boston College.ReferencesConcepts mentioned:●      The Kalven Report was a 1967 University of Chicago faculty report on institutional neutrality. It's been revived by organizations pushing neutrality pledges.●      The Goldwater Institute has funded efforts to get university boards to adopt neutrality policies modeled on the Kalven Report.●      Heterodox Academy is a campus speech advocacy organization that estimated 150 universities adopted neutrality policies since October 7th.●      FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) conducts surveys on campus self-censorship that Soucek references.Universities mentioned:●      University of Austin is a new university founded by tech figures with a consciously different mission. Soucek supports its existence as an example of pluralism.●      New College Florida was transformed by Governor DeSantis and Chris Rufo. Soucek calls it a disaster—changes imposed from above, not through shared governance.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: The myth of neutrality (02:18) - A challenge to both Left and Right (03:15) - Is there really a free speech crisis? (05:33) - Who wants the neutral university? (06:48) - The Kalven Report and Goldwater Institute (07:54) - October 7th and Gaza (09:22) - Where does intolerance come from? (10:00) - Can courts be neutral? (11:24) - DEI and the university's mission (14:04) - Should universities speak out against Trump? (15:53) - Does the university tilt Left? (17:03) - MLK and the right to break unjust laws (20:13) - The myth ...

"72% of Americans say they hate big corporations—including Republicans." — Charles DerberIt's not just the right that's reacting against liberal democracy. Some progressives are also embracing populism. Charles Derber, longtime professor of sociology at Boston College, has a new book called Fighting Oligarchy: How Positive Populism Can Reclaim America. Rather than a dirty word, he argues, populism is an inevitable political response to the brutality of today's economy. We're in a disguised depression, he fears. Sixty percent of Americans say they feel one paycheck away from oblivion.72% of Americans say they hate big corporations, Derber reminds us. Not just Democrats—Republicans too. Such hostility to large capitalist enterprises thus represents a kind of political supermajority. And Derber, a man of the left, sees this as fertile ground for what he calls positive populism. It's a politics that connects economic grievance to democratic renewal, the way the 1890s Populists did, the way the New Deal did, the way Martin Luther King did when he insisted you couldn't fight for civil rights without fighting against war and capitalism.But can positive populism coexist with American capitalism? Derber says no. American capitalism is too oligarchic, too individualistic, too hostile to collective identity. It's not compatible with positive populism and thus, in Derber's mind at least, not compatible with survival. But that doesn't involve a Soviet-style elimination of the free market. It means something more like Northern European social democracy: strong unions, universal healthcare, a government that actually intervenes on behalf of ordinary people.The trap, Derber warns, is nostalgia for the pre-Trump era. Going back to the supposedly "consensus" years of Bush, Obama and Clinton is a circuitous way of getting to another Trump. Today's street demonstrators—from Minneapolis to Los Angeles to New York City—understand this. According to Derber, demonstrations against ICE and MAGA are associating the immigration crackdowns with corporate oligarchy, and authoritarian political power with the economic power of big capitalism.And so positive populism will prevail. At least according to Charles Derber. Fight the oligarchy! Five Takeaways●      We're in a Disguised Depression: Sixty percent of Americans say they feel one paycheck away from disaster. This isn't radical rhetoric—it's mainstream public opinion.●      Hatred of Corporations Is Bipartisan: 72-73% of Americans—including Republicans—say they hate big corporations. Derber sees this as fertile ground for positive populism.●      Positive Populism Has Precedents: The 1890s Populists united white and Black workers. The New Deal gave ordinary people a stake. MLK linked civil rights to economics. These are the models.●      Going Back to Pre-Trump Is a Trap: If Democrats return to Bush-Obama-Clinton centrism, they'll get another Trump. The resistance understands this. The establishment doesn't.●      American Capitalism Is Incompatible: Positive populism can't coexist with American-style oligarchic capitalism. It needs transformation—not elimination of markets, but European-style social democracy. About the GuestCharles Derber is a professor of sociology at Boston College and author of more than twenty books, including Fighting Oligarchy: How Positive Populism Can Reclaim America and Bonfire: American Sociocide, Broken Relationships, and the Quest for Democracy. He is an old friend of Keen on America.ReferencesPeople mentioned:●      Pepper Culpepper is an Oxford political scientist whose book Billionaire Backlash argues that backlash against billionaires could strengthen democracy.●      Hélène Landemore is a Yale political scientist whose book Politics without Politicians makes the case for direct democracy.●      William Jennings Bryan ran for President four times on a populist platform but, Derber argues, sold out the movement's anti-corporate thrust.●      Martin Luther King Jr. argued that civil rights couldn't be separated from economic justice and opposition to war—a form of positive populism.●      Bernie Sanders and AOC are examples of positive populists within the Democratic Party today.Historical references:●      The 1890s Populist Movement united farmers and workers against the first Gilded Age oligarchy. Lawrence Goodwyn called it "the democratic moment."●      The New Deal represented a form of positive populism with significant government intervention in markets and encouragement of union organizing.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:

"American culture likes martyrs, not marchers." — David Masciotra, quoting Jesse JacksonA couple of days ago, a great American died. Jesse Jackson was 84. He was somebody. Even Donald Trump acknowledged the passing of "a good man"—which, as my guest today notes, Jackson probably wouldn't have appreciated. David Masciotra is the author of I Am Somebody: Why Jesse Jackson Matters, one of the most readable biographies of the African-American leader. Having spent six years covering him and more than 100 hours in conversation, he called Jackson a friend.Masciotra borrows from Jackson on Americans preferring martyrs to marchers. It's easy to celebrate him now that he's gone. But when Jesse was being Jesse—battling economic apartheid, registering millions of voters, building a Rainbow Coalition—he had many critics and enemies, including some of those hypocrites now praising him.Jackson's legacy is vast. After King's death, he focused on economic justice, securing thousands of jobs for Black workers and entrepreneurs. He ran for President twice, nearly winning the 1988 nomination. He pushed for proportional delegate allocation—without which Obama would never have won in 2008. He debated David Duke and, in Masciotra's words, "reduced him to a sputtering mess." He was the first presidential candidate to fully support gay rights. He slept beside gay men dying of AIDS in hospices. He marched with Latino immigrants from California into Mexico.But perhaps most relevant today: Jackson showed how to build a coalition that transcended racial politics without ignoring race. "If we leave the racial battleground to find economic common ground," MLK's spiritual successor insisted, "we can reach for moral higher ground." That's the populist strategy Masciotra believes the Democrats need now—a vision, he fears, trapped between the identitarian politics of its left and the milquetoast neoliberalism of its right flank. Five Takeaways●      Martyrs, Not Marchers: American culture celebrates civil rights leaders after they're dead. When Jackson was hard at it, he had enemies—including some now praising him.●      Jackson Made Obama Possible: Jackson pushed for proportional delegate allocation. Without it, Obama—who won small states—would never have beaten Clinton in 2008.●      Jackson Debated David Duke: And reduced him to a sputtering mess. Duke's response: "Jackson's intelligence isn't typical of Blacks." Jackson believed refusing debate only empowers enemies.●      Race and Class Are Linked: Jackson showed you can't substitute race for class or use race to erase class. Leave the racial battleground for economic common ground.●      Visionaries Win the Marathon: Jackson often lost the sprint but won the marathon. His Rainbow Coalition vision is what Democrats need now—and keep fumbling. About the GuestDavid Masciotra is a cultural critic, journalist, and author of I Am Somebody: Why Jesse Jackson Matters. He spent six years covering Jackson and more than 100 hours in conversation with him. He is an old friend of Keen on America.ReferencesPeople mentioned:●      Martin Luther King Jr. was Jackson's mentor. Jackson was an aide to King and was with him on the balcony the day he was assassinated.●      David Duke, former KKK leader, debated Jackson in 1988. Jackson wiped the floor with him.●      W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington represent a historic dichotomy in Black political thought. Jackson occupied space between positions.●      Rosa Parks was eulogized by Jackson, who noted that she succeeded simply because "she was available."●      Robert Kennedy shared Jackson's universal vision of coalition-building across racial lines.Organizations mentioned:●      Operation PUSH was Jackson's organization focused on economic justice for Black Americans.●      The Rainbow Coalition was Jackson's political movement seeking to unite Americans across race and class.Further reading:●      Masciotra's UnHerd piece: "Jesse Jackson Transcended America's Racial Politics"About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: A great man died (01:14) - Martyrs, not marchers (02:49) - Jackson in the context of King (05:07) - The Booker T.–Du Bois dichotomy (08:14) - Did Jackson make Obama possible? (11:15) - The marathon, not the sprint (13:25) - How a white guy from Chicago became Jackson's biographer (16:32) - Jackson vs. David Duke (20:43) - I Am Somebody: the origin (24:06) - Transcending racial politics (30:26) - The Rainbow Coalition as progressive populism (33:23) - What Jackson teaches us about leadership (36:26) - Will Jackson be remembered?  

"It truly is becoming a desert right now for book publicists." — Bethanne PatrickA couple of weeks ago, there was an "absolute bloodbath" at The Washington Post with hundreds of workers laid off and the book section totally gutted. Ron Charles, the beloved fiction editor, is gone. So is Becca Rothfeld, who described it in The New Yorker as "The Death of Book World." Today I'm talking to Keen on America's resident book expert, Bethanne Patrick of the LA Times, about what this latest bloodbath means not just for readers and writers, but also for the future of literary culture.The news is pretty grim. Patrick points out that we used to have a general public reading newspapers and general interest magazines like Time & Newsweek for guidance about what to read. Now we've splintered into much narrower reading groups, each told to care only about what they already care about. The New York Times might be thriving, but its dominance isn't healthy. No writer wants to hear, "The Times didn't pick up your book, so there won't be a review at all." Meanwhile, mass-market paperbacks are dying and while Patrick is unsentimental about their physical quality, she nonetheless bemoans the demise of a mainstream reading culture.There is, however, some good literary news. Spotify has struck a deal with Bookshop.org to sell physical books—enabling us to click a link while listening to a podcast and then buy the book, with proceeds supporting independent bookstores. And audiobooks are booming. Patrick defends them vigorously, citing research that shows listening to them stimulates the same part of the brain as the act of reading. When her husband discovered audiobooks, Patrick reports, he started reading longer books and, perhaps not uncoincidentally, more women novelists.And then, last but certainly not least, there's AI. ElevenLabs is doubling down on AI-generated audiobooks—cheaper, faster, and increasingly hard to distinguish from human narrators. Patrick is conflicted. She narrated Life B, her own memoir, and loved it. But the middle market is disappearing from audiobooks too: soon we'll have winner-take-all celebrity narrators at the top, crappy AI bots at the bottom, and nothing in between. It's the enshittification of books. Jeff Bezos is presumably fine with all of this. Someone's taking care of the bottom line somewhere—maybe his delightful new wife's plastic surgeon. About the GuestBethanne Patrick is the book critic of the LA Times and author of the memoir Life B: Overcoming Double Consciousness. She has written for The Washington Post, NPR, and numerous other publications. She is Keen on America's resident book expert.ReferencesPeople mentioned:●      Ron Charles was the fiction books editor at The Washington Post. Patrick counts him as a dear friend. He has since started his own Substack.●      Becca Rothfeld wrote "The Death of Book World" for The New Yorker and is author of All Things Are Too Small. She was also laid off from the Post.●      Colleen Hoover is the self-published author of It Ends with Us. Patrick notes she's "doing just fine without mass-market paperbacks."●      Maria Adelmann is the author of The Adjunct, which Patrick is currently reading and recommends.Publications and companies mentioned:●      The Washington Post gutted its book coverage in what Patrick calls "a big blow for the literary world."●      Bookshop.org is partnering with Spotify to sell physical books, with proceeds benefiting independent bookstores.●      ElevenLabs is an AI company doubling down on AI-generated audiobooks with various tiers of service.●      Libby is the app where many young readers now discover audiobooks through their libraries.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: The Washington Post bloodbath (02:57) - Maybe Jeff Bezos's wife's plastic surgeon (03:35) - Do we need generalized criticism? (05:55) - The end of mass-market paperbacks (09:51) - Colleen Hoover is doing just fine (10:55) - Is New York Times dominance good? (13:21) - Flocking to Substack (15:38) - The LA Times and California stories (17:02) - Spotify's deal with Bookshop.org (20:50) - Are audiobooks real reading? (23:59) - ElevenLabs and AI audiobooks (28:33) - Enshittification and the shrinking middle (31:26) - Social media's uncertain future (35:12) - What Bethanne is reading  

"I'm much more likely to protest when I feel responsible—when violence is being done in my name." — Bruce RobbinsAs always, the media is full of stories about political protest. A Columbia University Gaza protester held by ICE claims to have been chained to her bed after a seizure. Our friends at FIRE are addressing the right to demonstrate against ICE in a house of worship. Obama is arguing that ICE demonstrators should have the right to demonstrate on the streets of Minneapolis. The US government, meanwhile, cheers protesters on the Iranian streets while cracking down on protesters at home. Today's guest isn't shy at pointing out that contradiction.Bruce Robbins is a professor at Columbia—ground zero for the Gaza encampments of 2024—and his new book Who's Allowed to Protest? argues against those who protest the protesters. Conservatives like David Brooks, Musa al-Gharbi, and others have dismissed campus demonstrators as "spoiled rich kids at elite schools" who are "just doing this to feel morally superior." Robbins points out that the same argument was used against Vietnam protesters in the 60s, against Greta Thunberg's climate activism, and against anyone whose cause appears in any way utopian. This reactionary critique never changes: they're privileged, they're not starving, so ignore their hypocritical whining.What drives people to protest? Robbins says it's a sense of moral responsibility. He confesses that he's much more likely to get off his couch when violence is done in his name—particularly as a Jew or an American. And he makes an interesting broader argument: that the conservative attack on student "elites" dangerously conflates educated elites with moneyed elites. The firefighters in LA were an elite team, he reminds us. Scientists are elites. We need expertise, Columbia's Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities says. The question is who controls this expert knowledge and who pays for it.I think Bruce Robbins has a point here. But some American student protesters, especially the Gaza crowd, do make themselves vulnerable to critics like Brooks and al-Gharbi. As I suggested to Robbins, if these smart kids at Columbia want to protest, then they should be smart about it. Especially by recognizing the moral complexities of the Palestine-Israel issue and by being able to convincingly explain why they chose to protest this injustice over everything else. About the GuestBruce Robbins is the Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. He is the author of Atrocity: A Literary History and numerous other books. His new book is Who's Allowed to Protest? (2026). He succeeded Edward Said in the Old Dominion chair.ReferencesPeople mentioned:●      David Brooks wrote about "America Needing a Mass Movement"—though apparently not an anti-Israel one. Robbins finds his dismissal of protesters hypocritical.●      Musa al-Gharbi is the author of We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite, which Robbins takes issue with.●      Edward Said held the Old Dominion chair before Robbins and was a visible Palestinian presence at Columbia. His office was trashed multiple times and he received death threats.●      Mahmoud Khalil was a Columbia student arrested in his apartment lobby in front of his pregnant wife, jailed for 104 days, released by court order, and is now facing re-arrest.●      Bari Weiss, now head of CBS News, tried to get Palestinian professors fired when she was a Columbia undergraduate, sponsored by the David Project.●      Greta Thunberg faces the same "spoiled rich kids" critique that Gaza protesters face. Robbins sees the same silencing tactic applied to any protest that seems "disinterested."●      Greg Lukianoff and FIRE are mentioned as free speech absolutists.Events mentioned:●      Columbia 1968 preceded May 1968 in Paris. Apparently the Paris students asked Columbia students for advice on what to do after occupying a building.●      The Columbia encampments of April 2024 made the university ground zero for Gaza protest in America.●      Robbins was found guilty by Columbia for taking students to visit the encampment during his class on representations of atrocity.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotifyChapters:(00:00) - Introduction: Headlines full of protest (02:07) - The double standard on protest (03:32) - Lika Cordia and Mahmoud Khalil (05:46) - Is this just a Columbia issue? (07:44) - Brooks, al-Gharbi, and the broader argument (09:12) - Greta Thunberg and the spoiled-kids critique (10:11) - Do leftists have the same authoritarian impulse? (12:19) - Not rights but attention (13:09) - The 60s parallel: Vietnam and Oedipal nonsense (14:50) - Why Columbia became ground zero (16:47) - Bari Weiss and the David Project (19:03) - Bruce is found guilty (23:38) - Iran, Sudan, and what gets us off the couch (28:18) - Elite firefighters and respect for expertise (31:18) - Do protesters need to be better i...

"We are still dealing with a system which tolerates rampant abuse of accused people." — Emily Galvin AlmanzaBack in April 2024, we interviewed Thelton Henderson, one of the first African American federal judges in America. What disturbed me about our conversation was that even though Henderson grew up in the late Jim Crow era, he didn't seem to think that America is a profoundly more just place now than it was back then. Today's guest clerked for Judge Henderson, and her new book suggests he's right.Emily Galvin Almanza is a public defender turned activist, and The Price of Mercy is her data-driven indictment of a criminal justice system that, as she puts it, "tolerates rampant abuse of accused people, tolerates the blatantly racist application of the law, and tolerates a total lack of transparency." According to Almanza, the numbers are damning: 80% of cases are misdemeanors. 80% of people prosecuted are poor enough to need a public defender. 70% of people in jail haven't been convicted—they just can't afford bail. California's gang database was 99% people of color, she says, and famously included literal babies listed as having "admitted their gang affiliation."And here's both the good and bad news: crime is actually down. If you're under 50, she notes, you're living through the safest period of your lifetime. The solutions aren't mysterious either—housing reduces arrest rates by 80%, after-school programs cut youth violent crime in half. That's all good news for us. But it remains bad for those being unjustifiably prosecuted. We just lack the political will to implement what works. And as Galvin Almanza points out, this isn't a federal issue: 87% of prisoners are in jail on state charges. Change happens at the local level—DAs, sheriffs, state legislatures. The fixes, she says, are realizable. We just need the collective political will. That's the price of mercy in America today.About the GuestEmily Galvin Almanza is Executive Director of Partners for Justice and teaches at Stanford Law School. A former public defender, she clerked for Judge Thelton Henderson. Her new book is The Price of Mercy: Unfair Trials, a Violent System, and a Public Defender's Search for Justice in America (2026).ReferencesPeople mentioned:●      Thelton Henderson was one of the first African American federal judges in America, a civil rights pioneer for whom Galvin Almanza clerked.●      Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, blurbed the book. Galvin Almanza agrees "without hesitation" that we're living in a new Jim Crow system.●      Alec Karakatsanis coined the term "copaganda" for media narratives that undermine smarter criminal justice solutions.●      Clara Shortridge Foltz was a 19th-century lawyer who coined the phrase "free and equal justice" and pioneered the public defender system.●      Andrew Ferguson of GW University appeared on the show recently with a book warning about surveillance.Key statistics from the book:●      80% of cases in the system are misdemeanors—trespassing, driving without a license, fare evasion.●      80% of people prosecuted are poor enough to be assigned a public defender.●      70% of people in jail haven't been convicted—they're awaiting trial and can't afford bail.●      87% of prisoners are there on state charges, not federal—making this a local issue.●      Every year of incarceration shaves two years off a person's expected lifespan.●      Being incarcerated cuts a person's expected lifetime earnings in half.●      Giving an unhoused person housing reduces their chances of future arrest by 80%.●      After-school programs can reduce youth involvement in violent crime by 50%.Concepts discussed:●      Cash bail is a $2 billion per year industry in America. Most civilized countries don't allow you to buy your freedom back from the government.●      "Failure to protect" laws criminalize women who are present while an abusive partner also abuses their child—charging victims as perpetrators.●      Self-defense laws were "designed with two men fighting in an alley in mind"—making them nearly useless for abused women who fight back.●      Gang databases in California were 99% people of color and included babies listed as having "admitted their gang affiliation."About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotifyChapters:(00:00) - Introduction: Thelton Henderson (02:22) - Has anything changed since the 1960s? (03:31) - Why isn't there more outrage? (05:46) - Michelle Alexander and the New Jim Crow (08:52) - Why is the system this way? (10:49) - Democrats vs. Republicans on criminal justice (13:14) - Breaking the cycle of poverty and criminalization (16:53) - Crime is actually going down (19:15) - Peeing on your stoop is a sex crime (19:59) - Women in the system: failure to protect (23:09) - Moving past punishment (26:06) - Nobody wants to marginalize the police (28:16) - Black Lives Matter and the march toward justice (29:32) - The Minneapolis killings (33:04) - Two Americas: Epstein and cash bail (39:10) - Can technology help? (41:20) - The price of mercy

"Two years from now, all white-collar jobs may be gone." — Dario Amodei (via Keith Teare)Keith Teare leads this week's tech roundup with a video he made on Google's Veo: one glass half-full of water, another half-full of spiders. It's a metaphor for the AI moment. The water represents the tools released in the past two weeks—Anthropic's Claude 4.6, OpenAI's CodeX 5.3—which Keith calls "beyond belief." The spiders represent the fear, which he acknowledges is not irrational. But maybe spiders are the wrong metaphor. Maybe we're the frogs being slowly boiled, not noticing the temperature rise until it's too late.The trigger was Matt Schumer's viral essay "Something Big is Happening," which got 50 million views by telling engineers to become AI experts immediately or become irrelevant. Keith tested the thesis: he built venturebets.io, a prediction market, in a single day. He automated That Was The Week so completely that his weekly workflow dropped from six hours to under one. But then Dario Amodei and Satya Nadella both said the quiet part loud: in two years, there may be no white-collar jobs left. Keith's response? The glass doesn't contain jobs—it contains the future of life. And he'd rather have time to make videos of spiders crawling out of glasses than spend six hours curating links. The rest of us may not have the luxury of choosing. About the GuestKeith Teare is a serial entrepreneur and investor, founder of SignalRank, and author of the newsletter That Was The Week. He co-hosts the weekly tech roundup on Keen On America.ReferencesEssays discussed:●      Matt Schumer's "Something Big is Happening" went viral with 50 million views, arguing that engineers must become AI experts immediately or face obsolescence.●      Noah Smith published two essays: "The Fall of the Nerds" and "You Are No Longer the Smartest Type of Thing on Earth," arguing that humanity's destiny is now mostly out of our own hands.●      Josh Tyrangiel wrote "America Isn't Ready for What AI Will Do to Jobs" in The Atlantic.●      The Financial Times published "Anthropic's Breakout Moment" on the company's enterprise momentum.Tools and companies mentioned:●      Claude 4.6 from Anthropic and CodeX 5.3 from OpenAI represent a "step change" in agentic AI—you give tasks, not prompts, and sub-agents complete them autonomously.●      Google Veo is Google's video generation tool, which Keith used to create the glass-half-full-of-spiders metaphor.●      Polymarket and Kalshi are prediction markets that Keith's new venturebets.io aims to match in quality.People mentioned:●      Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, predicted that white-collar jobs may be gone in two years.●      Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, echoed Amodei's prediction about the end of white-collar work.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotifyChapters:(00:00) - The glass half-full of spiders (01:30) - Matt Schumer's viral essay (03:15) - Every week is the biggest week in AI (04:30) - Claude 4.6 and CodeX 5.3: a step change (06:00) - Keith builds a prediction market in a day (07:45) - Fear is a bad operating system (09:30) - What's actually changed with That Was The Week? (12:00) - Trusting the algorithm to read for you (14:00) - Noah Smith: You're no longer the smartest thing on Earth (16:00) - The rabbit vs. the tiger (17:30) - Google's quantum computer and parallel universes (19:00) - America isn't ready for what AI will do to jobs (20:30) - Amodei and Nadella: two years to no white-collar jobs (22:00) - What's in the glass is the future of life (24:00) - Anthropic's breakout moment (26:00) - Claude Code vs. CodeX: Keith switches sides

"She's a ten to me and that's the part that matters." — Paul EastwickIf it's Valentine's Day, we must be talking about love. Paul Eastwick studies attraction and relationships at UC Davis, and his new book Bonded by Evolution takes aim at the "old science" that treated romance like a competitive market where everyone gets assigned a number. The incels, of course, ran with that research to compound their paranoia about the other sex. Eastwick says they got it wrong—and so, with the exception of Paul Eastwick, did most academics.When two people look at the same photograph and make a hot-or-not judgment, Eastwick explains, they only agree about 65% of the time. After they've known the person for months, agreement drops to barely better than a coin flip. So there isn't any universal hierarchy of desirability. What's real is that some people will think you're an 8 and others will think you're a 3—and that quirky disagreement explains most of what happens in the science of attraction. The problem is that dating apps make everything feel like they're in a market, thereby filtering out the "slow burn" people who need time to grow on you. Eastwick's advice, therefore, is forget swiping, reboot your social networks, throw candle lit dinner parties where nobody knows each other. It's more democratic, it takes longer, and it actually works. Happy V day everyone.About the GuestPaul Eastwick is Professor of Psychology at UC Davis, where he studies attraction and close relationships. He is the author of Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection (2026) and co-host of the podcast Love Factually with Eli Finkel.ReferencesConcepts discussed:●      The mating market hypothesis treats attraction like an economic exchange where people are assigned desirability values and seek partners at their "level"—an idea Eastwick argues is far more limited than academics have assumed.●      Limerence is the academic term for the intense, obsessive early stage of romantic attraction—what we might call infatuation or passion.●      The Dunbar number (~150) represents the cognitive limit on stable social relationships—roughly the size of hunter-gatherer groups where our mating psychology evolved.●      Pair bonding emerged in human evolution about two million years ago as brain size increased and children required longer periods of intensive parental investment.●      Attachment theory describes the deep bonds that form when we trust someone to have our back, celebrate our successes, and support us through difficulty.Evolution and mating:●      Human males became smaller relative to females and lost their sharp canines as women selected for men who were safe around babies—"the evolved male is the good caregiver and good dad."●      Unlike gorillas with their harem-style mating, humans shifted toward pair bonding because helpless infants with expanding brains needed investment from both parents.●      Polyamory research shows that people can form genuine attachment bonds with multiple partners—trust, wellbeing, and attachment levels match or exceed monogamous couples.Also mentioned:●      Eli Finkel is Eastwick's co-host on the Love Factually podcast and author of The All-or-Nothing Marriage.●      When Harry Met Sally (1989) depicts "one of the most beautiful friendships on screen," according to Eastwick, and holds up well on the friends-to-lovers pathway.●      Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996) was the subject of a recent Love Factually episode—"that MTV style of filmmaking" with Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio.●      The incel and manosphere communities have taken 1990s attraction research and "run with it in some strange and unjustified ways."About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify

"How can you not be a populist in this day and age?" — Hélène LandemoreIn February 2020, The New Yorker profiled a Yale professor making the case for citizen rule. Six years later, that political scientist, Hélène Landemore, has a new book entitled Politics Without Politicians arguing that politics should be "an amateur sport instead of an expert's job" and that randomly selected citizen assemblies should replace representative democracy. Landemore calls it "jury duty on steroids."Landemore draws on her experience observing France's Citizens' Conventions on both climate and end-of-life issues to now direct Connecticut's first state-level citizen assembly. We discuss why the Greeks used lotteries instead of elections, what G.K. Chesterton meant by imagining democracy as a "jolly hostess," and why she has sympathy for the anti-Federalists who lost the argument about the best form of American government to Madison. When I ask if she's comfortable being called a populist, she doesn't flinch: "If the choice is between populist and elitist, I don't know how you can not be a populist." From the Damon Wells'58 Professor of Political Science at Yale, this might sound a tad suicidal. At least professionally. But Landemore's jolly argument for a politics without politicians is the type of message that will win elections in our populist age.About the GuestHélène Landemore is the Damon Wells'58 Professor of Political Science at Yale University. She is the author of Politics Without Politicians: The Case for Citizen Rule (2026) and Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century (2020).ReferencesThinkers discussed:●      G.K. Chesterton was the British essayist who defined democracy as an "attempt, like that of a jolly hostess, to bring the shy people out"—a vision Landemore finds more inspiring than technical definitions about elite selection.●      James Madison and the Federalists designed a republic meant to filter popular passions through elected representatives; Landemore has sympathy for their anti-Federalist opponents who wanted legislatures that looked like "a mini-portrait of the people."●      Alexis de Tocqueville warned about the dangers of trusting ordinary people—a caution Landemore pushes back against, arguing that voters respond to the limited choices they're given.●      Max Weber wrote "Politics as a Vocation" (1919), arguing that politics requires a special calling; Landemore questions whether it should be a profession at all.●      Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his concept of the general will has been blamed for totalitarian impulses; Landemore rejects the comparison, insisting her vision preserves liberal constitutional frameworks.●      Joseph Schumpeter defined democracy as "a method for elite selection"—precisely the technocratic framing Landemore wants to overturn.Citizen assembly experiments mentioned:●      The Irish Citizens' Assembly on abortion (2016-2017) is often cited as proof that randomly selected citizens can deliberate on divisive issues and reach workable conclusions.●      The French Citizens' Convention on End-of-Life (2022-2023) found common ground between pro- and anti-euthanasia factions by focusing on palliative care—a case Landemore observed firsthand.●      The French Citizens' Convention for Climate (2019-2020) brought 150 randomly selected citizens together to propose climate policy; participants were paid 84-95 Euros per day.●      The Connecticut citizen assembly on local public services, planned for summer 2026, will be the first state-level citizen assembly in the United States. Landemore is directing its design.Also mentioned:●      Zephyr Teachout is the left-wing populist who called Landemore a "reluctant populist."●      Oliver Hart (Harvard) and Luigi Zingales (Chicago) are economists working with Landemore to apply the citizen assembly model to corporate governance reform.●      The Council of 500 was the Athenian deliberative body whose members were selected by lottery, with a rotating chair appointed daily.●      John Stuart Mill is the liberal theorist whose emphasis on minority rights raises the question of whether Landemore's majoritarianism is illiberal. She says no.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotifyChapters:(00:00) - Chapter 1 (00:00) - Six years from New Yorker profile to book (01:14) - Politics as amateur sport (02:08) - What the Greeks got right (04:03) - Citizen assemblies: jury duty on steroids (06:21) - The Yale professor who speaks for ordinary people (07:11) - Rousseau and the age of innocence (08:41) - The gerontocracy problem (09:33) - Do we need a communitarian impulse? (11:30) - Experts on tap, not on top (15:15) - The reluctant populist (17:01) - Can we trust ordinary people? (19:11) - How it works at scale (23:14) - Why professional politicians are failing (26:15) - Max Weber and politics as vocation (29:08) - Leaders who emerge organically (30:04) - Rejecting Madison and the Federalists (32:26) - Finding common intere...

"I will say that QAnon was right and I was wrong." — Pepper CulpepperFrom Bannon and Trump to Summers, Gates, Blavatnik and Chomsky, the Epstein scandal has revealed elites of all ideological stripes behaving shamefully together. The Oxford political scientist Pepper Culpepper argues this is exactly the kind of corporate scandal that can save democracy—not despite its ugliness, but because of it. His new co-authored book, Billionaire Backlash, shows how scandals activate "latent opinion," bringing long-simmering public concerns to the surface and triggering society-wide demand for regulation. We discuss why Cambridge Analytica led to California privacy law, how Samsung's bribery scandal sparked Korea's Candlelight Protests, and why China's authoritarian approach to corporate malfeasance actually undermines trust.Culpepper, himself the Blavatnik Professor of Government at Oxford's Blavatnik School, acknowledges an uncomfortable truth. "I would say that QAnon was right," he admits, "and I was wrong." The specifics might have been fantasy, but the underlying suspicion about elite corruption was justified. And policy entrepreneurs—obsessive individuals who channel public outrage into actual legislation—matter more than we think. For Culpepper, billionaire backlash isn't a threat to democracy—it might actually be what saves it.About the GuestPepper Culpepper is Vice Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. He is the co-author, with Taeku Lee of Harvard, of Billionaire Backlash: The Age of Corporate Scandal and How It Could Save Democracy (2026).ReferencesScandals discussed:●      The Epstein scandal revealed that elites across politics, finance, and academia were connected to Jeffrey Epstein's network of abuse—vindicating populist suspicions that "the system is broken."●      Cambridge Analytica (2018) exposed how Facebook leaked data on 90 million users, leading to the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act in the EU, and California's privacy regulations.●      The Samsung bribery scandal in South Korea led to the Candlelight Protests and President Park Geun-hye's resignation, demonstrating how corporate scandals can strengthen civil society.●      The 2008 Chinese milk scandal killed six infants due to melamine contamination; the government's cover-up during the Beijing Olympics destroyed public trust in domestic food safety.●      Volkswagen's Dieselgate scandal showed how companies cheat on regulations, bringing latent concerns about corporate behavior to the surface.Policy entrepreneurs mentioned:●      Carl Levin was a US Senator from Michigan who shepherded the Goldman Sachs hearings and contributed to the Dodd-Frank Act.●      Margrethe Vestager served as EU Competition Commissioner and pushed for the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act.●      Max Schrems is an Austrian privacy activist who, as a student, discovered Facebook retained his deleted messages and eventually brought down the US-EU data transfer agreement.●      Alastair Mactaggart is a California property developer who pushed through the state's privacy regulations when federal action proved impossible.●      Zhao Lianhai was a Chinese activist who tried to organize parents after the 2008 milk scandal; the government arrested and imprisoned him.Concepts discussed:●      Latent opinion refers to concerns people hold in the back of their minds that aren't front-of-mind until a scandal brings them to the surface.●      The Thermidor reference is to the French Revolutionary period when the radical Jacobins were overthrown—Culpepper suggests a controlled version might benefit democracy.●      The muckrakers were Progressive Era journalists whose exposés led to reforms like the Food and Drug Administration.Also mentioned:●      Michael Sandel is a Harvard political philosopher known for arguing that "there shouldn't be a price on everything."●      Patrick Radden Keefe wrote Empire of Pain, the definitive account of the Sackler family and the opioid epidemic.●      Lee Jae-yong is the heir apparent to Samsung, implicated in the bribery scandal.●      Parasite, Squid Game, and No Other Choice are Korean cultural works that critique the country's relationship with its conglomerates.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotifyChapters:(00:00) - (00:22) - The Epstein opportunity (01:21) - Elite overreach exposed (03:12) - Scandals without partisan charge (05:04) - The Vice Dean's credibility problem (06:21) - Latent opinion explained (09:39) - Is there anything wrong with being a billionaire? (11:47) - American vs. European scandals (14:48) - Saving democracy vs. saving capitalism (17:05) - Corporate scandals and economic vitality (18:33) - Policy entrepreneurs: Carl Levin and Margrethe Vestager (19:54...

"You either need to call it fascism or you need to invent a new word with more or less the same meaning." — Jonathan RauchJonathan Rauch's viral Atlantic essay has reignited the debate over what to call the Trump administration. Having previously settled on "semi-fascist," Rauch now argues that Trump ticks all 18 boxes on his checklist of fascist characteristics — from the glorification of violence and territorial ambitions to Carl Schmitt's philosophy of "enemies, not adversaries." We spar over whether the term obscures more than it reveals: Is this really fascism, or just authoritarianism with American characteristics? The conversation sharpens around Minneapolis, where citizens were shot face down, and the government initially denied it happened. You don't do that to win votes, Rauch argues — you do it because you believe that's how the social contract should work. He predicts Trump will fail to turn America into a fascist country but warns that institutions like the newly expanded ICE will outlast this administration. About the GuestJonathan Rauch is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing writer for The Atlantic. He is the author of nine books, including The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth (2021), Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy (2025), and Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought (1993). He received the 2005 National Magazine Award.ReferencesThinkers discussed:·      Carl Schmitt was a Nazi political theorist whose "friend-enemy distinction" argued that politics is fundamentally about identifying and crushing enemies, not managing disagreements with adversaries.·      George Orwell wrote in his 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language" that "the word 'fascism' has now no meaning except insofar as it signifies something not desirable."·      Hannah Arendt was a German-American political theorist and refugee from Nazi Germany whose book The Origins of Totalitarianism examined both Nazism and Stalinism, preferring "totalitarianism" to "fascism" as the more encompassing term.Historical figures:·      Benito Mussolini invented the term "fascism" (from the Latin fasces, a bundle of rods symbolizing collective strength) and ruled Italy as dictator from 1922 to 1943.·      Francisco Franco ruled Spain from 1939 to 1975. Whether he was truly a fascist or merely an authoritarian remains debated; he never got along well with Hitler and outlasted the fascist era by three decades.·      Viktor Orbán is the prime minister of Hungary whose systematic capture of media, courts, and civil society has become known as the "Orbán playbook" — a template Rauch argues the Trump administration is following.Contemporary figures mentioned:·      Stephen Miller is a senior advisor to Trump who declared that "force is the iron law of the world" and told progressives "you are nothing" at a memorial service where the widow of the deceased had just offered Christian forgiveness to an assassin.·      Russell Vought is the director of the Office of Management and Budget, identified by Rauch as one of the younger ideologues building Trumpism into something more like a coherent ideology.·      Chris Rufo is a conservative activist and culture war strategist who has employed what Rauch calls "revolutionary language" in his campaigns against universities and public institutions.Essays and books mentioned:·      "Politics and the English Language" (1946) is Orwell's essay arguing that the corruption of language enables the corruption of politics, and that vague or meaningless words like "fascism" make clear thinking impossible.·      The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) is Hannah Arendt's study of Nazism and Stalinism as parallel forms of total domination, examining how mass movements, propaganda, and terror enable regimes to control entire societies.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - (00:13) - The viral essay (02:10) - Why Rauch changed his mind (03:41) - Fascism vs. authoritarianism (05:54) - Carl Schmitt and "enemies not adversaries" (06:14) - Orwell on the word "fascism" (09:12) - Can old people be fascists? (11:51) - Blood and soil nationalism (14:14) - Minneapolis (17:51) - Kristallnacht comparisons (20:07) - The postmodern right (26:34) - Following the money (32:05) - ICE as paramilitary force

"The black market exists only because we decided that this form of trade should be illegal." — Scott EdenIn October 2019, tech executive Tushar Atre was abducted from his oceanfront home in Santa Cruz and found murdered on his own property in the redwoods — shot execution-style, hands bound. He had spent barely three years in the cannabis business. Scott Eden's new book traces how a charismatic Silicon Valley entrepreneur, seeking to "disrupt" the newly legal weed industry, found himself entangled with an array of colorful and dangerous characters — hippie do-gooders, black-market operators, and stone-cold killers. We discuss the permeable divide between legal and illegal cannabis, why the industry has been an economic disaster for most founders, and whether America's half-pregnant approach to legalization created the conditions for Tushar's death. A California story about ambition, love, and the darker edges of the American dream.About the GuestScott Eden is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work has appeared in ESPN The Magazine, GQ, Wired, Inc., and The Atavist. His story "The Prosecution of Thabo Sefolosha" won a 2017 New York Press Club Award and a National Association of Black Journalists award for investigative reporting. He is the author of Touchdown Jesus (Simon & Schuster, 2005) and the new A Killing in Cannabis.References:People discussed:Tushar Atre — tech executive and cannabis entrepreneur; murdered October 1, 2019Rachael Lynch — cannabis grower from the Emerald Triangle; Atre's business partner and loverKen Kesey — author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; Merry Pranksters; La Honda cabin in the Santa Cruz MountainsSean Parker — Napster founder, early Facebook investor; bankrolled Proposition 64Travis Kalanick — Uber founder; comparison to Atre's brash, edge-seeking styleTony Hsieh — Zappos founder; tragic death; Silicon Valley hipster executive archetypePlaces:Pleasure Point, Santa Cruz — oceanfront neighborhood; famous surf break; Atre's homeEmerald Triangle — Humboldt, Mendocino, Trinity counties; America's cannabis heartlandLegal and historical:Proposition 64 (2016) — California ballot initiative legalizing recreational cannabisProposition 215 (1996) — earlier medical marijuana law; the "215 era"About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotifyChapters:(00:13) - America's war on drugs (02:03) - The victim: Tushar Atre (05:27) - Prop 64 and the gold rush (08:15) - The counterculture connection (11:13) - The permeable divide (14:43) - Tech bros living on the edge (17:10) - Steve Jobs, Burning Man, and weed money (18:07) - The murder (20:06) - Rachael Lynch (22:39) - Economic collapse (25:31) - Half-pregnant prohibition (31:45) - The paranoia problem

"We all love Thomas Paine. We just wish we liked him." — Jonathan TurleyJonathan Turley's new book asks a deceptively simple question: why did the American Revolution become the longest-running successful democracy while the French Revolution devoured itself? The answer, he argues, lies in Madison's "auxiliary precautions" — constitutional safeguards designed not to eliminate rage but to channel it. Turley draws a direct line from Robespierre to today's calls to pack the Supreme Court and abolish the Senate, warning that removing those precautions invites the same mobocracy that sent the Jacobins to the guillotine. But the real provocation comes in the book's second half: with AI and robotics threatening mass unemployment, America may soon face a "kept population" — citizens subsidized by the state who lose their vital relationship to productivity and self-governance. We discuss Thomas Paine (brilliant about humanity, clueless about humans), why rage itself isn't the enemy, and whether the republic built to handle the 18th century can survive the 21st.About the GuestJonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University Law School. A legal analyst for CBS, NBC, BBC, and Fox News over three decades, he is the author of The Indispensable Right (a bestseller) and the new Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.Chapters:00:01:14 The uniqueness of the American RevolutionTwo revolutions, two outcomes; Thomas Paine and James Madison as the twin geniuses00:03:53 Paine vs. Madison on democracyPaine wanted direct democracy; it nearly got him guillotined in France00:05:54 Robespierre's transformationThe ACLU lawyer who came to believe "terror is virtue"00:09:01 Thomas Paine: the penman of the revolutionFrom complete failure to revolutionary genius in two years00:11:46 Slavery and the revolution's contradictionsWhy people preferred Jefferson to Paine00:15:43 Franklin's greatest achievementSeeing something in "that heap of human wreckage"00:18:07 What was unique about American rageNot the rage itself, but the system designed to handle it00:25:08 The "New Jacobins"Calls to pack the Supreme Court and abolish the Senate00:26:40 Rage on both sides"Your rage is righteous, their rage is dangerous"00:30:47 AI and the "kept population"Mass unemployment and the citizen's relationship to the state00:39:26 "Gynan" jobsHomocentric industries like psychiatry and education that AI can't replace00:45:00 Why the American Republic is still the best modelDecentralization over EU-style centralizationReferencesFigures discussed:Thomas Paine — arrived in America "barely alive," became the penman of the revolution in two yearsJames Madison — designed the "auxiliary precautions" that prevented American democracy from devouring itselfBenjamin Franklin — paid for Paine's passage to America, saw genius in "that heap of human wreckage"Maximilien Robespierre — began as an advocate for due process, ended declaring "terror is virtue"Jean-Paul Marat — radical journalist, killed by Corday in his bathtub (he bathed constantly due to a skin disease)Charlotte Corday — Republican who assassinated Marat; Robespierre and Danton watched her executionGeorges Danton — joined the moderate Girondin wing; executed by the revolution he helped createArt:The Death of Marat (1793) — Jacques-Louis David's painting of Marat's assassination; David was himself a JacobinHistorical events:The Battle of Fort Wilson (1779) — Philadelphia mob attacked founder James Wilson's home; several killedThe Reign of Terror (1793–94) — nearly all Jacobin leaders guillotined, including Danton and RobespierreBooks mentioned:The Wealth of Nations (1776) — Adam Smith; embraced by the founders as "the perfect companion to their political theory"The Federalist Papers (1787–88) — Hamilton, Madison, and JayAbout Keen On America Nobody asks more impertinent questions than the Anglo-American writer, filmmaker and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Andrew Keen. In Keen On America , Andrew brings his sharp Transatlantic wit to the forces reshaping the United States — hosting daily interviews with leading thinkers and writers about American history, politics, technology, culture, and business. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify

"It may not be Mister Right YouTube, but it is Mister Right Now." — Erika DildayOn Super Bowl Sunday — with America celebrating its 250th anniversary — Erika Dilday joins to discuss the power of documentary film to cut through algorithmic noise and show us who we really are. As executive producer of POV, the longest-running documentary program on American television (now entering its 39th season), Dilday has spent her career championing first-person storytelling that platforms won't surface. She's also co-directing an upcoming series with Ken Burns, Emancipation to Exodus, exploring the period from the Civil War to the Great Migration. We discuss why algorithms limit discovery, whether AI can replicate human nuance, and what she learned from screening films at San Quentin.About the GuestErika Dilday is the Executive Producer of POV, America's longest-running documentary series, now in its 39th season on PBS. She is co-directing Emancipation to Exodus with Ken Burns, a documentary series about the period from the end of the Civil War to the Great Migration, scheduled for PBS in 2027. Her father was the first Black television station manager in the United States.Chapters:00:00:01 OpeningSuper Bowl Sunday, America's 250th, and Erika's prediction ("all Patriots all the way")00:02:28 Emancipation to ExodusHer collaboration with Ken Burns on the period from Civil War to Great Migration (PBS, 2027)00:05:09 Her father's legacyThe first Black TV station manager in the United States; "Those who want change don't have the luxury of being comfortable"00:06:23 Documentary as truth and artWhat distinguishes film from news; Hoop Dreams and the power of immersive storytelling00:08:21 POV's mission39 seasons, Tongues Untied, and stories that wouldn't be told elsewhere00:11:27 PBS and the culture warsPressures on public broadcasting, the need for alternative distribution00:15:47 YouTube: Mister Right NowNot the ideal platform, but the only one for democratic distribution00:17:38 San Quentin Film FestivalIncarcerated audiences engaging deeply with documentary00:20:06 Media consolidationTime Warner, Netflix, Paramount; indie platforms like Mubi and Ovid00:21:49 Algorithms and discoveryPlatforms suggest what they think you want, not what might stretch your thinking00:24:47 AI vs. human nuance"It can be imitated, but it's not going to be replicated"00:27:26 Oscar picksThe Perfect Neighbor (2025) (Netflix) and Cutting Through Rocks (2025) (the sleeper)References:POVHoop Dreams (1994) — documentary about two Chicago high school students dreaming of NBA careersTongues Untied (1989) — Marlon Riggs' documentary on Black gay identity in America (POV Season 4)Salesman (1968) — Maysles Brothers documentary following door-to-door Bible salesmenThe Perfect Neighbor (2025) — Geeta Gandbhir's documentary about a killing in Florida, told through body cam footage (Netflix)Cutting Through Rocks (2025) — Sara Khaki and Mohammad Reza Eyni's documentary about a female elected official and motorcycle rider in IranSan Quentin Film Festival — the first film festival ever held inside a U.S. prison, celebrating incarcerated and formerly incarcerated filmmakersIndependent platforms mentioned: Mubi, Ovid, JoltAbout Keen On AmericaKeen On America is a daily podcast hosted by Andrew Keen, the Anglo-American writer and Silicon Valley insider. Every day, Andrew brings his uniquely transatlantic and eclectic eye to the forces reshaping the United States — interviewing leading thinkers and writers about American politics, technology, culture, and democracy. With nearly 2,800 episodes, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in podcasting history.Website: KeenOn.TVSubstack: keenon.substack.comYouTube: youtube.com/@KeenOnShowApple Podcasts: Keen On AmericaSpotify: Keen On America

"I didn't use my own software this week because the OpenAI agents were better. And that's me retiring my own software." — Keith TeareSomething broke this week. Both Anthropic and OpenAI launched multi-agent systems—"agent swarms"—that don't just assist with tasks but replace custom-built software entirely. The market noticed: Adobe, Salesforce, Workday, and other legacy SaaS companies saw their stocks collapse in what some are calling a trillion-dollar selloff. Keith Teare joins Andrew Keen on Super Bowl weekend to unpack what may be the most consequential week in AI since ChatGPT launched.The conversation ranges from the Anthropic-OpenAI advertising spat (Dario Amodei's Super Bowl ad vs. Sam Altman's "online tantrum") to the deeper structural shifts: Microsoft and Amazon becoming utilities, Google betting $185 billion on an AI-first pivot, and Elon Musk merging SpaceX with xAI to put data centers in space. Along the way, Teare and Keen debate whether the AI race is a myth or a wacky race, whether venture capital is in crisis, and what happens to human labor when agents do the work.About the GuestKeith Teare is a British-American entrepreneur, investor, and technology analyst. He co-founded RealNames Corporation, a pioneering internet company, and later served as Executive Chairman of TechCrunch. He is the founder of That Was The Week and SignalRank, and publishes a widely-read weekly newsletter on technology, venture capital, and the business of innovation. He brings four decades of experience in Silicon Valley to his analysis of the AI revolution.Chapters:00:00 Super Bowl and the Anthropic ad The spat between Dario Amodei and Sam Altman01:09 "Fundamentally dishonest" Keith's take on the ad war and who's really Dick Dastardly05:47 Anthropic's breakout week Claude Opus 4.6 and the agent swarm launch06:48 OpenAI Codex Multiple agents collaborating on tasks in 10-15 minutes07:42 "It replaces software" Keith retires his own custom-built tools08:16 The trillion-dollar selloff Adobe, Salesforce, Workday, PayPal collapse11:02 Infrastructure vs. innovation Microsoft and Amazon become "utilities"11:45 Google's $185 billion bet Pivoting from hybrid to AI-first13:15 The SpaceX/xAI merger Musk's plan for space-based data centers15:18 The AI wacky race Kimi, OpenAI, Anthropic leapfrog Google17:03 Does AI make us smarter? Leverage tools, not intelligence18:53 AI growing up, CEOs not The adolescence of the industry21:06 US job openings hit five-year low The coming labor crisis22:44 The VC crisis Five funds sucking the air out of the room25:04 Palantir and Anduril The winners in defense AI25:42 Facebook as laggard Huge revenues, no AI momentum26:41 The Washington Post crisis "Boogeyman journalism" and partisan media29:23 Ads in AI Paid links vs. enshittification31:26 Spotify's innovation Physical book + audiobook bundle32:32 Startup of the week Cursor for CRM, $20M from Sequoia33:45 Om Malik on the end of software distribution From CDs to app stores to self-made35:41 Super Bowl prediction Seattle vs. New England36:02 Closing "That really was the week in tech"Links & ReferencesMentioned in this episode:That Was The Week newsletter by Keith TeareAnthropic's Super Bowl ad and ad-free pledge (CNBC)Sam Altman's response to Anthropic ads (TechCrunch)SpaceX acquires xAI in $1.25 trillion merger (CNBC)The Washington Post layoffs and crisis (Poynter)Om Malik on the evolution of software distributionOpenAI Codex app launch (OpenAI)About Keen On America Nobody asks more impertinent questions than the Anglo-American writer, filmmaker and SiliconValley entrepreneur Andrew Keen. In Keen On America , Andrew brings his sharp Transatlanticwit to the forces reshaping the United States — hosting daily interviews with leading thinkersand writers about American history, politics, technology, culture, and business. With nearly2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the mostprolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.Website | Substack | YouTube

What kind of leadership can hold a fractured democracy together?About the GuestStephen Schlesinger is an American historian, author, and foreign policy analyst. The son of Arthur Schlesinger Jr.—Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and special assistant to President John F. Kennedy—and grandson of Arthur Schlesinger Sr., he grew up at the centre of one of America's most distinguished intellectual families. Schlesinger is the author of Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations, and has written widely on American foreign policy and international institutions. He knew both John and Robert Kennedy personally, and brings a rare insider perspective to the history of American liberalism.About This Episode"He went around the table asking us, 'Do you still believe in God?' — this was 1967, he was already being considered for the presidency. Why would a man of this intensity and ambition be talking about these issues?" - Stephen Schlesinger After two days exploring the surveillance state and the ethics of unmasking—with Andrew Guthrie Ferguson on how your data will be used against you and Christopher Mathias on the fight to expose the radical right—Andrew Keen steps back to ask a larger question: What kind of leadership can hold a fractured democracy together?Stephen Schlesinger joins the show from the Upper West Side of New York to offer a historian's perspective—and a personal one. From his father's role in Camelot to his own memories of playing touch football with Bobby Kennedy at Hickory Hill, Schlesinger reflects on what made the Kennedy brothers effective leaders in a divided country, and what lessons their example holds for progressives today. The conversation moves from the founding of the republic (one-third pro-British) through the Civil War to the present fracture, and asks whether elections remain democracy's "great solver"—or whether something has fundamentally changed.Chapters:00:00 Introduction On the road in New York, beside Columbia University01:10 What Has Happened to America? Schlesinger's 250-year view of national fracture03:40 The One-Third Fracture Why a leader with minority support cannot impose ideology on 330 million05:15 Elections as the Great Solver Except for the Civil War, the ballot box has resolved every American crisis07:30 An Intellectual Aristocracy Harvard, the Schlesinger legacy, and the view from inside the American elite10:45 The Romance of Camelot Meeting JFK, the magnetism of youth, and the television presidency14:20 Bobby's Vulnerability The dinner where RFK asked, “Do you still believe in God?”17:45 Touch Football at Hickory Hill Bobby's toughness and the bullet pass Schlesinger had to catch20:30 Jackie vs. Hickory Hill Two styles of Kennedy parenting22:15 Composed Jack, Emotional Bobby Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s perspective on the two brothers24:40 The Assassinations The White House, Lyndon Johnson's motorcade, and the bar exam Schlesinger failed28:15 Could Bobby Have Won? Humphrey, the nomination, and what might have been30:30 The Kennedys and Internationalism From Joe Kennedy's isolationism to JFK's UN vision and RFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis34:00 Chris Matthews and the Bobby Kennedy CenentaryLessons for Today36:30 The Perpetual Civic DutyWhy each generation must defend constitutional freedoms anew38:45 ClosingAdvice to grandchildren and the enduring fight for democracyLinks & ReferencesMentioned in this episode:Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations by Stephen SchlesingerA Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House by Arthur Schlesinger Jr.Robert Kennedy: His Life by Evan ThomasBobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit by Chris MatthewsThe Power and the Glory by Graham Greene — the novel Bobby Kennedy mentioned reading at a 1967 dinner Schlesinger attendedWhy England Slept by John F. Kennedy (1940)Previous episode: Andrew Guthrie Ferguson on Your Data Will Be Used Against You (Episode 2794)About Keen On America Nobody asks more impertinent questions than the Anglo-American writer, filmmaker and SiliconValley entrepreneur Andrew Keen. In Keen On America , Andrew brings his sharp Transatlanticwit to the forces reshaping the United States — hosting daily interviews with leading thinkersand writers about American history, politics, technology, culture, and business. With nearly2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the mostprolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.Website | Substack | YouTube

A man was convicted by his own heartbeat — and that's just the beginning of our digital dystopia.About the GuestAndrew Guthrie Ferguson is Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School and a national expert on surveillance technologies, policing, and criminal justice. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute and the author of the PROSE Award–winning The Rise of Big Data Policing. His new book, Your Data Will Be Used Against You: Policing in the Age of Self-Surveillance (NYU Press, March 2026), examines how smart devices and digital surveillance are transforming criminal prosecution — and what the law must do to catch up.About This EpisodeFollowing yesterday's conversation with Christopher Mathias about doxxing and the ethics of unmasking, Andrew Keen turns to the legal side of the same question: what happens when the data we generate about ourselves becomes evidence? Andrew Guthrie Ferguson joins the show from Washington, D.C. to discuss his new book — a deeply researched investigation into how pacemakers, smartphones, smart cars, and doorbell cameras are being used to convict people in court, and why the law has almost nothing to say about it.The conversation moves from a man convicted by his own heartbeat to AI-powered real-time crime centres, from Eric Schmidt's infamous privacy defence to masked ICE agents in Minneapolis, and from Bentham's panopticon to Ferguson's proposed “tyrant test” — a framework for designing data protections by imagining the worst leader with access to your most intimate information.Chapters:00:00 Introduction: Digital privacy and unmasking The theme of digital privacy and what it means to be unmasked in a data-driven world01:25 Meet Andrew Guthrie Ferguson Introducing the guest and his new book on privacy, surveillance, and the law02:10 The Dual-Edged Sword of Digital Devices How our everyday devices expose everyone and the complicated trade-offs that creates03:40 From “Don't Be Ashamed” to Privacy Nuance The shift from early Silicon Valley privacy optimism to a more complex reality04:45 Regulating Government, Not Google Ferguson's focus on keeping personal data out of court rather than off corporate servers05:55 The Pacemaker Data Court Case How personal medical device data was used as evidence in a criminal trial07:30 Convicted by His Own Heartbeat An arson and insurance fraud case where heart-rate data contradicted the suspect's story09:40 Google's Three-Part Warrant System How tech companies helped shape rules for law enforcement access to location data11:15 The Fourth Amendment Digital Gap What reasonable expectations of privacy mean in the modern digital environment12:45 Digital Privileges and Intimate Data Whether certain types of personal data should be legally protected like confidential relationships14:20 Surveillance Battles on the Ground Protests, law enforcement, and the evolving intelligence dynamic in Minneapolis16:05 “Just Doing Our Job” and State Surveillance The common defence of surveillance practices and why it remains controversial18:10 The Texas Drone Fleet Drones as first responders and the expansion of aerial policing technology20:45 Real-Time Crime Centers and Mass Cameras Integrated camera networks, data fusion, and the lack of clear oversight22:50 The Tyrant Test for Privacy Laws Designing privacy protections assuming the worst possible leader has access to the data25:15 AI Supercharges Surveillance How artificial intelligence turns ordinary cameras into powerful tracking tools27:30 AI-Assisted Police Reports Using body-camera audio and AI tools to generate reports and the implications for justice29:10 No Turning Back From Technology Why abandoning digital tools isn't realistic and why new laws may be needed instead31:15 Closing: Every Smart Device Is Surveillance The idea that modern connected devices inherently function as surveillance toolsLinks & ReferencesMentioned in this episode:Your Data Will Be Used Against You — NYU PressAndrew Guthrie Ferguson — GW Law School faculty pagePerplexity for Public Safety — free AI tool for law enforcementPrevious episode: Christopher Mathias on To Catch a Fascist (Episode 2793)Carpenter v. United States (2018) — Supreme Court ruling on cell-site location data and the Fourth AmendmentAbout Keen On America Nobody asks more impertinent questions than the Anglo-American writer, filmmaker and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Andrew Keen. In Keen On America , Andrew brings his sharp Transatlantic wit to the forces reshaping the United States — hosting daily interviews with leading thinkersand writers about American history, politics, technology, culture, and business. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.Website | Substack | YouTube

An anti-fascist spy handed American officials evidence of murderous intent from a Nazi planning server — and they declined to act.About the GuestChristopher Mathias is a journalist covering the far right, formerly a senior reporter at HuffPost, with work appearing in The Guardian, The Nation, MSNBC, Zeteo, and WNYC. His reporting has helped unmask white supremacist cops, soldiers, teachers, and politicians, and he was a Deadline Awards finalist for feature writing. He is originally from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and lives in New York. His new book, To Catch a Fascist: The Fight to Expose the Radical Right (Atria Books), is out now.About the EpisodeDays after Jonathan Rauch's influential Atlantic essay announced he'd moved from fascism skeptic to fascism believer, Christopher Mathias joins the show to discuss his new book — a deeply reported investigation into the decentralized network of anti-fascist activists who infiltrate, monitor, and expose neo-Nazis and white supremacists operating in positions of power across America.The conversation quickly moves beyond whether Trump is a fascist to the harder questions his book raises: Who gets to decide who is exposed? What rights to privacy do members of extremist groups retain? Is unmasking community self-defense or vigilantism? And does the same logic that justifies exposing a neo-Nazi EMT extend to the tens of thousands of ICE agents now conducting raids on American streets?Timeline00:00 Introduction Jonathan Rauch's Atlantic essay and the renewed fascism debate01:10 Meet Christopher Mathias Introducing the book and the journalist behind it01:45 The Greenville Moment When Mathias first used “fascist” in a headline after watching Trump whip a crowd into chanting “Send her back”02:40 Defining the F-Word Fascism as a right-wing politics of domination; Langston Hughes recognizing it in the 1930s before the word arrived04:15 The Hard Question If MAGA is a fascist movement, are the 70-plus million who voted for Trump fascists too?05:55 The Worst of the Worst Why the book targets explicit neo-Nazis in positions of power, not ordinary Trump supporters08:15 Who Decides? Privacy, accountability, and whether everyone at Charlottesville deserves exposure10:45 Antifascist Amnesty Leave the movement and we leave you alone; return and we publish12:30 The Equivalence Trap Why Mathias rejects the idea that this is just radicals exposing radicals14:05 From Neo-Nazis to ICE How anti-fascist tactics are now used to identify masked federal agents17:15 Where Does It End? Drawing lines between violent enforcement and bureaucratic participation19:40 “Just Following Orders” Why some orders shouldn't be followed, and the occupation of Minneapolis21:30 The Battle Over Shame Competing databases, surveillance, and what America should be ashamed of23:15 The Spy Who Warned Charlottesville An infiltrator uncovers plans for violence that officials ignore26:00 Minneapolis as Model “We protect us” and a blueprint for grassroots resistance28:45 The Underground War Intelligence, counterintelligence, and the personal cost of exposure30:30 Closing Fascism as a snake eating its own tail and the urgent task of limiting the damageLinks & ReferencesMentioned in this episode:Jonathan Rauch, “Yes, It's Fascism” — The Atlantic (January 2026)To Catch a Fascist: The Fight to Expose the Radical Right by Christopher Mathias (Atria Books, February 2026)Christopher Mathias reporting archiveFollow Christopher Mathias: BlueSky | XAbout Keen On America Nobody asks more impertinent questions than the Anglo-American writer, filmmaker and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Andrew Keen. In Keen On America , Andrew brings his sharp Transatlantic wit to the forces reshaping the United States — hosting daily interviews with leading thinkersand writers about American history, politics, technology, culture, and business. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.Website | Substack | YouTubeWebsite | Substack | YouTube

Can meat save the planet? That's the paradoxical promise of the longtime vegan activist Bruce Friedrich, founder of the Good Food Institute. In his new book, Meat, Friedrich argues that plant-based and cultivated meat can satisfy the craving of the most hardline carnivore while simultaneously fixing the apocalyptic environmental consequences of industrial farming. So new tech, particularly the latest technology that magically mimics meat, will enable the regeneration of the (real) natural world. For this vegan advocate of meat, this next agricultural revolution will not only transform humanity's favorite food but also our planet's environmental future. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

There's something absurdly Strangelovian about the American quest for a perfect weapon. As Jeffrey Stern warns in The Warhead, his new history of The Paveway, the first “smart” bomb, weapons are always, like their human engineers, imperfect. “It's always exploding somewhere,” Stern dryly notes, and those explosions in the Texas Instruments developed Paveway were not only unexpected, but often tragically imperfect. So for example, the Second Gulf War was the most precise air war in history and yet within a year, more civilians died than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. The conceit of “perfection”, Stern warns, might be as quintessentially American as the fatally flawed Walt Disney corporation or the Kennedy dynasty (both part of the Paveway story). Which is why this history of smart weapons makes such chilling reading in an AI age when Americans are once again being promised perfect military technology. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Why did Nixon trigger a remarkable cultural American renaissance while Trump has generated an avalanche of social media bluster, but few great movies, songs or novels? For Silicon Valley critic Jon Taplin, the problem isn't just technological. Yes, he argues in Rolling Stone, social media has sucked a lot of the cultural vitality out of America and created a self-interested new class of influencers. But Sixties veteran Taplin sees this cultural crisis in generational terms arguing that young American artists need a “cojones transplant”. Perhaps. Although one wonders if Taplin is part of an American gerontocracy which is hoarding not just power and wealth, but also virtue. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Is AI going through an adolescent crisis, even it's still just a toddler? There certainly seems to be a lot of adolescent angst amongst our new AI overlords like Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. In his latest essay, appropriately entitled “The Adolescence of Technology”, Amodei lays out all the existential dangers of AI while simultaneously rejecting the doomsday pessimism of many tech sceptics. Amodei, That Was The Week's Keith Teare quips, “reminds me of a teenager raised by religious parents to believe you should only have sex after marriage, but he wants to have sex now and feels guilty about it." Teare is right. Amodei - not unlike fellow adolescents Sam Altman and Elon Musk - certainly wants to have his cake and eat it too. So when will they all grow up? Some, like the perpetually infantile Musk, never will. But perhaps like Keith Teare's conflicted teenager, maybe Dario Amodei will eventually grow out of his guilty adolescence and become a responsibly accountable adult. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

When asked what his parents did, Atlantic CEO and competitive marathoner Nicholas Thompson had a stock response. "My mother's an art historian at Babson," he would answer, "my father runs a male brothel in Bali." Thompson's new best-selling autobiography, The Running Ground, is an extended version of his extraordinary family history, focusing on the dramatic fall from grace of his Rhodes Scholar father, W. Scott Thompson. The confessional is partly a discourse on running — a discipline that the father passed down to the son. But it's also a meditation on parenting. So was his father a good dad? "If the standard is whether you go bankrupt, lean upon your children, ask them to perform bigamist weddings, threaten to kill yourself, blackmail them, then no," Nick Thompson reflects. "If the standard is does he love you every day, then yes."Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

According to our favorite literary reviewer, Bethanne Patrick, these are the seven books that “will really matter” in 2026:* Land by Maggie O'Farrell — The Hamnet author returns with a luminous novel set in 1865 Ireland, two decades after the Great Famine. A father and son survey their region for the British—mapping the land in English when their hearts speak Gaelic. O'Farrell explores post-famine trauma, colonialism, and the mysterious pull of place, weaving in neolithic history and Irish wolfhounds that feel almost magical. As some characters emigrate to the New World, the novel asks what it means when land becomes identity, when a nation is defined not by commerce but by the places that feed our souls.* The Fire Agent by David Baerwald — A stunning debut from the Grammy-winning songwriter behind Sheryl Crow's Tuesday Night Music Club. This 600-page thriller is based on Baerwald's own family history: his grandfather Ernst was sent to Tokyo as the purported sales director for IG Farben, the company complicit in the Holocaust. The novel spans continents and decades, from a 1920s throuple to Wild Bill Donovan's OSS becoming the CIA, complete with family photographs. Patrick calls it “a knockout”—not a potboiler, but a wild, scary ride where almost everything actually happened.* A Tender Age by Chang-rae Lee — The Pulitzer finalist delivers what his publisher calls “a spellbinding exploration of American masculinity and family dynamics.” Through an unforgettable Asian-American protagonist, Lee examines what it means to grow up with “double consciousness”—always aware of how the dominant culture perceives you, your family, your chances. Patrick places him alongside Jesmyn Ward as one of America's finest novelists.* Witness and Respair by Jesmyn Ward — The two-time National Book Award winner collects her nonfiction, including the devastating Vanity Fair essay about her husband's death from COVID at 33. “Respair” is Ward's resurrection of an archaic word: the repair that comes after despair. These crystalline essays on the American South, racism, and grief reveal the deep thought behind her remarkable fiction. Patrick sees it as essential reading for 2026—a creative grappling with everything America must face.* Backtalker by Kimberlé Crenshaw — A memoir from the architect of “intersectionality” and “critical race theory,” now under attack in the current administration. Structured in three parts—raising a back talker, becoming a back talker, being a back talker—it begins with young Kimberlé desperate to play Thornrose in a classroom fairy tale, passed over week after week. When she's finally chosen on the last day and the bell rings, her mother marches back to school and demands justice. That's where Crenshaw learned to speak truth to power.* American Struggle edited by Jon Meacham — For the 250th anniversary, the historian assembles primary documents proving that struggle is constant and non-linear in American history. Abolitionists spoke out in the nineteenth century; civil rights activists had to speak out again in the twentieth. From Abigail Adams's “remember the ladies” letter to Fannie Lou Hamer's testimony at the 1964 Democratic Convention, Meacham—no fan of the current administration—shows that the fight never stays won. Patrick sees it as essential for librarians, teachers, and younger readers.* John of John by Douglas Stuart — Patrick's sneaky seventh pick (I originally only allowed her six). The Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain returns to Scotland, this time the Isle of Harris, where men weave Harris Tweed on licensed looms. John McLeod is a fire-and-brimstone church elder; his son Cal returns from Glasgow art college with dyed hair and queer identity. What looks like prodigal son territory becomes something richer—father and son have more in common than either knows. Stuart captures a community tied to sheep farming and craft practices that feel centuries old, even as modernity crashes against the shore.Enjoy!Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Pay attention to this interview. Because, you see, attention is seriously expensive — the Silicon Valley industry being worth $17 trillion, at least according to the Princeton historian D. Graham Burnett, co-editor of a new manifesto entitled Attensity. For Burnett and his friends in the Attention Liberation Movement, the attention industry is "fracking" the human out of us. Liberating ourselves from its exploitative grasp, then, is an existential challenge. "If we take our attention away," he warns, "it collapses into sand." And so will we. So paying attention involves more than simply putting down our phones. It means joining the Attensity movement and challenging the central attention economy principles of 21st century capitalism.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

New books are like London buses. You wait and wait and then a handful comes at the same time. Take, for example, histories of the New York City vigilante Bernie Goetz. Last week, we featured the CNN legal analyst Elliott Williams who has a new book out on Goetz. And now we have another uncannily timely book on Goetz. This one from the Pulitzer-Prize winning historian, Heather Ann Thompson. Entitled Fear and Fury, Thompson focuses on the 1984 New York City case in the genealogy of white rage in America, tracing the Goetz shootings back to the Reagan Eighties as well as white vigilantes in the Trump era like Kyle Rittenhouse. What ties Goetz and Rittenhouse together, Thompson argues, is the inversion of victim and villain in a brutal haze of violence. And, of course, we can now see this tragic narrative repeated on the streets of Minneapolis. It's as if Bernie Goetz and Kyle Rittenhouse are now working for ICE. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

This is the final conversation from DLD. And the most optimistic - at least from a European perspective. John Thornhill, the FT's Innovation Editor and founder of Sifted, has a quite different take on Europe's tech scene from our other guests. Yes, he acknowledges, the regulatory environment is complex. And, yes, late-stage capital is thin. But Thornhill sees something the doomsayers miss: resilience. A new generation of founders isn't building “European champions” — they're building global ones. Innovation hot spots are popping up across the continent: London, Berlin, Stockholm, Tallinn, Lisbon. Paris (of all places) is enjoying a renaissance. And deep tech — biological computing, synthetic biology, materials science — may finally give Europe's research strength a viable path to commercialization. So who needs Silicon Valley Goliaths when you have an army of European Davids?Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

For media moguls, we are living, to borrow from Dickens, in the best and worst of times. As Nicholas Thompson confessed to me at DLD, The Atlantic CEO is simultaneously “excited” and “terrified” by the power of AI to revolutionize his media industry. On the one hand, Thompson explains, AI represents the best tool journalism has ever had for locating needles in haystacks. On the other hand, AI has the potential to obliterate traditional media's entire business model. So what's it to be: extinction or renaissance? For Thompson, a lot depends on the fate of copyright. If our Silicon Valley leviathans pay for the original content that powers their intelligence, then media companies can prosper in the age of AI. If not, then it really will turn out to be the worst of times for high quality, curated publications like The Atlantic. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

One of the most bracing presentations at DLD this year was given by Crunchbase's data queen Gene Teare. Breaking down America's VC dominance, Teare's speech might have been entitled "64% and Counting." As Teare told Keith and me in a special Teare family edition of our regular That Was The Week show, the VC gap between Europe and America is only getting wider. From 2014 to 2023, US share of global venture dipped below 50%. But in 2025, it roared back — with nearly two-thirds of all global VC flowing to America. The foundation model funding disparity tells the story: OpenAI raised $40 billion last year, Anthropic $17.5 billion. The top French AI company? $2 billion. Oh mon Dieu.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Not everything at DLD this year was on the growing US-European economic and technological divide. There were many speeches on the environment including from heavyweights like Kate Raworth. And I had the opportunity to catch up with my favorite advocate of regenerative agriculture, the managing partner at Acton Capital, Jan-Gisbert Schultze. According to Schultze, today's deepest problem is our spiritual disconnection from nature. We've lost 50% of our soil carbon, he notes, and with it the fertility that sustains us. We can save ourselves, he says, from the soil up — by embracing regenerative agricultural practices that prioritize local community activation and sustainable farming. Schultze is putting this into practice at Lake Constance, Germany's largest lake, where his Regenerate Forum is working to transform an entire county into what he calls a "climate landscape" — retraining farmers, rebuilding soil, and relocalizing the food system.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Few speakers at DLD this year were more sombre than The Economist's deputy executive editor Kenneth Cukier. “Civilizations aren't killed,” Cukier says, “they commit suicide.” It's now "three minutes to midnight" in Europe, he warns, and what he called the priceless "vase" of the liberal order is about to shatter. Borrowing from Hemingway's description of personal bankruptcy, Cukier argues that civilizational suicide comes "slowly, then suddenly". So can anything avert this collapse? Cukier isn't particularly optimistic, but nor is he hopeless. The vase hasn't shattered yet. The hope, he suggests, is with new peaceful technologies that can help reinvent democracy. But if the European clock really is teetering at three minutes to midnight, it's hard to be persuaded by Kenneth Cukier's abstract promises of ethical technology.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Few people experienced the Dot-Com bubble with more vertiginous intensity than Bill Gross, the Pasadena-based founder of Idealab and many many other internet startups over the last 30 years. So when I sat down with Gross at DLD, I couldn't resist opening with the boom/bubble gambit. How, I asked him, does today's AI hysteria compare with the Web 1.0 madness of the Nineties? While Gross - whose current ProRata.ai play is focused on protecting creativity in the age of generative AI - doesn't believe that today's boom is akin to the Dot-Com bubble, there are similarities. We are at what Gross calls a “Napster moment” in terms of making the big LLMs accountable for all the content they are illegally crawling (ie: stealing). And to get beyond this moment, he says, everyone from Google and OpenAI to Perplexity and Anthropic, needs to move to a “Spotify model” that fairly shares revenue with the human creators of knowledge. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Yesterday's show from the DLD conference was about the need for Europe to relearn the language of power. Today, things get even more dire for our European friends. I asked another DLD speaker, Carl Benedikt Frey, a Swedish economic historian who teaches at Oxford, whether it's “game over” for Europe in terms of its ability to compete with American and Chinese big tech. His answer: not yet—but close. Frey's last book, shortlisted for the 2025 Financial Times business book of the year, is entitled How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation and the Fate of Nations. But it's specifically Europe's economic progress and the fate of European nations that most concerns Frey. Unless Europeans create a true single market for services, he warns, it really could be the end of the European dream of continent-wide progress. So no more crossroads for a continent perennially at a crossroads. And that single market, Frey explains, is ultimately a matter of political rather than economic will.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

I'm just back from another stimulating Digital Life Design (DLD) conference in Munich where all the talk was about the growing technological and political gap with the United States and China. From Machiavelli and Hobbes to Napoleon and Bismarck, Europe invented the modern concept of state power. But decades of outsourcing security to NATO and the US have left the continent dangerously rusty both in the language and execution of power. According to Marta Mucznik, a senior analyst at the Brussels-based left-leaning International Crisis Group, "projecting power is the language of today's world." And unless European politicians relearn it, Mucznik warns, that growing gap between Europe and the bipolar reality of a US-China centric world will only continue to dramatically widen.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

For a country forever flirting with amnesia about its racial history, America sure struggles to forget. Take, for example, Bernie Goetz, the white subway vigilante, who shot four black teenagers on a NYC subway in December 1984. There's not just one - but two major new books about the anything but colorblind Goetz case which we'll be discussing over the next couple of weeks. The first is by the CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams who presents it as a Rashomon style narrative in which there is no single undisputed truth. There might not be quite five truths in Williams' Five Bullets, but interpreting this story all depends on your political and racial perspective. “If a black man had shot four white teens,” Williams reimagines, “this would be a totally different story.”Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

In his new co-authored book It's On You, the English behavioral scientist Nick Chater exposes how the rich and powerful - the THEM - have convinced us that we're to blame for society's deepest problems. Can't lose weight? That's because YOU lack willpower—or so THEY would have you believe. But willpower, Chater argues, is a convenient myth. And that means the behavioral economists got it wrong too. Nudge theory doesn't work because human beings are far messier than the utilitarians assume. The answer isn't self-discipline. It's systemic change—and that requires politics, not self-help or even self-discipline. It's transferring power back from THEM to YOU. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

According to the New Yorker writer Nicholas Niarchos, Africa is rich in both raw materials and tragic paradox. We know about the continent's wealth in the rare earth minerals that enable our global transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. But it's contemporary African paradoxes that Niarchos describes in his important new book, The Elements of Power. There's the paradox of clean energy's dirty secret — the horrifying cost in African suffering of our insatiable thirst for the minerals that power our electric vehicles and solar panels. Then there's the paradox of the new scramble for Africa between what he calls the "amoral" Chinese and the "immoral" Americans. And finally there's Niarchos' own personal paradox (which he doesn't disguise) of being the scion of two of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Europe while writing a book about some of the poorest and most exploited people on the planet.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

We all have our own favorite Robert Redford movie. But what's Redford's most prescient film about today's America? His Seventies trilogy about American politics — The Candidate, Three Days of the Condor and All the President's Men — are all, in their own profound ways, lasting meditations on the United States. But of the three, it might be Sydney Pollack's Three Days of the Condor (1975) which has the eeriest relevance to contemporary America. For James Grady, whose equally classic 1974 thriller Six Days of the Condor inspired the movie, Three Days of the Condor speaks to both the all-encompassing paranoia and isolation of our age. It's the anti-James Bond film for our anti-James Bond age. "For a movie that was made fifty years ago to unearth the emotions we felt then, and the emotions we're feeling now — that's extraordinary," James Grady says. Yes. After a half century, the Condor has landed. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Can Swiftynomics save America? That's the intriguing thesis at the heart of Misty Heggeness' new book about Swift's impact on the American economy. Entitled Swiftynomics, it's as much about Taylor Swift's fans as it is about the megastar herself. “Taylor Swift is not moving mountains in local communities,” Heggeness acknowledges. “Her fans are. They are willing to fork out thousands of dollars, travel to another city, stay in hotels, get their hair done - that's the real economic engine.” So Swiftynomics is really about what Taylor Swift unleashes, not who she is. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

The Music Man was a 1957 Broadway show written by Meredith Willson, a musician from the small Iowa town of Mason City. The popular play (and later movie) featured a con man called Harold Hill who ripped off the naive people of River City, a fictional small town based on Mason City. Nearly seventy years later, Josiah Hesse, another Iowan from Mason City, sees the Music Man narrative replaying itself. As Hesse notes in his autobiographical new book, On Fire For God, today's Harold Hills are the megachurch salesmen who descend on small American towns to rip off the local community with their religious claptrap. "They know how to prey on people's fears," Hesse argues about these evangelical preachers, "how to locate the thing that's changing, that's new, and offer something that hearkens back to another era, a pure era of American wholesomeness." As another observant American midwesterner, Mark Twain, once quipped: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes."Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Few biographers can claim to know what it feels like to be Thomas Jefferson more than the Charlottesville-based historian Andrew Burstein. The author of many books about Jefferson, Burstein's latest, Being Thomas Jefferson, offers an “intimate history” of the great man. From Jefferson's views on love and race to his take on mortality, Andrew Burstein gets inside America's most controversial and misunderstood Founding Father. And what he finds at the end of his voyage inside Jefferson is an intellectual Don Juan. “Jefferson's language is his legacy,” Burstein concludes. “He wrote with a musical cadence, poetically, at a time when most political writers did not understand what he did about seducing the reader”.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

There was a time in the mid 20th century, the literary historian Gayle Feldman reminds us, when the book business was cool. Back then, New York publishing resembled Silicon Valley tech and the Mark Zuckerberg of his day was the Random House founder Bennett Cerf. In her new biography of Cerf, Nothing Random, Feldman tells the story of this celebrity entrepreneur, noting that he helped pioneer the publishing industry's venture capitalist style business model which enabled hit authors like Ayn Rand or Dr Seuss to finance start-up writers like Cormac McCarthy. Those were the days, a slightly wistful Feldman reminisces. She's right. If only today's corporate publishing industry could recapture some of that Cerfian magic. Then books might become cool again. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Trump's Gazan dream is to overlay the complex human history with his own narcissistic real-estate fantasy. But for Maia Carter Hallward, co-author of a new contemporary history of Gaza, this once vibrant Mediterranean entrepôt linking Africa, Asia and Europe is now defined more by nightmare than dreams. “In peace studies, we talk about positive peace, which has rights, liberties, the ability to reach human potential - and we talk about negative peace, which is the absence of war,” Carter Hallward says. “I would say we have none of those in Gaza right now.” No negative peace, no absence of war. For Carter Hallward, that - alongside the more than 70,000 dead Palestinians - captures today's Gazan tragedy. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

What if the right isn't wrong - or, at least, totally wrong, about education? That seems to be the conclusion of James Traub, a liberal educationalist, who has spent the last year visiting the civics programs of American high schools. Neither the 1619 Project nor Trump's 1776 Report seems to be the message of Traub's account of these travels, The Cradle of Citizenship. Schools can help save our democracy, Traub concludes, by equipping American students to think their way through the complexities of their nation's history. The point of a good education, he concludes, is to foster thinking rather than moral outrage or virtue seeking. More Homer in the classroom, and less social media. Those are James Traub's old school principles for our new century. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Timing is everything. The versatile American journalist Kenneth Rosen was last on the show in early 2021 talking about troubled teens. Since then, Rosen has travelled extensively in the Arctic and has just published Polar War, a narrative about the chilling costs to both America and the world of the new Cold War in the Arctic. Timing is, indeed, everything, especially in the book business. But Rosen's travelogue of melting icecaps and vanishing indigenous cultures offers an alternative take on the media's current geo-strategic obsession with Greenland. "I worry most about the indigenous communities and their ways of life. This is the sustenance lifestyle that will be eradicated—something that we'll lose as a country and as humanity,” Rosen warns. “It's only a matter of time before the snow and ice melts forever." And when it's gone, it's gone. Then timing will be nothing. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Will Trump be removed by the 25th Amendment? No, it's never going to happen - not after Jan 6 or Venezuela or Greenland or any other mad foreign or domestic adventure. That, at least, seems the conclusion of Rebecca Lubot, author of Keeping a Finger on the Button, a timely new analysis of the 25th Amendment. But the real question isn't about the nuclear button—it's about who controls the White House. And the way to do that is through new Congressional or judicial initiatives. The 25th Amendment was passed in what now feels like the halcyon 1960s. Trump has created an entirely new political reality in America. Congress needs to respond accordingly with a new Constitutional Amendment for our 21st century Imperial Presidential age. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

The great John Maynard Keynes explained it a century ago. In his 1930 essay, "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren," Keynes predicted that the future would be defined by economic abundance rather than scarcity. But such a cornucopian future, Keynes warned, would create societies teetering perpetually on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Keynes' vision has been updated by Niskanen Center SVP Brink Lindsey in his new book, The Permanent Problem. Today's societies, the Thailand-based Lindsey observes, are all on the verge of nervous breakdowns triggered by economic prosperity rather than poverty. So the challenge today, he notes with his own Keynesian flourish, is transforming this mass plenty into mass human flourishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe