Keen On Democracy

So what, exactly, is the AI wedge? According to Ewan Morrison, author of For Emma, an already acclaimed novel about our dystopian biotech future, it means a “V-shaped” force that starts small but gradually drives people apart, replacing human connection with technological mediation."It starts off really small. You end up with something like internet dating... it begins as a novelty and then people become dependent on it," Morrison explains. What seemed harmless in the 1990s has evolved to the point where 60-70% of people now use dating apps, with younger generations saying they "don't wanna meet anyone outside of using an app because they don't trust anyone." But the wedge doesn't stop there. The final stage, Morrison warns, is the replacement of the humans completely by AI friends, partners, even therapists. The metaphor captures how each technological "solution" creates new dependencies while eroding our capacity for direct human interaction. As Morrison puts it, technology "removes that sort of tactile sense that humorous, trusting, improvisatory, make do sense that we have when we deal face to face with people." Morrison notes that "for some, it's easier. It's easier to have an AI friend because it's always going to tell you, you're wonderful." This highlights how the wedge works not just through dependency, but through the seductive appeal of artificial relationships that never require the messy, challenging work of real human connection.1. AI is Pure Hype, Not a Real Revolution"I think you just have to break it down and look at AI from a PR perspective and see what we were promised. We were promised human level AI by Marvin Minsky in 1970... And I think we're seeing the same cycle happening again."Morrison argues we're experiencing the third "AI winter" - a pattern of overpromising and eventual collapse that's repeated since the 1970s.2. The AI Wedge Drives Human Separation"They're a bit like a wedge, like a V-shaped wedge... So it starts off really small... and then the final stage of that wedge is the replacement of the humans completely by Mark Zuckerberg's AI friends, by AI partners, AI therapists, these human surrogates."Technology gradually separates us from authentic human connection through a three-stage process: novelty, dependency, replacement.3. Neuralink Represents Dangerous Human Experimentation"When it's a dirty operating table with surgical glue being squeezed into your skull as electronic treads have shaken themselves loose from deep in your brain... then it starts to become a different story entirely."Morrison warns that Silicon Valley's "move fast and break things" mentality becomes morally problematic when applied to human bodies and brains.4. We Shouldn't Ask AI Life's Big Questions"The tragedy that I'm trying to put forward in the book is that we shouldn't give that big question to computers to answer. We shouldn't ask AI, why are we alive?"His novel For Emma explores the danger of outsourcing fundamental human questions about meaning and purpose to artificial intelligence.5. The Utilitarian vs. Romantic Struggle Continues"We're never gonna solve this, but what will happen will be there will be periods in history where one side takes dominance over the other... And now we are seeing the return of the utilitarian mindset once again with the new technologies enabled by AI."Morrison sees current tech development as part of a historical cycle between utilitarian planning (Bentham-style) and romantic individualism, with AI representing a new form of surveillance society.I've know Morrison for many years and generally share his take on Big Tech. But I differ on his view about what he calls the coming 3rd “AI winter”. There's too much capital and technology now to imagine this kind of sharp freeze on the AI economy. For better or worse, this thing is happening now. The threshold has been crossed. It's already radically changing the nature of education and work. And we are still in the earliest chapters of the revolution. That AI wedge is going to get seriously painful. 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

You've heard it before and you'll hear it again. AI is a gold rush. It will change everything. But 2025 is different, That Was The Week tech newsletter publisher Keith Teare argues. This is the year that the AI gold rush is changing everything. In our reflection of the first six months of 2025, Keith argues that we're witnessing a fundamental "phase shift" - not just another tech cycle, but an inflection point where scale becomes a necessity for survival. From Meta's $100 million developer deals to the consolidation of 80% of venture capital into just five firms, from Cloudflare's revolutionary "toll booth" economy replacing advertising models to the tokenization of private markets through platforms like Robinhood, the rules of Silicon Valley are being rewritten. As graduates face an employment crisis and AI superstars command unprecedented compensation, Keith and I debate whether this transformation represents capitalism's natural evolution or a dangerous concentration of power that could reshape the global economy forever.1. Scale Has Become a Survival Requirement2025 marks a shift where scale isn't just advantageous—it's necessary for survival. With 80% of venture capital flowing to just five firms (Andreessen, Sequoia, Cotu, Lightspeed, and one other), and late-stage investors writing billion-dollar checks for 3-5x returns instead of traditional smaller bets for 100x gains, the venture capital game has fundamentally changed.2. The "Toll Booth" Economy is Replacing AdvertisingCloudflare's "paper crawl" initiative represents a seismic shift from advertising-based revenue models to direct payment systems where AI companies must pay publishers for content access. This could create new revenue streams for content creators while giving them control over how their intellectual property is used for AI training.3. Tokenization is Democratizing Private MarketsRobinhood's tokenization of companies like SpaceX and OpenAI allows European retail investors to buy shares in private companies through crypto-backed tokens. This convergence of private markets, public markets, and crypto could fundamentally change who can access high-growth investments.4. AI Superstars Command Unprecedented ValueWhile AI eliminates many jobs, it's creating extreme value concentration among top talent. Meta's $100 million deals for individual AI experts and OpenAI's $6 billion deal with Johnny Ive illustrate how differentiated developers are becoming incredibly valuable in an age where most workers face displacement.5. 2025 is the Inflection Point, Not the FutureUnlike previous tech cycles, Keith argues this isn't about future potential—the transformation is happening now. With companies like OpenAI reaching $14 billion in annual revenue and AI's economic impact becoming undeniable, 2025 represents the moment when AI shifted from promise to reality, making it a true inflection point rather than just another tech trend.Where Keith and I fundamentally disagree is over jobs. He seems to skate over the implications of jobless consequences of AI, believing in some sort of magical age of abundance in which we will all be free to pursue our hobbies. I think this is entirely wrong. This is where his Silicon Valley language about having to “scale or die” is so terrifying. Over the next couple of decades, tens of millions of people are going to lose both their jobs and careers to the AI revolution. Some might find other kinds of work, but most won't. The age of abundance is total a myth. Instead of “scale or die”, the mantra of the coming age will be “scale or starve”. What we are about to experience is the kind of economic scarcity that will utterly transform our societies and politics. 2025 might be an inflection point for Silicon Valley. But that existential moment for the rest of us will come in around 2030.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

On July 4, 2025, is America still worth the fireworks? For Paul Orgel, producer of America 250, C-SPAN's upcoming celebration of 250 years of independence, the answer is a full stars 'n stripes YES! But even this C-SPAN veteran acknowledges the complexity of celebrating America in 2025. "We're not just going to be celebratory," Orgel admits, "but realistic to the good, the bad and the ugly of our country's history." As America stands one year away from its 250th birthday, the question isn't whether national independence deserves to be celebrated—it's whether Americans can still find common ground in their shared experiment. With political divisions deeper than ever and historical narratives under fierce debate, Orgel's mission feels both urgent and impossible: reminding a fractured nation why it's still worth celebrating together.1. C-SPAN's America 250 Will Address the "Good, Bad and Ugly:" "This effort of ours will not just be celebratory, but will be realistic to the good, the bad and the ugly of our country's history." Orgel promises C-SPAN won't shy away from difficult topics like slavery and treatment of indigenous peoples, even as they celebrate America's founding.2. The Founders Expected Political Division: "When you read about how the early debates and early politics in this country were conducted, very, very rabid, very opinionated, very harsh in their political campaigns... I don't think founders would be surprised at how divided politics are in the country now." Current political polarization isn't unprecedented—it echoes the fierce debates of America's earliest days.3. "Freedom" Still Defines the American Experience: "I just interviewed a bunch of people in Boston and Philadelphia about what it means to be an American. And the word that kept coming up was freedom. Freedom to live where you want, do what you want." Despite current challenges, Americans still see freedom as their defining characteristic.4. America Remains an Ongoing Experiment: "They talk about this country still being an experiment, right? How can we get better? How can we become more unified as a country? I don't think that conversation ever ends." The work of building America isn't finished—it's a continuous process of improvement and adaptation.5. The Constitution's Flexibility Was It's Genius: "The beauty... is that they left that Constitution amendable. I think they realized that they weren't gonna have all the answers to everything." The founders' decision to make the Constitution changeable shows their wisdom in creating a framework that could evolve with the times.Like C-SPAN's Paul Orgel, I think America is worth the fireworks. But not because the American Dream is alive and well—because it's still worth improving. What strikes me about this interview is how Orgel refuses to abandon the dream even while acknowledging its flaws, contradictions and, perhaps, even its fundamental imperfectability. Over the next 18 months, we'll be featuring more content from C-SPAN's celebration of America's 250 years of independence. So enjoy today's fireworks and get ready for many more over the next year and a half.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 have spent more of their lives thinking about the Nazis than the English filmmaker and writer Laurence Rees. In his new book, The Nazi Mind, Rees offers a lifetime of knowledge about the Nazis to warn about today's fragility of democracy. Borrowing from his extensive interviews of both former Nazis and Holocaust survivors, Rees discusses how Nazi ideology developed, why democracy proved so vulnerable in 1930s Germany, and what modern societies must understand about the enduring appeal of authoritarianism. Institutions we take for granted, he warns, can be far more fragile than we imagine.1. Democracy is More Fragile Than We Think"Everything is fragile and often a great deal more fragile than we think. That's the recurring theme of many of the interviewees that I met. Never saw this coming... You can have the most fragile piece of glass on your mantelpiece and it can stay there for 50 years, but someone can just touch it and it breaks." Democratic institutions require constant vigilance to survive.2. The Nazis Started as a Fringe Movement"Crucial statistic people should hold onto is that in 1928, the Nazis only got 2.6% of the vote. The vast majority of Germans rejected them... And then five years later, Hitler's chancellor." Economic crisis and democratic failure allowed extremism to flourish.3. Nazi Anti-Semitism Was Uniquely Dangerous"Unlike in previous anti-Semitic attacks going back hundreds and hundreds of years, there wasn't a possibility of a Jew saving themselves by saying, no, I'm baptized Christian... The Nazis saw you as a Jew based on your Jewish heritage, and so you found that there was no escape." This racial ideology made the Holocaust uniquely all-encompassing and deadly.4. Charismatic Leadership Requires Hero Worship"It was vital for a charismatic leader that the population see him as a hero... The notion of a charismatic leader being a hero figure is incredibly useful and important." Modern propaganda techniques were pioneered by figures like Goebbels.5. Historical Ignorance Enables Extremism"The bigger issue is absolute historical illiteracy... All this nonsense, all this misinformation, all this fake history, to coin a phrase, comes in to fill the gap." Without understanding history, people become vulnerable to manipulation and conspiracy theories.Forget the 12 warnings. There are only two ways of thinking about the Nazi mind: either it's evil or it's banal. In his historical movies and books, Rees treats Nazis as uniquely literal manifestation of pure evil. In contrast, Hannah Arendt's 1963 book, Eichmann in Jerusalem, focuses on its human ordinariness - what she called the banality of evil. It's an argument that Jonathan Glazer brilliantly develops in his controversial 2023 Oscar-winning movie, The Zone of Interest. As you can probably sense from my conversation with Rees, I'm in the Arendt/Glazer camp on this. Evil is always all around us. It's in Guantanamo and Gaza, as well as Belsen and Auschwitz. 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

If the American dream died in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, then who killed it? According to the crime novelist Terrence McCauley, the JFK assassination was carried out by organized crime. That's the heart of his new novel, Twilight Town, in which McCauley reexamines the JFK assassination in Dallas. But this wasn't Oliver Stone style CIA or shadowy government conspirators, pulling well-oiled strings from their deep state offices. Instead, McCauley argues it was something far more mundane yet chilling: a street-level contract hit executed by mob-connected criminals with intelligence ties. These were the same underworld figures who ran guns to Cuba, operated training camps for Bay of Pigs veterans, and had both the means and motive to eliminate a President they saw as soft on communism and hard on organized crime. In McCauley's vision, America's Camelot ended not through some grand operatic conspiracy, but through the banal efficiency of professional killers.1. The JFK Assassination Was a "Street Crime," Not a High-Level Government Plot "I approach it as the way I thought it was. And that is a contract hit and a street crime, which is ultimately what happened on the streets of Dallas that morning." McCauley argues the assassination was carried out by mob-connected criminals with intelligence ties, not CIA masterminds in smoke-filled rooms.2. Only a Small Group Knew the Full Plan "I think maybe 10 or 20 at the most who knew all the details and much fewer than that who knew exactly what was going to happen and when." McCauley believes the conspiracy was deliberately kept small, citing FBI recordings of Joseph Milteer who said such operations only work with minimal participants.3. Lee Harvey Oswald Didn't Pull the Trigger "I never was able to put a gun in Oswald's hands that day... I don't think he did. No, I think he was involved with the people who did." McCauley argues Oswald was connected to the plotters but wasn't the actual shooter, pointing to inconclusive gunpowder residue tests.4. The Assassination Marked "The End of American Innocence" "It was certainly the end of American innocence, where we thought we were always the good guys, where we were the liberators, and where we were one hope of the world against the ongoing threat of communism." McCauley sees November 22, 1963, as the moment America lost its post-WWII optimism.5. The Cover-Up Happened Because Intelligence Agencies Recognized Their Own Assets "The coverup happened because these organizations looked into it. They realized, well, so-and-so could have this off, and we worked with them for 10 years, let's back away from that." McCauley suggests the cover-up wasn't planned but emerged when agencies discovered their own connected operatives were involved.The American Dream has more lives than cats. It was supposed to have died in November 1963 in Dallas, then in 1968 with the assassinations of MLK and RFK, then in the Fall of Saigon, then at the Watergate Building, then at the Twin Towers on 9/11. And then, of course, there is Trump, who is supposed to have slain the American Dream not once but twice. And yet today, a couple of days before Independence Day, my sense is that the Dream is alive all over America. The promise of individual agency continues to inspire new generations of both native and immigrant Americans. JFK might be gone, but the Dream remains the defining quality of the American experience. 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

If everything is propaganda (even this show), then we are forever engaged in a war to control other people's minds. That, at least, is the view of the self-described “freedom fighter”, Connor Boyack, the libertarian author of the best-selling Tuttle Twins series of children books. In his latest piece of Tuttle Twins propaganda, A Guide to the World's Worst Ideas, Boyack argues against all forms of government welfare, drug prohibition and foreign military engagement. And yet there's one institution that the Utah based Boyack religiously supports. The family, he says, offers protection for children and should be actively protected by the government. Children of the world unite, some might respond, you've got nothing to lose but your parents. 1. Everything is Propaganda - And That's Fine "Tuttle twins, quote me now, is libertarian propaganda. And I use that word intentionally because what is propaganda? Propaganda is just propagating an idea from one person's mind to another. It is persuasion. It is education. Everything is propaganda."2. America Isn't Really Free "I'm quite a libertarian and everywhere I look, there's a lot of reasons to think we're not independent. We threw off the shackles of Britain so long ago and if those same patriots and founding fathers who were part of constructing a new country could see all the heavy programs and taxes and all the things now, I think they'd have a thing or two to say about it."3. Foreign Intervention Creates More Problems "Look at Iran. Everyone's freaking out about Iran. But Iran, the whole conflict started in 1953 when the CIA waged a coup along with the UK and overthrew the democratically elected leader that led to the hostage crisis in 79, which led to of the destruction in the decades since."4. Family is the Natural Form of Government "I see the family and parents as the breeding ground of freedom, the natural form of governance... between Totalitarianism on the one hand and the naked individual on the other looms the first line of resistance against totalitarianism, and that is the economic and politically independent family."5. Drug Prohibition Mirrors Failed Alcohol Prohibition "Look prohibition, I think there's common like there's there's general consensus that the alcohol prohibition of a century ago didn't work But it's that same sentiment that fuels the drug war today, which of course has led to cartels It's led to fentanyl. It's lead to all of these problems where people are being harmed and dying."When somebody claims that everything is propaganda, you know that something isn't. There's always some ideological “truth” at the heart of all everything-is-ideology messages. For the freedom fetishizing Boyack, it's the “natural” truth of the family. But I'm not convinced. As Philip Larkin wrote, “They f**k you up, your mum and dad.” Equally troubling, they infect you with bad ideas. So my message this July 4 week to all American kids: don't trust anything your mom or dad reads to you. It's bound to be propaganda. 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

As we transition from the social media age (the internet of trolls) to the AI epoch (the internet of tolls), has the publishing apocalypse finally arrived? That's the question Keith Teare and I discuss in our That Was the Week summary of tech news. Two major court cases this week—Getty Images vs. Stability AI and the Anthropic lawsuit—have fundamentally shifted the legal landscape around AI and copyright. The courts ruled that AI systems can legally "learn" from published content without copying it, essentially giving artificial intelligence a free pass to consume human creativity at scale. Meanwhile, publishers are scrambling to find new business models as search traffic evaporates and AI “answers” replace traditional web browsing. From CloudFlare's proposed toll system to the rise of AI browsers like DIA, Keith and I explore how traditional link economics are being completely reimagined—and whether human creators can survive the transformation. Dead Links Walking everyone. It's going to be a bloody entertaining spectacle. * AI Won the Legal Battle: Two major court cases (Getty Images vs. Stability AI and the Anthropic lawsuit) ruled that AI systems can legally "learn" from copyrighted content without permission, as long as they're not directly copying it. This distinction between learning and copying has massive implications for content creators.* The Search-to-AI Shift is Killing Publisher Revenue: As consumers increasingly use AI instead of search engines, publishers are losing the traffic that drives their advertising-based business models. Google's own CEO admits about two-thirds of their revenue still comes from search ads—a model that's under threat.* The "Internet of Tolls" is Coming: Publishers will be forced to return to pre-internet subscription models, putting content behind paywalls. CloudFlare is even developing technology to charge AI systems for accessing content at the network level, creating micro-transactions for publishers.* Links Are the New Currency: The future monetization model for publishers may depend on getting AI systems to surface and properly compensate for links to original content, rather than just providing direct answers.* We're Still Waiting for Native AI Products: Despite all the hype, we haven't yet seen the "Netscape moment" for AI—a truly native, intuitive product that isn't just AI bolted onto existing technology. The real transformation is still coming.“The tollbooths are rising”, Keith ends his That Was The Week editorial, “the road ahead is ours to choose”. I think he's wrong. Yes, he's right, of course, that the AI revolution is inaugurating a new toll economy of walled garden AI leviathans. But the future isn't ours to choose. We - and I mean the broad content industry from individual producers to larger publishers - are spectators to this epochal change. Agency no longer exists. We don't shape the future; it shapes us. Maybe that was always the case. But in the age of trillion dollar AI start-ups, we don't matter. As I said earlier, it's going to be a bloody entertaining spectacle. 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 was on the Great White Hoax of manufactured racism in America. Today's is on Black Capitalists, the title of a provocative new book by Rachel Layrea. But is this a great black hoax? Or might her focus on race and class really be a blueprint for a more ethical 21st century capitalism? Laryea, who holds a PhD from Yale and works in wealth management at JPMorgan Chase, argues that Black capitalists can strategically use the tools of capitalism to create social good, not just profit. But in a week when Jeff Bezos's lavish Venice wedding sparked protests about wealth inequality, can any kind of capitalism - either black, brown or white - ever truly serve social justice? And with the dismantling of DEI initiatives across America, is Booker T. Washington's style self-reliance the only path forward for Black economic empowerment?1. Black capitalism means using wealth-building strategically for social good, not just profit . Laryea:"To be clear, a Black capitalist is someone who identifies as a Black person and strategically repositions themselves within the economic system in order to create social good... it's someone who is still kind of in pursuit of excess resources, but it's also with the intention to create and produce social good."2. Race and class are inextricably linked in America's economic system Laryea: "When you think about systemic inequality, that's predicated on racism, implicated in systemic inequality focused on racism is also a story about inequality when it comes to classism as well... there is a correlation between race and class."3. Black people face different standards and expectations as they accumulate wealth Laryea: "When people ascend the kind of economic social ladder, they are held to different standards than their non-white counterparts... oftentimes correlations that we see around wealth and whiteness are not questioned. But when we see black economic thriving, we question why they should be thriving."4. Communities can't rely on external institutions to solve economic inequality Laryea: "The cavalry is not coming. We see the strategic kind of dismantling of DE&I initiatives, programs that have aimed to create access and channels to opportunity... it really starts with us and looking within and creating those mechanisms ourselves."5. Traditional capitalism is fundamentally exploitative, requiring a different approach Laryea: "What's wrong with capitalism is that it is predicated on exploitation, extraction, harm of some sense... You can have a billionaire exist while still have people who don't have access to meet their fundamental needs to food, water, shelter. Those two things should not coexist."Like apple pie, everybody loves the idea of ethical capitalism. But just as most “homemade” apple pie in stores today comes from a factory, not some rustic kitchen, most for-profit capitalism - whether practiced by black, white, or brown entrepreneurs - ends up focused singularly on profit. Laryea's example of a unicorn fintech company (ASUS) may help people build credit, but it's still a billion-dollar business extracting value from financial transactions. Blueprints remain just blueprints. I'm wary of coloring 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

There's something fishy about what Philip Kadish calls The Great White Hoax. It's his new book about America's long con - how racist scientific hoaxes have shaped two centuries of racist politics. From the 1840 Census Scandal to Henry Ford to George Wallace, Kadish exposes the conmen who have tried to sell racism to America. But here's the chilling twist: many of these fraudsters knew exactly what they were doing. They weren't true believers - they were cynical opportunists who saw profit in peddling fake science to justify white supremacy, creating elaborate deceptions that sometimes fooled even legitimate scientists. 1. Many racist "scientific" theories were deliberate, cynical frauds, not misguided beliefs"The thing that really characterizes the particular thread that I am following in my book and things that I was finding is that they all involved varying degrees of a kind of cynical, very self-aware, purposeful deception."2. The 1840 Census created the template for American scientific racism through knowing falsification"So this was a case that was starting out as an accident, but then he knowingly investigated it, saw the falseness, and then re-certified it, and that information was then used in the defense of slavery for decades."3. Authority and social credibility mattered more than actual scientific expertise"Madison Grant... did not have a degree in biology. He was trained as a lawyer... the reason he was trusted about race, all of these politicians and wealthy philanthropists, is because, A, he came from a very wealthy family himself."4. The hoax pattern shifted but didn't disappear after World War II"It became socially unacceptable to be that, to be making such openly racist arguments... And things shift into a kind of coded mode... while we're talking about state's rights or he's developing a language talking about the federal government as a tyranny."5. Many hoaxes continued to influence people even after being exposed as fraudulent"Over half of the hoaxes that I described in the book were revealed as hoaxes in the midst of them. And yet were still embraced by many people and often for a long time after."I'm in two minds on this. One the one hand, Kadish' expose of two centuries of selling fraudulent scientific racism is chilling. On the other hand, I wonder if progressive historians like Kadish are themselves becoming overly preoccupied with race and racism. I'm also not convinced that the MAGA movement, RFK Jr or Fox News are a return to the overt racism of D.W. Griffith's movie Birth of a Nation or the “science” of eugenicists like Madison Grant. History, particularly American history, is too complex to simply repeat itself endlessly. Sometimes it rhymes and sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes, the historical hoax is in the hoax. 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

Next month, America will celebrate the centenary of the Scopes Trial, the so-called 1925 “Monkey Trial” on evolution that riveted a nation. Although perhaps celebrate is the wrong word to describe the Tennessee trial that not only riveted America but also divided it. According to the historian Brenda Wineapple, author of Keeping The Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial that Riveted a Nation, the Scopes trial is as relevant to America in 2025 as it was in 1925. According to Wineapple, the trial wasn't really about science versus religion at all. Neither side truly understood Darwin's theory of evolution, which had been settled science for decades. Instead, the Scopes trial served as a cultural battleground where deeper American anxieties played out—fears about immigration, racial integration, women's suffrage, and rapid social change in the post-World War I era. The real combatants weren't evolution and creationism, or even the courtroom celebrities Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, but competing visions of American identity. Today, as debates rage over book bans, curriculum restrictions, and civil rights, Wineapple argues that America is still fighting the same fundamental battles that erupted in that sweltering Dayton, Tennessee courtroom a century ago.1. The trial wasn't actually about science versus religion Neither side understood Darwin's theory, which had been settled science for decades, revealing the real issues lay elsewhere. KEY QUOTE: "Nobody knew the science. Nobody understood the science, and Darwin had published, in 1859, The Origin of Species."2. It was a proxy fight for deeper cultural anxieties about rapid social change The evolution debate masked fears about immigration, women's suffrage, racial integration, and post-WWI upheaval. KEY QUOTE: "So there was a proxy fight that was occurring, because it really couldn't be about what it was said to be about, and I think people on the ground in 1925 knew that."3. Race was a central but often hidden issue in the proceedings Black communities understood that evolution theory undermined racist hierarchies, making this fundamentally about racial anxiety. KEY QUOTE: "Certainly many in the Black communities felt that this was about race because they understood... that the theory of evolution itself helped make absolutely indefensible the idea that racial hierarchies."4. William Jennings Bryan embodied the contradictions of progressive populism Bryan simultaneously championed common people while holding reactionary views on race, showing populism's complex nature. KEY QUOTE: "So in that sense, he was a progressive, as you said he was for the common people... at the same time as being very conservative, even to being reactionary."5. The trial's relevance to contemporary America lies in ongoing battles over freedom and education Today's debates over book bans and curriculum restrictions echo the same fundamental questions about who controls knowledge. KEY QUOTE: "The issues that are being debated in terms of the trial or raised at the trial really are about freedom... who decides what we learn, what we can read."I've always been intrigued by William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democratic candidate for President, passionate Prohibitionist and lead prosecutor at the Scopes Trial. As today's Democrats struggle to invent a progressive 21st century populism that can compete with MAGA, what can Bryan teach us? Bryan embodies populism's central paradox: his passionate defense of ordinary people against economic elites coexisted with deeply reactionary social views. He championed workers and women's suffrage while refusing to condemn the KKK. His "Cross of Gold" speech attacked Wall Street, but his fundamentalism led him to Dayton to prosecute a schoolteacher for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution. This wasn't a bug but a feature of Bryan's thinking —he believed "the people" should decide everything, from monetary policy to what children should learn about evolution. Today's progressives face the same dilemma: how do you harness populist energy for economic justice without empowering the “traditional” (ie: reactionary) values that seem to inevitably go with it? The example of William Jennings Bryan suggests that this tension may be inherent in democratic populism itself. A hundred years after Scopes, this remains the real monkey business confronting American progressivism. 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

Don't blame women. Men are failing spectacularly and it's totally their own fault. In What Is Wrong with Men, cultural critic Jessica Crispin borrows from Michael Douglas movies to dissect how masculinity devolved from Seventies style vulnerability into today's aggressive displays of insecurity. While billionaires like Musk compulsively impregnate women and Zuckerberg learns jujitsu to feel "manly," basement-dwelling incels worship sex traffickers like Andrew Tate. The old patriarchy died in the 1980s, Crispin argues, but men refuse to adapt, expecting the world to revolve around them instead of building female-style support systems. It's the Michael Douglas Trap. From Gordon Gekko's greed to crypto-gambling bros, modern masculinity has degenerated into a grotesque performance of insecurity—and it's getting worse. 1. Modern masculinity is trapped between dead patriarchy and refusal to adapt Crispin argues that traditional patriarchal structures collapsed in the 1980s, but men still expect the world to revolve around them instead of building new support systems like women did. KEY QUOTE: "The world is supposed to adapt to men. Men are not supposed to adopt to the world."2. Billionaire masculinity reveals desperate insecurity despite ultimate success Even the world's richest men obsessively seek validation through physical transformation and procreation, proving that external markers of success no longer provide masculine identity. KEY QUOTE: "Nothing is ever enough anymore. And so that's why you see Elon Musk will never stop having children, never stop fathering children. Jeff Bezos will never have enough money to be satisfied."3. The 1980s created a fantasy of male rejection to mask female-initiated abandonment As women initiated two-thirds of divorces, Hollywood created the "midlife crisis" narrative where men chose to leave, protecting male ego from the reality of being unwanted. KEY QUOTE: "There was this sort of fantasy that was being created at the time of the male midlife crisis, where a kind of, you can't fire me, I quit. Fantasy was being generated."4. Today's male influencers have inverted basic human connection into pathology The evolution from 1970s male vulnerability to Andrew Tate's misogyny represents a complete rejection of emotional intimacy and romantic love. KEY QUOTE: "Andrew Tate does not fall in love, you know, he sexually violates, he's charged with sex trafficking... You can't hold a woman's hand, that's gay. You can have sex with women, that is gay."5. The crisis requires material solutions, not emotional band-aids Rather than teaching boys to cry, society needs to address the gambling-based economy and lack of meaningful work that creates destructive masculine behaviors. KEY QUOTE: "You're not gonna be able to fight against that just by learning how to cry... This is about making sure people have steady employment, making sure that people have study income, making sure the people have health care and community."Nothing explains everything. Not even Michael Douglas movies. But just as women like setting traps, men love stumbling into them. I'm not convinced by Crispin's reading of Hollywood movies. Men have always been making fools of themselves on screen - from Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo to the equally pathetic Douglas in Wall Street. Everything is supposed to be in crisis in America these days: from democracy to capitalism to masculinity. But if crisis means that men (or women) aren't quite sure how to behave around the other sex, then they've been in crisis forever. So I'm unconvinced. No doubt because I'm in crisis. What would Michael Douglas do/think?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

So I get why Jeff Bezos isn't popular in Venice this week. But why would Africans in general, and Kenyans in particular, not love Bill Gates after the philanthropist pledged to give away $200 billion of his fortune to Africa? According to Tablet staff writer, Armin Rosen, it's because Gates' top-down, metrics-driven approach often ignores what Africans actually want. Drawing from extensive on-the-ground reporting in Kenya, Rosen highlights how Gates' Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa pushed unwanted agricultural technologies onto Kenyan farmers, while his foundation received controversial diplomatic immunity from Kenya's unpopular President Ruto. Though acknowledging Gates' successes in vaccination programs, Rosen questions whether billionaire-led development truly helps or undermines local agency and democratic governance. Maybe Gates should, instead, pledge his billions to Venice to enable the sinking city to outlaw tasteless American celebrity marriages. 1. Gates' philanthropy often imposes unwanted solutions on Africans Rosen argues that Gates consistently brings his own technological fixes to problems without consulting the people he claims to help, particularly through initiatives like the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. KEY QUOTE: "So a lot of his philanthropy either sort of goes towards bringing his own solutions to these places or his money is spent in such a way that there isn't a lot of consultation with the people that he's actually trying to help."2. The Gates Foundation operates with government-scale power and spending With massive operational costs and diplomatic immunity, the foundation wields influence comparable to state actors, raising questions about accountability and democratic oversight. KEY QUOTE: "The Gates Foundation spends something like $140 million a year just on travel expenses... They have the same scale as a government agency."3. Gates has become deeply unpopular in Kenya due to political associations His close relationship with Kenya's controversial President Ruto has damaged his reputation among Kenyans who already distrust their government and foreign interference. KEY QUOTE: "At the moment, Bill Gates is not a very popular person in Kenya. And the reason for his bad name is the trust deficit with the government."4. Diplomatic immunity controversy reveals troubling governance patterns The secretive granting of legal immunity to the Gates Foundation, announced after deadly protests against the government, exemplified the lack of transparency that fuels public mistrust. KEY QUOTE: "The Gates Foundation had gotten full diplomatic immunity from the Kenyan government... it was relatively unusual in Kenya for any non-governmental organization to get that kind of legal protection."5. Local innovation often outperforms foreign philanthropy African societies frequently develop their own solutions more effectively than external interventions, as demonstrated by Kenya's creation of mobile money systems that became global models. KEY QUOTE: "It turns out that these societies can kind of solve their problems on their own... Kenya is where basically mobile money began, you know, and M-Pesa is a Kenyan invention." At least Gates isn't spending $200 billion on gross Venetian weddings. Despite all Rosen's valid criticisms of Gates' African interventions, I think we should still prefer billionaires who try (however imperfectly) to solve global problems over those buying massive yachts and throwing obscenely expensive parties. Armchair philanthropy criticism is easier than solutions.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

Are Donald Trump and Steven Miller terrorists? Pakistani-American lawyer and author Rafia Zakaria argues that their willfully cruel immigration policies reflect what she describes as an "architecture of terror." In her June Liberties Quarterly piece "Silencings", Zakaria argues that these policies represent a deliberate strategy to terrorize communities and systematically dismantle the American democratic public sphere. Drawing on her experience both in practicing immigration law and as a naturalized American citizen, she connects domestic enforcement tactics to broader patterns of dehumanization affecting brown people globally—from detention centers in California to the US/Israeli bombing campaigns of Iran to what she dubs the “historical shame” of orchestrated mass starvation in Gaza. 5 key takeaways and quotes1. Immigration Enforcement as Deliberate Terrorism Zakaria argues that the Trump administration's immigration policies are intentionally designed to terrorize entire communities, not just target individuals for deportation. The strategy involves detaining people without legal basis, forcing them into expensive legal battles, then releasing them after causing maximum pain. KEY QUOTE: "It's kind of a terrorist act on the part of the Trump administration, which knows that eventually they'll have to release the people, but why not cause them as much pain and harassment as possible in the meantime."2. Legal System Double Standard The administration manipulates public perception by calling immigration violators "criminals" in public discourse while simultaneously denying them the constitutional protections afforded to actual criminals in court proceedings. KEY QUOTE: "You can't have it both ways, where in the public realm, you're calling them criminals, but in court you're saying, oh no, no, this is a civil matter, this is a civil matter."3. Systematic Silencing of Public Sphere Even naturalized citizens and legal residents are being chilled from speaking out due to fear of legal and financial harassment, effectively destroying the independent public sphere that serves as a democratic check on state power. KEY QUOTE: "I have to really kind of talk to myself a lot before I give an interview like this, because I'm a naturalized citizen."4. Connected Dehumanization Campaign Zakaria sees the domestic immigration crackdown and military actions abroad as part of the same broader strategy of systematically dehumanizing brown people, whether they're "invaders" at the border or targets of bombing campaigns. KEY QUOTE: "This is the systematic demonization and dehumanization of brown people."5. Gaza as Historical Moral Failure She believes the world's inaction on Gaza will be viewed by future historians as a moral failure comparable to other historical atrocities, where people knew genocide was happening but did nothing to stop it. KEY QUOTE: "I think this will be the world's shame."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 today's age of authoritarian plutocracy, the UCLA political theorist Natasha Piano argues that we need to rethink the supposed “elitist” school of Italian thinkers like Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca. In her intriguing new book, Democratic Elitism, Piano suggests Pareto, Mosca and even the Marxist Antonio Gramsci were actually "democratic theorists of elitism" who warned that electoral institutions can often enhance elite domination. Piano contends that American political science created a "founding myth" by misrepresenting these Italian thinkers to legitimize electoral democracy during the Cold War. And in our current political climate she says, their warnings about plutocracy are particularly prescient. Five takeaways1. Flipped Interpretation of Italian Elite TheoristsPareto, Mosca, and Gramsci weren't "elite theorists of democracy" but rather "democratic theorists of elitism" - they studied elite power to expose its dangers, not endorse it.KEY QUOTE: "They investigated elitism not to endorse it, but to study it and figure out how democracy could actually create genuine accountable leaders."2. Elections ≠ DemocracyEquating democracy with competitive elections creates two major threats: it conceals plutocratic domination (rule by the wealthy) and enables demagogic manipulation by those claiming to represent "the people."KEY QUOTE: "Elections are actually representative mechanisms, they're not democratic mechanisms."3. American Political Science's "Founding Myth"The discipline misrepresented these Italian thinkers during the Cold War to legitimize electoral democracy as superior to communist alternatives, covering up their warnings about plutocracy.KEY QUOTE: "My book kind of tries to understand why we lost the extent to which plutocracy can undermine electoral institutions, as the Italians warned, and why American political science kind of covered this study of plutocracy up."4. Democracy as "Good Government"Piano advocates redefining democracy not as elections but as good government with three attributes: popular support, actively anti-plutocratic measures, and genuine pluralistic competition with majoritarian pressure from below.KEY QUOTE: "What I've understood or what I think we should take from them is that perhaps a redefinition of democracy, not as election, but as good government is in order."5. Elite Self-Recognition is EssentialContemporary "coastal elites" must acknowledge their own elite status and impose limits on their power - the solution requires elites to honestly assess their role, not blame "the mob" for democratic failures.KEY QUOTE: "They would really encourage all elites on the left or right to look within themselves and ask themselves if they're genuine aristocrats and what that would mean vis-a-vis the resurrecting the polity."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

Yes, there still are some well meaning folks in Silicon Valley. Take, for example, Jimmy Chen, founder and CEO of Propel, an app designed to simplify food assistance for 41 million of the poorest Americans. Growing up food insecure himself, the Stanford educated Chen left lucrative jobs at Facebook and LinkedIn to build technology that actually serves those who need it most, proving that some Valley entrepreneurs are driven by social rather than financial ambition. Propel replaces the outdated 1-800 number system that food stamp recipients previously had to use to check their benefits, while connecting users to additional online resources and discounts. Chen's story challenges the conventional narrative that all tech founders are solely profit-motivated, and demonstrates how growing up in poverty can fuel mission-driven entrepreneurship. Five Key Takeaways1. Silicon Valley's Echo Chamber Problem Tech companies typically build for people like themselves - affluent, educated users - because founders solve problems they personally understand. This explains why so many startups focus on convenience for the already-comfortable rather than addressing real needs of vulnerable populations.2. Personal Experience Drives Authentic Mission Jimmy Chen's childhood food insecurity, including watching his father skip meals to ensure his children could eat, directly shaped his motivation to build technology for low-income families. This personal connection distinguishes mission-driven entrepreneurs from those simply claiming social impact.3. The For-Profit vs. Nonprofit Debate Chen argues that sustainable social impact requires a viable business model, not just philanthropic funding. Propel generates revenue by connecting users to vetted financial services and discounts, proving that companies can be profitable while serving society's most vulnerable.4. Technology Infrastructure Failures Hit the Poor Hardest Food stamp recipients still rely on outdated systems like calling 1-800 numbers to check balances, while criminals exploit antiquated magnetic stripe EBT cards through skimming schemes. These technological gaps disproportionately harm those who can least afford it.5. Scale Reveals Impact Potential With 41 million Americans receiving food assistance and Propel serving 5 million monthly users, Chen argues that technology solutions for underserved populations can achieve massive scale while creating genuine social good - challenging the current pessimism about “profitable” social enterprises.Jimmy Chen is the founder and CEO of Propel, an app used by over 5 million low-income households to manage their government benefits. Propel has over 500,000 five-star reviews and has been recognized by the White House, and Propel's investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, JPMorganChase, Kevin Durant, and Serena Williams. In addition to his work at Propel, Jimmy serves on the boards of Share Our Strength, a national anti-hunger nonprofit, and TechNYC, a nonprofit coalition focused on the technology industry in New York. Jimmy holds a B.S. in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University, where he was an inaugural winner of the President's Award for the Advancement of the Common Good in 2022. 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 we ever really know Primo Levi? We know his books, of course, especially If This Is A Man, the astonishing account of his survival from Auschwitz. But what, then, of his apparent suicide in 1987? How can a man who miraculously survived Auschwitz take his own life forty years later? That's one of the questions that Joseph Olshan asks in Milo's Reckoning, a new novel about Levi, suicide and our own unknowability. Olshan, himself deeply affected by Primo Levi's death when he first heard the news during a newspaper interview in Italy, explores the profound mystery of human nature and the limits of what we can truly understand about others, even those, like Levi, whose experiences have been supposedly laid bare in their autobiographical work. 5 takeaways1. Suicide is often impulsive, not premeditated Most suicides happen in the spur of the moment when people "snap" under pressure, rather than being carefully planned decisions. The majority don't even leave notes, contrary to popular belief.2. Personal trauma shaped Olshan's literary obsessions Olshan's lifelong fascination with suicide stems from witnessing a child's drowning at age six, followed by the suicides of an influential college professor and his aunt - experiences that ultimately inspired Milo's Reckoning.3. We can never fully know another person Even when someone writes intimately about their experiences, as Levi did about Auschwitz, we still can't truly understand their inner life or predict their future actions - hence the shock of Levi's apparent suicide.4. Language barriers limit authentic cultural understanding Olshan argues that American writers who spend brief periods abroad without knowing the local language cannot authentically capture those cultures, emphasizing the importance of linguistic fluency for true cultural insight.5. Too much self-knowledge may be dangerous Olshan suggests that suicide might result from excessive self-awareness - people who contemplate life's inequities and their own perceived deficiencies too deeply may become overwhelmed by the world's suffering and their place in it.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, The Talking Heads, today, Dylan. The Great Man's Jewish identity has long been overshadowed by his pantheistic status as American prophet. So when, for example, at the beginning of his biopic “A Complete Unknown”, Dylan arrives in Greenwich Village, he is presented as having no history, like a biblical prophet wandering out of the desert. But the London-based historian Harry Freedman argues against this tabula rasa version. In Bob Dylan: Jewish Roots, American Soil, Freedman suggests that Dylan's upbringing in a committed Jewish family in Hibbing, Minnesota—complete with B'nai B'rith leadership and summer camps—profoundly influenced his artistic vision and social consciousness. From his early protest songs to his recent embrace of Chabad fundraising, Freedman argues his Jewish heritage makes him equally Zimmerman and Dylan, a Known Unknown. five takeaways* Dylan's Jewish upbringing was deeply embedded - Far from superficial, his family life included his father as B'nai B'rith president, mother active in Hadassah, Jewish summer camps, and a 500-person Bar Mitzvah in a town with only 280 Jews.* Early career involved deliberate identity concealment - Dylan spent his first 3-4 years creating elaborate backstories about circus and carnival origins to hide his middle-class Jewish background, likely due to antisemitism and desire to fit folk music's authenticity narrative.* Jewish cultural values shaped his protest period - Freedman argues Dylan's focus on social justice and civil rights emerged from growing up in an environment emphasizing welfare and human rights, typical of Jewish immigrant communities.* His genius lay in lyrics, not initial musicianship - Dylan's early success stemmed from extraordinary wordplay and poetic ability rather than musical skill, making him fundamentally a poet who set words to music.* Late-career Jewish reconnection - After his Christian period in the 1980s, Dylan has become increasingly involved with Jewish causes, particularly Chabad fundraising, suggesting his roots remained significant throughout his life. 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

Do The Talking Heads, the quinessential art school band of the East Village scene of the 1970's, still matter? Very much so. At least according to the band's biographer, Jonathan Gould, who believes that The Talking Heads remain "the archetype of what we now think of as the alternative rock group" - a band prioritizing aesthetic evolution over commercial success. Born from New York's affordable cultural moment when rent cost $275 and abandoned industrial spaces fostered creativity, Talking Heads, Gould argues in Burning the House Down, emerged as agnostic questioners of rock conventions. They rejected "rock hair, rock lights, and singing like a black man," creating minimalist performances under stark white lighting. Their 1984 film "Stop Making Sense" appears utterly modern today, Gould says, suggesting their systematic deconstruction of musical expectations continues influencing artists four decades later. Five Key Takeaways 1. The Agnostic Approach Talking Heads were "agnostic about everything" - not just religion, but romantic love, rock conventions, and musical preconceptions. This systematic questioning of accepted norms became their defining creative principle.2. Class and Ambition Shaped Their Art Unlike working-class rock predecessors, they were privileged art school graduates who grew up expecting to "be something." This background fostered artistic ambition over simple commercial success, making them prototypes of the alternative rock ethos.3. New York's Economic Crisis Created Cultural Opportunity The city's 1970s near-bankruptcy made it affordable ($275/month rent) for young artists. The exodus of residents and businesses left vast industrial spaces available, enabling an unprecedented downtown cultural scene.4. Minimalism as Rebellion Their aesthetic rebellion involved subtraction, not addition - "no rock hair, no rock lights, no long guitar solos." Working with Brian Eno, they removed rather than added tracks, creating space through restraint.5. Timeless Modernity "Stop Making Sense" appears contemporary today because they focused on modernity rather than trends. Their systematic rejection of rock clichés created work that transcends its 1980s origins, explaining their continued influence on alternative music.Jonathan Gould is a writer and a former professional musician. Born and raised in New York City, he began playing drums in high school and became serious about it while attending Cornell University, which led him to move to Boston in 1975 to study with the eminent jazz drummer Alan Dawson. He went on to spend many years working in bands and recording studios in Boston, Woodstock, and New York City before turning his full attention to writing about music in the early 1990s under the mentorship of the retired New Yorker editor William Shawn. In addition to his playing and writing about music, Jonathan also raised a family, served in local politics, and took an active role in the life of the upstate New York community where he lived for twenty-five years. He currently divides his time between Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Livingston, NY.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 does it really mean to be a “good woman”? For the controversial podcaster and writer Elise Loehnen, female goodness is a misery trap. And so reclaim their happiness, to make themselves whole, Loehnen says, women need to stop being good. The former goop executive and co-author of the upcoming Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness explains how the seven deadly sins reveal women's hidden conditioning, how the wellness industry became toxic, and why the Enneagram can help women embrace their full selves—including the darker, "unacceptable" parts they've been taught to suppress. five key takeaways 1. The "Good Woman" Performance is Exhausting Women are conditioned to suppress basic human instincts—never being tired, needing no praise, having compliant bodies, avoiding anger—which requires enormous energy and is driven by fear of social rejection.2. The Seven Deadly Sins Reveal Female Conditioning What society labels as "sins" (pride, envy, sloth, etc.) are actually normal human traits that women are taught to repress, creating a "punch card" for performing goodness to the world.3. Women Police Each Other Through Envy Instead of recognizing envy as a signal pointing toward what we want, women often use it destructively to tear down other women who have what they desire—like the backlash against Goop.4. The Drama Triangle Keeps Us Stuck Most people operate in victim-villain-hero dynamics, blaming others instead of taking responsibility. Breaking free requires recognizing these patterns and creating different conditions in your life.5. Wholeness Beats Goodness True liberation comes from integrating all parts of yourself—including the "darker" aspects you've been taught to hide—rather than performing an impossible standard of perfection.Elise Loehnen is a writer, editor, and podcast host who lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Rob, and their two sons, Max and Sam. She is the host of Pulling the Thread, a podcast focused on pulling apart the stories we tell about who we are—and then putting those threads back together. Current Work & Recent Publications: Elise is the author of the New York Times bestseller On Our Best Behavior. She has co-written thirteen books, five of which were New York Times bestsellers, including True and False Magic with psychiatrist Phil Stutz. Her upcoming co-authored Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness will be published in August. Podcast & Media: She hosts Pulling the Thread where she interviews cultural luminaries on the big questions of the day, including Dr. Gabor Maté, Dr. Temple Grandin, Dr. Harriet Lerner, Loretta Ross, Drs. John and Julie Gottman, Dr. Richard Schwartz, Joy Harjo, Dr. B.J. Miller, Nedra Tawwab, Dr. Suzanne Simard, Susan Cain, Heather McGhee, Dr. Riane Eisler, and Terry Real. Professional Background: Previously, she was the chief content officer of goop, where she co-hosted The goop Podcast and The goop Lab on Netflix, and led the brand's content strategy and programming, including the launch of a magazine with Condé Nast and a book imprint. Prior to goop, she was the editorial projects director of Conde Nast Traveler. Before Traveler, she was the editor at large and ultimately deputy editor of Lucky Magazine, where she also served as the on-air spokesperson, appearing regularly on shows like Today, E!, Good Morning America, and The Early Show. She has a B.A. from Yale where she majored in English and Fine Arts.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

“Let me tell you about the very rich”, Scott Fitzgerald once said. “They are different from you and me”. One way they are different, the New Yorker staff writer Evan Osnos reports, is that they own yachts - very very big, expensive yachts. In The Haves and The Have-Yachts, Osnos' dispatches about today's ultrarich, he takes us on board these boats to reveal the obscenity of our new gilded age. From Mark Zuckerberg's obsession with Augustus Caesar to the thin-skinned grievances of figures like Marc Andreessen and Elon Musk, Osnos explores how the personal quirks and anxieties of just 19 American plutocrats - the 0.00001% - are now reshaping our entire society. He argues we're living in an era of "flamboyant oligarchy," where billionaires openly flaunt their wealth. Citing the extraordinary tableau of tech moguls lining up in homage to Trump at his inauguration, Osnos describes our age as "the complete and total fusion of politics and plutocracy in the United States." five key takeaways1. We're Living in an Era of "Flamboyant Oligarchy" Unlike past wealthy elites who stayed hidden ("a whale that never surfaces doesn't get harpooned"), today's billionaires openly compete for attention and flaunt their wealth, fundamentally changing the relationship between extreme wealth and public life.2. Just 19 People Could Control 18% of America's Wealth The 0.00001% - currently 19 Americans - control 1.8% of national wealth today. If current trends continue, this could reach 18% within 40 years, representing an unprecedented concentration of economic power in human history.3. Personal Quirks Have Massive Social Consequences Billionaires' individual obsessions and blind spots shape society at scale - from Facebook being blue because Zuckerberg is colorblind, to his Augustus Caesar fixation influencing how he thinks about power and empire-building.4. The Complete Fusion of Politics and Plutocracy Trump's inauguration, featuring tech moguls "lined up in homage," represents the total merger of political and economic power in America - what Osnos calls a "sultanistic oligarchy" where billionaires have elevated Trump to rule on their behalf.5. Billionaires Are Surprisingly Thin-Skinned and Aggrieved Despite their wealth, figures like Musk and Andreessen are easily offended and resentful about public criticism, leading them not to retreat but to actively seek control over politics and media to reshape the narrative in their favor. BiographyEvan Lionel Richard Osnos (born December 24, 1976) is an American journalist and author who has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2008, specializing in politics and foreign affairs coverage in the United States and China. Osnos continues to be one of America's most prominent foreign correspondents and political journalists, known for his deep reporting and narrative storytelling that bridges international and domestic affairs.Current PositionsOsnos is currently a staff writer at The New Yorker, a CNN contributor, and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, based in Washington D.C.Early Life and EducationOsnos was born in London when his parents, Susan (née Sherer) Osnos and Peter L.W. Osnos, were visiting from Moscow, where his father was assigned as a correspondent for The Washington Post. He graduated with high honors from Harvard University with a Bachelor's Degree. Career HighlightsEarly Career: In 2002, he was assigned to the Middle East, where he covered the Iraq War and reported from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, and elsewhere. In 2005, he became the China correspondent. Chicago Tribune: Prior to The New Yorker, he worked as the Beijing bureau chief of the Chicago Tribune, where he contributed to a series that won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. The New Yorker: Osnos joined The New Yorker in September 2008 and served as the magazine's China correspondent until 2013, maintaining a regular blog called "Letter from China" and writing articles about China's young neoconservatives, the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, and the Wenzhou train crash. Major Publications* "Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China" (2014): Won the 2014 National Book Award for nonfiction and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. * "Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now" (2020): Published in October 2020, based on lengthy interviews with Biden and revealing conversations with more than a hundred others, including President Barack Obama. * "Wildland: The Making of America's Fury" (2021): Published in September 2021, about profound cultural and political changes occurring between September 11, 2001, and January 6, 2021. The book was a New York Times bestseller. * "The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich" (2025): His latest book, published in June 2025, exploring American oligarchy and the culture of excess. Awards and RecognitionOsnos has received the Asia Society's Osborn Elliott Prize for Excellence in Journalism on Asia, the Livingston Award for Young Journalists, and a Mirror Award for profile-writing. He received two awards from the Overseas Press Club and the Osborn Elliott Prize for excellence in journalism from the Asia Society. Personal LifeHe has been married to Sarabeth Berman since July 9, 2011. He lives with his wife and children near Washington, 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

It all began in 2019 at DeadSpin where Megan Greenwell was editor-in-chief. She had her dream job at the sports publication she'd always loved, leading a profitable digital media company with a devoted readership. Then the curse of private equity arrived. Within three months, everything collapsed. As Greenwell argues in her new book, Bad Company, she was pushed out, her entire staff followed, and the site was eventually sold to a Maltese gambling operation. What should have been a routine business acquisition became a personal awakening. Greenwell realized she'd witnessed something much larger than corporate mismanagement—she'd seen how private equity is producing avampire economy sucking the blood out of the American Dream. five takeaways1. Private Equity Violates Free Market Principles Greenwell argues that PE actually corrupts capitalism rather than representing it—citing Milton Friedman's own exceptions for public services like healthcare and education, which are now PE's biggest targets.2. The Debt Transfer Loophole Creates Perverse Incentives In leveraged buyouts, PE firms load companies with 70-80% debt but transfer responsibility to the acquired company, allowing firms to profit even when businesses fail—as happened with Toys"R"Us.3. Workers Rarely Know PE Owns Their Employer Until It's Too Late Most employees discover private equity ownership only when everything falls apart, because the company name on their paycheck remains the same while control shifts to financial engineers.4. The Vampire Effect Goes Beyond Individual Companies PE isn't just killing businesses—it's hollowing out entire communities, from rural hospitals in Wyoming to local newspapers, destroying the infrastructure that sustains small American towns.5. Solutions Exist at State and Local Levels While federal regulation remains unlikely, progress is happening through state laws (like Massachusetts healthcare regulations), pension fund pressure campaigns, and nonprofit alternatives that prioritize sustainability over shareholder value.Megan Greenwell is an American journalist, editor, and writer with extensive experience across print and digital media. She was the first female editor-in-chief of Deadspin and editor of Wired.com Background & Education: Greenwell grew up in Berkeley, California. Her mother is an Episcopal priest who currently serves as the Dean of Christ Church Cathedral in Cincinnati. She attended Berkeley High School, where she was a reporter for the school newspaper and graduated from Columbia University (Barnard College) in 2006, where she was editor-in-chief of the Columbia Spectator Career Highlights:* Started as a staff writer at The Washington Post, covering education, philanthropy, and the war in Iraq, including a three-month stint at the paper's Baghdad bureau * Was part of The Washington Post team that won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting WikipediaMegangreenwell* Worked as managing editor of GOOD Magazine, inaugural features editor at New York magazine's The Cut, and senior editor of ESPN The Magazine * Served as executive features editor for Esquire.com before becoming the fifth and first female editor-in-chief of Deadspin in 2018 * Later worked as editor of Wired.com and interim editor-in-chief of WIRED Current Work: She's now a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn and deputy director of the Princeton Summer Journalism Program PrincetonMegangreenwell. Her book "Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream" was published by HarperCollins on June 10, 2025Personal: Greenwell is married to David Heller, an assistant professor of internal medicine and global health at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai 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

25 years after serving as the bridge between the Web 1.0 and 2.0 revolutions, Google stands at the vortex of another technological revolution. The company's new AI mode threatens to destroy the "simple bargain" that has sustained the web since 2005 — Google's deal with websites which sent them traffic in exchange for indexing their content. Unlike traditional search results with links, Google's revolutionary new AI Mode delivers knowledge directly from training data, eliminating the traffic pipeline that media companies depend on. As That Was The Week's Keith Teare and I discuss, this marks the end of the Web 2.0 era and the beginning of the AI age, fundamentally changing how information flows online. By eating the Web 1.0 internet, Google established itself as the dominant Web 2.0 power. The multi-trillion-dollar question now is whether today's AI revolution will eat Google. Five Takeaways* Google Was the Web 2.0 Bridge - Though its hard to determine if Google was really a Web 1.0 or 2.0 business, the company clearly served as the crucial bridge between these two eras, evolving from a pure search engine to a centralized monetization platform that dominated the web for two decades.* The "Simple Bargain" is Breaking - Google's 20-year social contract with websites (free content indexing in exchange for traffic referrals) is ending as AI mode delivers answers directly without sending users to source sites.* AI Mode Eliminates Links - Google's new AI search produces results from training data rather than indexed links, meaning no traffic flows to original content creators—fundamentally breaking the web's economic model.* Search Quality Declined After 2010 - Google morphed from scientific link-counting to revenue-focused curation as social media grew, with the top third of search results becoming advertising rather than organic results.* Google Faces a Binary Choice - The company must choose between traditional search mode (with links and traffic) or AI mode (pure knowledge delivery), as trying to mix both models with advertising would damage the AI users' expectations.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

Happy NO KINGS DAY! Today, as nationwide protests sweep America, historian and activist Mark Bray argues that Trump and his MAGA movement represent a type of American fascism rooted in the country's long history of racist backlash against the struggle for civil rights. As the author of the iconic Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, Bray connects today's resistance to Trump to historical anti-fascist movements, from the KKK's post-Civil War violence to European fascism of the 1930s. He discusses protest strategies, the role of violence in resistance movements, social media's impact on organizing, and why disrupting "business as usual" matters more than just electoral politics in fighting authoritarianism. Long Live the NO KING. Five Key Takeaways* Trump represents American fascism, not just populism or patrimonialism - Bray argues the MAGA movement is "pretty unequivocally fascist," drawing on ultranationalism, militarism, and the glorification of violence that characterizes historical fascism.* American fascism has deep historical roots - Rather than being imported from Europe, fascistic tendencies emerged from America's own racist institutions, with the post-Civil War KKK representing the first "proto-fascist formation" in functional terms.* Disruption matters more than electoral politics - Effective resistance requires making "business as usual" impossible, forcing issues into national conversation and raising the political costs of authoritarian policies beyond just voting.* Violence remains a tactical question, not a moral absolute - Bray argues that while reasonable people can disagree about when to use force, removing it entirely from the "toolbox" of resistance may prove too late when facing genuine fascism.* Social media is a double-edged organizing tool - While platforms can rapidly mobilize movements like Occupy Wall Street, they also create instability, allow right-wing manipulation, and risk replacing sustained community organizing with quick digital fixes.MARK BRAY is a historian of human rights, political violence, and politics in Modern Europe at Rutgers University. He earned his BA in Philosophy from Wesleyan University in 2005 and his PhD in History from Rutgers University in 2016. He is the author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook (Melville House 2017), The Anarchist Inquisition: Assassins, Activists, and Martyrs in Spain and France (Cornell 2022), Translating Anarchy: The Anarchism of Occupy Wall Street (Zero 2013), and the co-editor of Anarchist Education and the Modern School: A Francisco Ferrer Reader (PM Press 2018). His work has appeared in Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, Salon, Boston Review, and numerous edited volumes.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.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

So what, exactly, is libertarianism? Spike Cohen, the Libertarian Party's 2020 vice presidential nominee, boils it down to "the principle of human respect"—treating people as individuals, not as what he calls "tax cattle." Speaking from FreedomFest in Palm Springs, the founder of You Are The Power offers a scathing critique of both major parties while exposing what he calls a federal funding scheme that encourages states to separate children from their families. From defending controversial Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht to challenging Big Tech monopolies, Cohen argues that government overreach—not lack of regulation—creates the very problems politicians claim to solve. And then, of course, there's Donald Trump who spoke at last year's FreedomFest. According to Cohen, Trump has betrayed his libertarian supporters by increasing both government spending and debt by more than almost all of his predecessors. For all his libertarian promises, Cohen argues, Trump is now amongst the most dangerous exponents of big government overreach. Five Takeaways1. Libertarianism as "Human Respect" Cohen defines libertarianism not as chaos, but as "the principle of human respect"—allowing individuals to make their own choices as long as they don't violate others' lives, rights, or property. Government should treat citizens as people, not "tax cattle."2. Big Government Creates Big Business Contrary to progressive solutions, Cohen argues that regulatory capture by large corporations is the root cause of "Big Pharma," "Big Tech," and other monopolistic industries. More regulation protects incumbents; less regulation enables competition.3. Trump Betrayed Libertarian Voters Despite campaigning on reducing government, Trump grew spending and debt more than most predecessors. Cohen credits Trump for freeing Ross Ulbricht but argues his first term should have warned voters about his true governing philosophy.4. Federal Funding Drives Family Separation Cohen's "You Are the Power" organization exposes how Title IV-D incentivizes states to remove children from families—receiving more money for accusations, removals, and permanent separations, especially involving chronically ill children.5. Direct Action Over Electoral Politics After getting just 1% in 2020, Cohen shifted from campaigns to grassroots activism, claiming 100% success in specific cases by mobilizing public pressure on government officials through targeted advocacy.Spike Cohen is a successful business owner, Libertarian activist, and media figure. He is the Founder and President of You Are The Power, a nonprofit focused on using solutions-oriented activism to grow the Liberty movement. Spike started a web design company as a teenager in 1998. In 2017, he retired from web design to focus on effective political messaging, entertainment, and activism. This culminated with him becoming Libertarian candidate for Vice President in 2020, where he traveled across the nation by plane and bus, meeting countless Americans and sharing the message of Liberty with them. Spike is a tireless advocate for freedom with a commitment to help grow the movement at the grassroots level, training candidates and activists in positive and principled messaging to explain libertarian ideas to everyday Americans, and working with elected officials to implement common-sense reforms to improve people's lives. Since the 2020 election, Spike has become a regular guest on cable news networks, nationally syndicated radio, international media outlets, and podcasts across the globe.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.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 Deborah Baker, author of Charlottesville: An American Story, America has become the Charlottesville of the Unite the Right Rally of August 12, 2017. Baker, who grew up in Charlottesville in the shadow of Jefferson's Monticello, watched in shock as neo-Nazis marched through her hometown in August 2017 with torches and flags. What began as her attempt to understand how such hatred could manifest in a progressive college town became a deeper reckoning with America's buried histories and recurring tragedies. The fascist ideologies that once seemed confined to internet forums and fringe rallies have now, she argues, been institutionalized at the highest levels of government. The warning signs were there in 2017—but too many people, from university administrators to progressive leaders, chose to look away. If we close our eyes, she warns, it won't go away. five key takeaways1. America Has Institutionalized ExtremismWhat began as fringe internet movements and basement trolling has now moved into the mainstream of American politics and government institutions. The ideologies that shocked people in Charlottesville 2017 are now, according to Baker, embedded at the highest levels of power.2. Progressive Institutions Failed to Take the Threat SeriouslyUniversity administrators, mayors, and police chiefs in liberal Charlottesville told citizens to "stay home" and ignore the approaching Unite the Right rally. This pattern of progressive leadership closing their eyes to fascist organizing represents a dangerous institutional failure that continues today.3. White Supremacy Has Always Married Anti-Semitism with Anti-Black RacismThe Nazi flags at Charlottesville weren't separate from the Confederate monuments debate. White supremacist ideology consistently portrays Jews as the puppet masters behind Black civil rights movements, combining European fascism with Southern white supremacy into a unified hateful worldview.4. America's "Buried Histories" Keep RepeatingBaker discovered that Charlottesville had experienced a similar white supremacist rally in the 1950s that had been completely forgotten. This pattern of burying ugly chapters allows the same mistakes to be repeated, as communities fail to learn from their past encounters with organized hate.5. Economic and Political Destabilization Creates Fertile Ground for FascismThe conditions that radicalized figures like Richard Spencer include the "forever wars," the 2008 financial crisis, and the broader betrayal of working-class Americans. These "self-inflicted wounds" by American institutions create the chaos that fascist movements exploit to gain followers.Deborah Baker was born in Charlottesville and grew up in Virginia, Puerto Rico and New England. She attended the University of Virginia and Cambridge University. Her first book, written in college, was Making a Farm: The Life of Robert Bly, published by Beacon Press in 1982. After working as a book editor and publisher, in 1990 she moved to Calcutta where she wrote In Extremis; The Life of Laura Riding. Published by Grove Press and Hamish Hamilton in the UK, it was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography in 1994. Her third book, A Blue Hand: The Beats in India was published by Penguin Press USA and Penguin India in 2008. In 2008–2009 she was a Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis C. Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars at The New York Public Library. There she researched and wrote The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism, a narrative account of the life of an American convert to Islam. Published by Graywolf and Penguin India, The Convert was a finalist for the 2011 National Book Award in Non-Fiction. The Last Englishmen: Love, War and the End of Empire was published in October 2018. For this book she received a Whiting Creative Non-fiction grant and a Guggenheim fellowship. Charlottesville is her sixth work of narrative non-fiction. She is married to the writer Amitav Ghosh and lives in Brooklyn and Charlottesville.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.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

Postmodern Patrimonialism. That's the term Brookings Institution scholar Jonathan Rauch uses to describe Trump's second presidency, arguing it represents a 21st century model of running government as if it's his own personal property. Rauch describes Trump 2's "everything everywhere all at once" strategy as a venture capital-like approach: launching numerous initiatives simultaneously to overwhelm opposition, expecting some to succeed while recognizing that others will fail. Noting that this strategy has slowed since March due to court challenges and declining approval ratings, Rauch discusses the institutional breakdown of Congress, the emergence of Gavin Newsom as the apex of the resistance to Trump 2, and identifies Stephen Miller and Russell Vought as key strategic masterminds behind the administration's coordinated assault on universities, law firms, and democratic norms. Five Key Takeaways * Patrimonialism, Not Fascism: Rauch has shifted from describing Trump as fascist to "patrimonial"—running government as personal property and family business. This model is less organized than fascism but equally corrosive to democratic institutions.* "Everything Everywhere All at Once" Strategy: Trump's administration deliberately overwhelms opposition by launching simultaneous attacks on multiple fronts (universities, law firms, agencies, individuals), making coordinated resistance nearly impossible.* Congressional Institutional Collapse: America has effectively moved from a three-branch to two-branch government, with Congress absent as a check on executive power—a more fundamental threat than Trump himself.* Democratic Governors as Resistance Leaders: Figures like Gavin Newsom are emerging as the most effective opposition voices, using states' rights to challenge federal overreach in ways Congress cannot.* Miller and Vought as Strategic Masterminds: Stephen Miller (immigration/security) and Russell Vought (domestic policy/OMB) are identified as the key architects behind the administration's coordinated assault on democratic institutions.Jonathan Rauch is a senior fellow in the Governance Studies program at the Brookings Institution and the author of eight books and many articles on public policy, culture, and government. He is a contributing writer of The Atlantic and recipient of the 2005 National Magazine Award, the magazine industry's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. His many Brookings publications include the 2021 book “The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth”, as well as the 2015 ebook “Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money, and Back-Room Deals Can Strengthen American Democracy.” Other books include “The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better after 50” (2018) and “Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America” (2004). He has also authored research on political parties, marijuana legalization, LGBT rights and religious liberty, and more.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.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

FreedomFest, America's annual celebration of libertarian values, begins tomorrow in Palm Springs. According to FreedomFest's CEO Valerie Durham, there's something quintessentially American about her libertarian creed. Attracting speakers as diverse as Cornell West and RFK Jr, Durham argues that the libertarian doctrine articulated at FreedomFest offers America a politics beyond the conventional dogmas of right and left. But is Durham's vision practical? Can radical libertarian principles like privatizing all roads and eliminating taxation really work in the 21st century? Five key takeaways1. Libertarianism as Pure American Philosophy Durham argues that libertarianism represents the most consistent American political ideology, emphasizing individual sovereignty, minimal government, and maximum personal choice as core principles that transcend traditional left-right divisions.2. Radical Economic Vision She advocates for privatizing virtually everything—roads, parks, utilities—eliminating taxation entirely in favor of direct user fees, arguing this would be more efficient and fair than current government monopolies.3. Cross-Partisan Dialogue Strategy FreedomFest deliberately brings together diverse speakers from Cornell West to RFK Jr., creating nuanced conversations rather than traditional left-vs-right debates, aiming to find common ground on liberty-focused issues.4. Skepticism of Both Major Parties Durham views Trump and traditional Republicans as insufficiently libertarian due to military spending and government overreach, while appreciating entrepreneurial figures like Elon Musk who advance innovation through private enterprise.5. Third Party Necessity She believes America's two-party system is "unsustainable" and argues for breaking up the Republican-Democrat duopoly through viable third-party alternatives that can introduce fresh ideas about governance and individual freedom.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

Karen Hao has been warning us about Sam Altman's OpenAI for a while now. In her bestselling Empire of AI, she argues that the Silicon Valley startup is a classic colonial power, akin to Britain's East India Company. Like those colonial merchants and policy makers who wrapped profit-seeking in civilizing missions, OpenAI cloaks its relentless scaling ambitions behind the noble goal of "ensuring artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity." But as Hao reveals, this pursuit comes at enormous cost—environmental devastation, exploited labor, and the extraction of data from communities worldwide. The parallels are striking: a private corporation accumulating unprecedented resources and power, operating with minimal oversight while externalizing the harms of its empire-building to those least able to resist. Five Key Takeaways 1. OpenAI is a Modern Corporate Empire Hao argues OpenAI operates like the British East India Company—a private corporation wrapped in a "civilizing mission" that extracts resources globally while externalizing costs to vulnerable communities. The company's stated goal of "benefiting all humanity" serves as ideological cover for profit-driven expansion.2. AI Development Didn't Have to Be This Destructive Before OpenAI's "scaling at all costs" approach, researchers were developing smaller, more efficient AI models using curated datasets. OpenAI deliberately chose quantity over quality, leading to massive computational requirements and environmental damage that could have been avoided.3. The Climate and Social Costs Are Staggering McKinsey estimates global energy grids need to add 2-6 times California's annual consumption to support AI infrastructure expansion. This means retired coal plants staying online, new methane turbines in working-class communities, and data centers consuming public drinking water in drought-prone areas.4. The Business Model May Be Unsustainable Despite raising $40 billion (Silicon Valley's largest private investment), OpenAI hasn't demonstrated how to monetize at that scale. Subscriptions don't cover operational costs, leading to considerations of thousand-dollar monthly fees or surveillance-based advertising models.5. Resistance is Possible and Already Happening Communities worldwide are successfully pushing back—from Chilean residents stalling Google data centers for five years to artists suing over intellectual property theft. Hao argues collective action across AI's supply chain can force a shift toward more democratic, community-centered development.Karen Hao is an award-winning journalist covering the impacts of artificial intelligence on society. She writes for publications including The Atlantic and leads the Pulitzer Center's AI Spotlight Series, a program training thousands of journalists around the world on how to cover AI. She was formerly a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, covering American and Chinese tech companies, and a senior editor for AI at MIT Technology Review. Her work is regularly taught in universities and cited by governments. She has received numerous accolades for her coverage, including an American Humanist Media Award and American National Magazine Award for Journalists Under 30. She received her Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from MIT.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.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

Do we get the nonfiction we deserve? LATimes book critic Bethanne Patrick wrestles with this question through five new books that both mirror and address our fractured psyche. From Melissa Fibos' choice of celibacy over toxic sexual romance to a lone wolf crossing impossible borders, all these works expose a world grappling with isolation, AI empires, and the collapse of meaningful discourse. Whether it's Thomas Chatterton Williams's critique of wokeness, Damon Young's biting anthology of new black comedy, or Karen Hao's disturbing portrait of OpenAI as our new imperial reality ( Tomorrow's show features a full interview with Hao), each book reflects our deeper crisis: the inability to connect authentically in our age of social isolation and anxiety. The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex - Melissa Fibos. Melissa Fibos, a writer with a history of intense romantic fixations, realizes she's addicted to the chase rather than genuine connection. She embarks on a year-long celibacy experiment, allowing masturbation and fantasies but avoiding all dating and partnered sex. It's a transformative journey of empowerment as Fibos discovers authentic pleasure in solitude, food, and simple experiences, ultimately meeting her future wife before completing the full year.Summer of Our Discontent: The Age of Certainty and The Demise of Discourse - Thomas Chatterton Williams. This multiracial critic argues that America's obsession with racial categories perpetuates the very divisions we claim to fight, insisting that race is purely a social construct with no biological basis. Writing from his perspective as an American expat in France, Williams contends that woke discourse and "correct" language distract from addressing real structural problems. His book challenges readers to move beyond tired black-versus-white frameworks toward more nuanced conversations about power and identity.That's How They Get You: An Unruly Anthology of Black American Humor - Edited by Damon Young This collection features sharp satirical pieces from top Black American writers who skewer everything from Karen culture to Disney's racial blindness to tech company exploitation. Contributors include Mateo Askaripour (who wrote the acclaimed "Black Buck") offering biting commentary on workplace racism and cultural appropriation. The anthology demonstrates how humor serves as both weapon and shield, allowing writers to expose systemic absurdities while maintaining their sanity in an often hostile world.Lone Wolf: Walking the Line Between Civilization and Wildness - Adam Weymouth In 2011, a wolf named Slavc traveled over 1,000 miles from Slovenia to the Italian Alps, becoming the first wolf in that region for decades and eventually establishing a pack of over 100. Weymouth follows this remarkable journey to explore how artificial barriers—from the Iron Curtain to Trump's border wall—prevent both wildlife and human refugees from reaching safety. The book uses the wolf's migration as a lens to examine what happens when the wild refuses to respect human boundaries and how life persistently seeks ways to thrive despite our attempts to control it.Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI - Karen Hao. Based on 90 interviews with current and former OpenAI executives plus dozens more from competing tech companies. Hao argues that without proper regulation and transparency, AI could evolve into a modern version of the British East India Company—a technological monopoly that serves elite interests while reshaping global power structures. Tomorrow's show features a full interview with Hao. Bethanne Patrick maintains a storied place in the publishing industry as a critic and as @TheBookMaven on Twitter, where she created the popular #FridayReads and regularly comments on books and literary ideas to over 200,000 followers. Her work appears frequently in the Los Angeles Times as well as in The Washington Post, NPR Books, and Literary Hub. She sits on the board of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation and has served on the board of the National Book Critics Circle. She is the host of the Missing Pages podcast.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.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 the promise of AI abundance Silicon Valley's biggest lie? That Was The Week publisher Keith Teare argues that while AI will inevitably reduce human labor and increase productivity, the real question isn't economic—it's about distribution. Who, exactly, benefits from all this abundance? Currently, it's private companies like OpenAI and Google that own the technology; not you and I, the public. This creates what Keith describes as a fork in the road: either a techno-feudal nightmare where few own everything, or a techno-socialist cornucopia where everyone prospers. He points to points to experiments like Sam Altman's Worldcoin as potential solutions, but warns that without deliberate human action, abundance could easily become the ultimate scarcity trap.As you can tell from this conversation, I'm much more skeptical than Keith. While he sees inevitable productivity gains leading to a potential utopia, I see Silicon Valley's promises of abudance as largely self-serving fantasy. There is no fork in the road and, with or without human agency, everything certainly isn't possible. Today's technological reality is growing inequality, not infinite distribution. The fact that Keith's most hopeful model is Sam Altman's chilling crypto scheme for paying people to scan and share their irises is particularly unconvincing. History shows us that new technologies, while promising a cornucopian future, always create new forms of scarcity. The people promoting AI abundance—Zuckerberg, Musk, Altman et al—are painfully antisocial, yet preach about more social time for family and friends. Meanwhile, teachers and journalists and lawyers are already being forced into retirement. Without concrete mechanisms for the redistribution of AI derived wealth, abundance will likely benefit the few who own the technology, not the many who actually need it. five key takeaways 1. The Economics vs. Distribution Problem AI will inevitably make production cheaper and more efficient, but there's no built-in mechanism ensuring everyone benefits. The proceeds will flow to private companies unless something changes.2. The Fork in the Road We face two possible futures: a feudal system where a few own everything, or a utopia where abundance benefits everyone. The outcome depends entirely on human choices, not technological inevitability.3. The End of Required Labor While productivity gains are inevitable, the complete elimination of paid work isn't guaranteed. But as AI becomes cheaper than human labor, employers will have no economic incentive to hire people.4. Democrats Need the Abundance Narrative The Democratic Party can't win by just redistributing a shrinking pie. They need policies that grow the economy and make abundance politically viable—free healthcare and education require rapid wealth expansion.5. Experiments Are Already Happening Projects like Sam Altman's Worldcoin (giving everyone AI profits via crypto) and discussions of Universal Income show that practical wealth distribution mechanisms are being tested, not just theorized.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

No, I'm not amused. Today's Trump vs Musk social media wrestling fiasco is one more example of how digital media is actually bemusing ourselves to death. Walter Lippmann, the brilliant but emotionally detached journalist who coined the term "stereotype," foresaw this nightmare a century ago. Lippmann's intellectual biographer Tom Arnold-Forster explains how Lippmann's theories about "manufactured consent" and the manipulation of public opinion by media barons anticipated everything from the Trump-Musk social media feuds to dehumanizing AI-generated content. Lippmann identified democracy's central paradox: we need informed citizens to self-govern, yet the modern world is too complex for anyone to fully understand. His 1919 warning is even truer today: "The present crisis of Western democracy is a crisis in journalism." Five Key Takeaways * Democracy's Impossible Paradox: Lippmann identified that modern democracy demands citizens make informed decisions about a world too complex for anyone—even experts—to fully understand. We're stuck needing public opinion to govern while being unable to form truly informed opinions.* The Stereotype Machine: Lippmann literally invented the modern concept of "stereotype" as a way information gets simplified and transmitted between people. He'd likely see AI as the ultimate "stereotype machine"—endlessly reproducing the most probable combinations rather than generating new insights.* Manufactured Consent Crisis: His core warning was that when consent-manufacturing becomes "unregulated private enterprise" (think Hearst then, Musk now), democracy itself is threatened. The solution isn't eliminating commercial media but professionalizing journalism within it.* Expertise Must Serve Democracy: Despite being labeled an elitist, Lippmann actually argued that expertise should ultimately be subject to democratic control. He attacked anti-democratic "experts" like eugenicist Lewis Terman as frauds.* Journalism = Democracy: Lippmann's most prescient insight: "The present crisis of Western democracy is in an exact sense a crisis in journalism." Today's democratic struggles are inseparable from our information crisis—fake news, social media manipulation, and the collapse of trusted news sources.Tom Arnold-Forster is the Kinder Career Development Fellow in Atlantic History at the University of Oxford's Rothermere American Institute. His writing has appeared in the Historical Journal, Modern Intellectual History, American Journalism, the Journal of American Studies, and Dissent.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.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

Revered by some, vilified by others, Ibram X. Kendi is America's most controversial anti-racism scholar. In this wide-ranging and frank conversation, the bestselling author of How to Be an Anti-Racist discusses his foundational (and republished) 2012 book The Black Campus Movement, drawing parallels between 1960s student activism and today's Gaza protests. Kendi argues critics deliberately misrepresent his work to "make me into this boogeyman" and keep people from engaging with evidence-based scholarship on racism. Despite facing accusations of being a "fraud," Kendi remains committed to his mission, particularly in his upcoming role at Howard University, where he'll direct a new Institute for Advanced Study. Five Key Takeaways * History Repeating: Kendi argues that today's campus protests over Gaza mirror 1960s Black student activism, with opponents using similar talking points to undermine anti-racist efforts on college campuses.* The "Boogeyman" Strategy: Kendi believes his critics deliberately misrepresent his work to make him seem "scary" and keep people from engaging with his evidence-based scholarship on racism, rather than addressing his actual arguments.* Campus Activism Then vs. Now: Key differences between the 1960s and today include the federal government now working to "re-segregate" campuses rather than desegregate them, and the presence of campus police forces that can suppress demonstrations.* Indirect Racism: Kendi argues that modern racism operates indirectly—when people deny that racist policies exist while racial disparities persist, they're implicitly suggesting that Black people are inferior, just without saying it explicitly.* New Chapter at Howard: After facing controversy and criticism, Kendi is moving from Boston University to historically Black Howard University to direct a new Institute for Advanced Study focused on rigorously studying racism.DR. IBRAM X. KENDI is a National Book Award-winning author of seventeen books for adults and children, including eleven New York Times bestsellers. Dr. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, and the director of the BU Center for Antiracist Research. In the summer of 2025, he will join Howard University as Professor of History and Director of its newly established Howard Institute for Advanced Study. Dr. Kendi is the author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, making him the youngest author to win that award. He also authored the international bestseller, How to Be an Antiracist, which was described in the New York Times as “the most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind.” Dr. Kendi's other bestsellers include How to Raise an Antiracist and Antiracist Baby, illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky. In 2020, Time magazine named Dr. Kendi one of the 100 Most Influential People in the world. He was awarded a 2021 MacArthur Fellowship, popularly known as the Genius Grant. His newest book is Malcolm Lives! It is the first major biography of Malcolm for young readers in more than thirty years. It appeared in May 2025 on the centennial of Malcolm's birth and debuted on the New York Times bestseller list.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children. 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

Do we get the serial killers & heroes we deserve? The always generous literary critic Bethanne Patrick uses five new non-fiction books to respond to this rather absurd question. From French women resisting Nazis at Ravensbrück concentration camp to the CIA's Cold War book smuggling operation, these new books examine human behavior under the most extreme circumstances. Caroline Fraser's Murderland investigates whether environmental toxins in the Pacific Northwest bred serial killers like Ted Bundy, and Maria Blake's They Poison the World explores forever chemicals' deadly impact on the environment. While Kevin Sack's Mother Emanuel offers Charleston's story of African-American forgiveness for the 300-year injustice of slavery and Jim Crow. Together, these books suggest our environment shapes us—sometimes tragically, sometimes triumphantly. a takeaway from each book * The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück - French women's resistance efforts were systematically ignored in post-war recognition, with only 6 women receiving medals compared to 1,100 men, highlighting how women's contributions to liberation movements have been marginalized. Vive La France!* Murderland - Environmental toxicity from lead and arsenic smelting in the Pacific Northwest may have contributed to the region's concentration of serial killers in the 1950s-70s, with cases declining as environmental protections increased.* They Poisoned the World - The highly toxic PFAS "forever chemicals" were originally developed by the U.S. government for uranium processing, later causing widespread contamination linked to cancers, stillbirths, and weakened immune systems.* The CIA Book Club - The CIA successfully smuggled literature behind the Iron Curtain, with people craving not just political texts but also Agatha Christie mysteries and Shakespeare—proving culture, not just politics, sustained resistance.* Mother Emanuel - For Charleston's African-American congregation of Mother Emanuel church, forgiveness after the 2015 massacre wasn't about excusing the killer but about self-preservation—choosing to move forward rather than be consumed by hatred.Bethanne Patrick maintains a storied place in the publishing industry as a critic and as @TheBookMaven on Twitter, where she created the popular #FridayReads and regularly comments on books and literary ideas to over 200,000 followers. Her work appears frequently in the Los Angeles Times as well as in The Washington Post, NPR Books, and Literary Hub. She sits on the board of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation and has served on the board of the National Book Critics Circle. She is the host of the Missing Pages podcast. 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

Black swan events used to be considered as one-of-a-kind events signifying something rare and exceptional. Today, however, we may be drowning in black swans. That, at least, is the view of global venture investor Christopher Schroeder, in his reflections on recent travel in India, the Gulf, Estonia & the United Kingdom. From the sudden eruption of India-Pakistan tensions that nobody saw coming, to Ukraine's daring military successes against Russia, to this week's collapse of the Dutch government, Schroeder argues we're living in an era of perpetual unpredictability. Schroeder believes that this flood of uncertainty is not only fueling a global anti-incumbent movement and reshaping defense technology, but also forcing nations to rethink their fundamental assumptions about governance, geopolitics, and technological innovation. five key takeaways1. We're Living in an Era of Constant Black Swans Unpredictable, high-impact events have become the norm rather than the exception - from sudden India-Pakistan tensions to Ukraine's surprising military successes to government collapses across Europe.2. Global Anti-Incumbent Sentiment is Driving Political Upheaval People worldwide are rejecting traditional governance that they perceive as incompetent or rigged for insiders, creating fertile ground for populist alternatives and massive political disruption.3. Defense Technology is Stuck in 20th Century Processes While Ukraine adapts drone technology in weeks based on battlefield feedback, Western procurement systems take 3-5 years (versus China's 18 months), creating a dangerous capability gap in modern warfare.4. Countries are Diversifying Dependencies to Avoid Over-Reliance Nations from India to Europe are consciously seeking alternatives to avoid becoming overly dependent on any single power - whether China for manufacturing or Russia for energy.5. Business-as-Usual Governance Cannot Address 21st Century Challenges Traditional institutions and processes are fundamentally inadequate for the speed and complexity of current global challenges, requiring dramatic structural changes that most governments resist making.Christopher M. Schroeder is a Washington D.C. and New York City based entrepreneur and venture investor. He is currently Chair of the Board of Trustees of the German Marshall Fund. He co-founded HealthCentral.com, one of the nation's largest social and content platforms in health and wellness, backed by Sequoia Capital, Polaris Ventures, The Carlyle Group, Allen & Company and IAC Corporation. The company was sold to the health media publisher, Remedy Health, in January 2012 where Schroeder remained a board advisor. Previously he was CEO of washingtonpost.newsweek interactive and LegiSlate.com, the b2b interactive platform on US and state legislation and regulation that he sold in 2000. He currently is an active investor in and advisor to top US venture capital funds and over a dozen consumer-facing social/media startups. He has had a career in finance and served in President George HW Bush's White House and Department of State on the staffs of James A. Baker, III and Robert B. Zoellick.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.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

Popeye might have gotten strong from eating spinach, but for the family of C.F. Seabrook, New Jersey's narcissistic patriarch of industrialized farming, spinach has been a curse. In his new book The Spinach King: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty, New Yorker staff writer John Seabrook charts the dramatic rise and fall of his family's Seabrook Farms. Part family memoir, part critique of industrialized agricultural capitalism, Seabrook tells the story of his grandfather C.F. Seabrook, the "Henry Ford of agriculture”, who built a frozen vegetable empire on 20,000 acres in New Jersey. Rather than a celebration of American innovation, however, The Spinach King is a parable about the dark side of capitalist ambition, explaining how the pursuit of industrial-scale farming led to worker exploitation, family destruction, and ultimately, the dynasty's collapse. Seabrook's motivation for writing about the rise and fall of his grandfather's empire? “Revenge,” he confesses, against a monster who cheated his own father and then psychologically humiliated his son. Five Key Takeaways 1. Industrial Agriculture's Labor Problem Remains Unsolved C.F. Seabrook discovered that while you can mechanize many aspects of farming, crucial tasks like harvesting and cultivation still require human hands. This 100-year-old challenge persists today—American agriculture still depends heavily on immigrant labor because Americans won't do the difficult, seasonal work.2. Capitalism Without Checks Corrupts Families The Seabrook story illustrates how pure capitalist pursuit can destroy the very thing it's meant to benefit. C.F. Seabrook's obsession with profit and control led him to psychologically abuse his sons, cheat his own father, and ultimately tear apart his family dynasty through paranoia and manipulation.3. Generational Conflict Doomed the Business The company's downfall wasn't primarily due to labor issues or market forces, but from irreconcilable differences between C.F. and his Princeton-educated son. The elder Seabrook's anti-union, authoritarian approach clashed with his son's more progressive values, creating internal warfare that destroyed the business.4. Personal Motivation Drives Powerful Storytelling John Seabrook openly admits he wrote the book for revenge against his grandfather, who had psychologically tormented his father. This personal stake transforms what could have been dry business history into a compelling family reckoning with broader implications for American capitalism.5. Agricultural Scale Has Natural Limits Unlike grain farming, vegetable agriculture may have inherent scaling limitations. Seabrook's grandfather tried to apply Henry Ford's mass production principles to farming, but vegetables—especially those requiring hand-picking—resist the kind of industrial scaling that works for manufacturing or grain production.John Seabrook has been a staff writer at The New Yorker for more than three decades. He is the author of The Song Machine, Flash of Genius, Nobrow and other books. The film ​“Flash of Genius” was based on one of his stories. He and his family live in Brooklyn.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

That Was The Week publisher Keith Teare argues we're “accelerating” toward an age of “abundance” in which AI and automation will slash production costs to near-zero, freeing humans to pursue hobbies instead of jobs. I'm less optimistic. I don't disagree with Keith's premise that AI will profoundly change not just our economy but our society and politics. But abundance? Who will own these AI factories? How will profits and wealth be distributed? Keith envisions massive corporate tax rates (up to 98%) redistributing automated profits, while I question whether people actually want a post-work world of ubiquitous stamp collectors or novelists. Our debate captures the gulf between Silicon Valley's utopian promises and the harsh political realities of the 2020s. Will technological abundance liberate humanity or concentrate power among tech giants and impoverish the rest of us? Five Key Takeaways * The Economics Are Clear, Politics Are Messy - Keith argues we're economically heading toward abundance through AI/automation reducing costs to near-zero, but admits the political question of wealth distribution remains "contested" and could lead to either democracy or autocracy.* Work vs. Hobbies Debate - Keith believes most people work jobs they don't love just to afford the things they do love, so abundance would free them to pursue passions. I counter that most people don't have hobbies and actually like having jobs.* The 98% Solution - Keith's preferred path to shared abundance: massive corporate tax rates on automated production (up to 98%) to redistribute AI-generated wealth, creating something "better than the Swedish system."* Big Tech Will Lead, Like It or Not - We both agree government won't drive this transformation—it'll be Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and others. The question is whether they'll be regulated/taxed or become "modern-day empires."* Scarcity in the Age of Abundance - It's a paradox. While promising intellectual abundance, we're seeing increased physical scarcity (land, immigration restrictions, declining birth rates) driven by political insecurity about the 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

Revenge has become Donald Trump's brand. That, at least, is the view of James Kimmel Jr, author of The Science of Revenge, who argues that revenge has become America's “deadliest addiction”. When we feel wronged, he says, our pain centers activate, triggering dopamine-releasing reward circuits that create pleasure from fantasizing about retaliation. This neurological pattern mirrors classic forms of substance addiction, and explains everything from street violence to Trump's "revenge brand" politics. Kimmel contends that roughly 20% of people become compulsively vengeful, driving most societal violence throughout history. The antidote? FORGIVENESS, which neuroscience shows actually eliminates pain rather than just masking it. Kimmel's provocative thesis suggests treating revenge like other addictions through public health approaches and potentially even pharmaceutical interventions. five key takeaways* Revenge is neurologically identical to drug addiction - Brain scans show that revenge-seeking activates the same dopamine reward circuits as substance abuse, making it literally addictive.* All violence stems from perceived victimization - From mass shootings to genocide, perpetrators first see themselves as victims seeking "righteous" retaliation for real or imagined grievances.* Forgiveness is a neurological "superpower" - Unlike revenge's temporary dopamine hit, forgiveness actually deactivates brain pain networks and permanently eliminates trauma rather than just covering it up.* Trump represents America's "revenge brand" - The current political climate reflects a nation caught in collective revenge addiction, with both sides seeking retaliatory pleasure for past grievances.* We need addiction-style treatment for violence - Just as we treat alcoholism with medical interventions, revenge addiction could be addressed through public health campaigns, education, and potentially pharmaceutical solutions.James Kimmel, Jr., J.D. is a lawyer, a lecturer in psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, and the founder and co-director of the Yale Collaborative for Motive Control Studies. A breakthrough scholar and expert on revenge and forgiveness, James first identified compulsive revenge seeking as an addiction. He developed the behavioral addiction model of revenge and the brain disease model of revenge addiction as public health approaches for preventing and treating violence. He made the study of revenge and forgiveness his life's work after nearly committing a mass shooting as a teenager. James created The Nonjustice System and the related Miracle Court App for healing from grievances and victimization, controlling revenge cravings and revenge addiction, and empowering forgiveness. He is a leader in expanding local, state, and national violence threat risk and reduction initiatives to include public behavioral health motive control strategies. He launched SavingCain.org, the first-of-it's-kind website aimed at preventing homicides and mass shootings by speaking directly to prospective killers (modeled on suicide prevention websites) and developed the "Warning Signs of a Revenge Attack" (modeled on heart attack prevention websites) to prevent violence before it happens. He also developed the School Nonjustice System bullying prevention and victim support program for use with schools and youth. He co-founded the largest peer support mental health agency in Pennsylvania, maintains an active legal practice, and is a speaker at workshops, seminars, trainings, conferences, and other public and private events. James is the author of three books on revenge and forgiveness: The Science of Revenge: Understanding the World's Deadliest Addiction--and How to Overcome It; The Trial of Fallen Angels, a novel; and Suing for Peace: A Guide for Resolving Life's Conflicts. James received his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and his B.S. summa cum laude from the Schreyer Honors College of the Pennsylvania State University.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.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

It's not just the MAGA or the Woke crowd. According to Greg Lukianoff, CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), free speech in America is under existential threat from all political sides. While he's long criticized campus cancel culture from the left, he now opposes Trump's coercive targeting of big law firms, media companies, and universities. The Stanford Law trained Lukianoff argues that Trump's actions—removing security clearances, barring lawyers from federal buildings, and threatening media mergers—violate constitutional principles. Five Key Takeaways * Bipartisan Authoritarianism: Lukianoff fights free speech threats from both sides—campus cancel culture from the left that he's criticized for years, and now Trump's government coercion of law firms, media, and universities from the right.* Trump's Legal Warfare: The administration is removing security clearances from lawyers who opposed Trump, barring them from federal buildings (including courthouses), and threatening media companies' business deals—unprecedented attacks on legal and press freedom.* Institutional Cowardice: Major law firms like Paul Weiss capitulated quickly, offering millions in pro bono services to Trump, while others like Covington & Burling stood firm. Media responses have been mixed, with some caving under pressure.* Free Speech is Fragile: Lukianoff argues free speech isn't humanity's default state—it requires constant defense and can easily revert to authoritarianism when not actively protected by institutions and individuals.* Technology Accelerates Crisis: Social media and AI are speeding up existing problems of polarization and institutional decay, making the current free speech crisis more acute and unpredictable than previous eras.Greg Lukianoff is an attorney, New York Times best-selling author, and the President and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). He is the author of Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, Freedom From Speech, and FIRE's Guide to Free Speech on Campus. He co-authored The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure with Jonathan Haidt. Most recently Greg co-authored The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All—But There Is a Solution with Rikki Schlott. Greg is also an Executive Producer of Can We Take a Joke? (2015), a feature-length documentary that explores the collision between comedy, censorship, and outrage culture, both on and off campus, and of Mighty Ira: A Civil Liberties Story (2020), an award-winning feature-length film about the life and career of former ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.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

As one of the most illustrious rock stars of the sustainability movement, Tim Jackson suggests that we must “f**k the patriarchy” to get beyond capitalism. In his new book, The Care Economy, Jackson argues that our growth-obsessed capitalist economic system is fundamentally dysfunctional, prioritizing wealth accumulation over health and wellbeing. He advocates replacing GDP-focused metrics with care-based economics that emphasizes balance and restoration rather than endless expansion. Jackson critiques how Big Food and Big Pharma profit from making people sick then selling expensive treatments, creating a "false economy." Drawing a dotted line from Bobby Kennedy to RFK Jr., he sees health as the unifying political issue that will enable us to bridge traditional divides. five key takeaways 1. Redefine Prosperity as Health, Not Wealth True prosperity should be measured by health (physical, psychological, and community wellbeing) rather than GDP growth. Jackson argues that endless accumulation undermines the balance necessary for genuine human flourishing.2. The Food-Pharma Industrial Complex is a "False Economy" Big Food creates addictive, unhealthy products that cause chronic disease, then Big Pharma profits from treating symptoms rather than causes. This cycle generates GDP growth while systematically undermining public health.3. Care Work is the Foundation of All Economic Activity The predominantly female-performed labor of caring for children, elderly, and sick people is invisible to traditional economics but essential for society's functioning. This unpaid work must be recognized and valued.4. Individual Solutions Can't Fix Systemic Problems While people can make personal health choices, expecting individuals to overcome an engineered food environment designed to exploit human psychology is unrealistic. Systemic change is required.5. Health Could Unite Across Political Divides Unlike abstract environmental concerns, health is universally relatable and could serve as a rallying point for economic reform that appeals to both working-class and affluent communities.Tim Jackson is an ecological economist and writer. Since 2016 he has been Director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP). CUSP is a multidisciplinary research centre which aims to understand the economic, social and political dimensions of sustainable prosperity. Its guiding vision for prosperity is one in which people everywhere have the capability to flourish as human beings—within the ecological and resource constraints of a finite planet. Tim has been at the forefront of international debates on sustainability for three decades and has worked closely with the UK Government, the United Nations, the European Commission, numerous NGOs, private companies and foundations to bring economic and social science research into sustainability. During five years at the Stockholm Environment Institute in the early 1990s, he pioneered the concept of preventative environmental management—a core principle of the circular economy—outlined in his 1996 book Material Concerns: Pollution Profit and Quality of life. From 2004 to 2011 he was Economics Commissioner for the UK Sustainable Development Commission where his work culminated in the publication of his controversial and ground-breaking book Prosperity without Growth (2009/2017) which has subsequently been translated into twenty foreign languages. It was named as a Financial Times ‘book of the year' in 2010 and UnHerd's economics book of the decade in 2019. In 2016, Tim was awarded the Hillary Laureate for exceptional international leadership in sustainability. His book Post Growth—life after capitalism (Polity Press, 2021) won the 2022 Eric Zencey Prize for Economics. His latest book The Care Economy was published in April 2025. Tim holds degrees in mathematics (MA, Cambridge), philosophy (MA, Uni Western Ontario) and physics (PhD, St Andrews). He also holds honorary degrees at the University of Brighton in the UK and the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, the Academy of Social Sciences and the Belgian Royal Academy of Science. In addition to his academic work, he is an award-winning dramatist with numerous radio-writing credits for the BBC.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.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 Must Save the Books. That's Michael Kimmage's SOS message from Trumpian Washington in this issue of Liberties Quarterly. Kimmage, former director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center, describes the surreal experience of being hired in January 2025 only to see his institution shuttered by Trump's administration three months later. He reflects on the "American ruin" created as a consequence of abandonment of the Wilson Center's 30,000 book library. And Kimmage connects the rapid destruction of foreign policy institutions like USAID and the U.S. Institute of Peace to a broader assault on expertise and nonpartisan learning, warning that without such institutions, "an abyss opens" in American governance and international relations. Five Key Takeaways* Institutional Destruction was Swift and Unexplained - The Wilson Center, USAID (reduced from 10,000 to 15 employees), and U.S. Institute of Peace were shuttered within months with no clear rationale provided, creating a "nightmare-like" quality where decisions happened without accountability.* America's First Modern Ruin - Kimmage describes the abandoned Wilson Center library as unprecedented in American experience - a functioning institution in the heart of Washington D.C. suddenly left as a tomb-like ruin, unlike anything seen in a country never defeated on its own soil.* Books Were Saved, But Expertise Was Lost - While the 30,000-volume library was eventually rescued and distributed to universities, the real loss was the destruction of nonpartisan expertise and institutional knowledge that took decades to build.* Echoes of 1950s McCarthyism - The assault on expertise mirrors McCarthyism, with direct connections through Roy Cohn's mentorship of Trump, but differs in scale since it's driven by a president rather than a senator.* The Death of Learning in Government - The shutdowns represent a fundamental rejection of the idea that careful, nonpartisan study of international affairs is essential to effective policymaking, potentially creating an "abyss" in American foreign policy capacity.Michael Kimmage is Director of the Wilson Center's Kennan Institute. Prior to joining the Kennan Institute, Michael Kimmage was a professor of history at the Catholic University of America. From 2014 to 2017, he served on the Secretary's Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio. He has been a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and at the German Marshall Fund; and was on the advisory board of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. He publishes widely on international affairs and on U.S. policy toward Russia. His latest book, Collisions: The War in Ukraine and the Origins of the New Global Instability, was published by Oxford University Press in March 2024. He is also the author of The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy, published by Basic Books in 2020, and The Conservative Turn: Lionel Trilling, Whittaker Chambers and the Lessons of Anti-Communism, published by Harvard University Press in 2009.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.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

How religious was the 80s creative scene? Very. At least according to Paul Elie, whose intriguing new cultural history, The Last Supper, charts the art, faith, sex and controversy of the 1980s. Elie argues that this was the age of what calls “crytpo-religious” art - a intensely creative decade in which religious imagery and motifs were often detached from conventional belief. Beginning in 1979 with with Dylan's “Christian” album Slow Train Coming and ending with Sinéad O'Connor's notorious SNL tearing up of a photo of the Pope, Elie presents the 80s as a "post-secular" era where religion remained culturally significant despite declining traditional belief. And he argues that artists as diverse as Leonard Cohen, Salman Rushdie, Andy Warhol, U2, Robert Mapplethorpe and Wim Wenders all translated their religious upbringings into books, movies, songs and artwork that shaped a momentously creative decade. Five Key Takeaways* "Crypto-religious" art uses religious imagery and themes from a perspective other than conventional belief, forcing audiences to question what the artist actually believes and examine their own faith.* The "post-secular" era began around 1979 when it became clear that progressive secularization wasn't happening—instead, religion remained a persistent cultural force requiring honest engagement rather than wishful dismissal.* America's religious transformation in the 1980s saw the country shift from predominantly Christian to multi-religious due to immigration, while also developing a strong secular contingent, creating unprecedented religious diversity.* Artists as "controverts" were divided against themselves, torn between progressive cultural experiences and traditional religious backgrounds, using art to work through these internal contradictions rather than simply choosing sides.* The Rushdie affair marked a turning point when violence entered religious-cultural debates, hardening previously permeable boundaries between belief and unbelief, leading to more polarized positions like the "New Atheism" movement.Paul Elie is the author of The Life You Save May Be Your Own (2003) and Reinventing Bach (2012), both National Book Critics Circle Award finalists. He is a senior fellow in Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker. He lives in Brooklyn.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.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

Who is the most unsung hero of the American Civil War and Reconstruction? According to Zaakir Tameez, it's the abolitionist statesmen Charles Sumner. In his eponymous new biography of Sumner, Tameez portrays Sumner as a model of "moral ambition" who sacrificed a promising corporate law career to fight for racial justice. As slavery's fiercest opponent, Tameez describes Sumner as the “conscience” of mid 19th century America. And he argues that Sumner's famous Senate caning in 1856, his influence on Civil War-era legislation, his likely homosexuality, and his role mentoring young civil rights lawyers all should represent models of moral leadership for 21st century Americans. five key takeaways* Moral Ambition Over Self-Interest: Charles Sumner abandoned a lucrative corporate law career and prestigious academic prospects at Harvard to fight for racial justice, demonstrating how personal sacrifice can serve greater moral purposes.* Early Integration Pioneer: More than 100 years before Brown v. Board of Education, Sumner partnered with young Black attorney Robert Morris in 1849 to argue for school integration in Massachusetts, showing his ahead-of-his-time commitment to racial equality.* Economic Critique of Slavery: Unlike many abolitionists who focused on moral arguments, Sumner viewed slavery as an economic system where less than 0.5% of the population (major slaveholders) dominated American politics and resources at everyone else's expense.* The Power of Mentorship: Sumner was part of an extraordinary mentorship chain from Alexander Hamilton to Chancellor Kent to himself to Moorfield Storey (first NAACP president), illustrating how moral leadership passes between generations.* Contemporary Relevance: The interview connects Sumner's example to modern "moral ambition," suggesting that today's young professionals should consider using their talents for social justice rather than purely personal advancement. 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

It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. According to the Pulitzer finalist Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling, the majority of Americans no longer trust standard scientific proof. As he notes in his new book, The Ghost Labs, this faith in evidence based science has been replaced by the growth of bigfoot hunters, mediums, and alien enthusiasts. Hongoltz-Hetling traces this trend from his previous work on libertarian movements and alternative medicine, noting how the pandemic accelerated distrust in traditional institutions. He argues these paranormal beliefs, while seemingly harmless, fragment communities and undermine collective problem-solving. So how to fix this crisis in scientific trust? Hongoltz-Hetling's suggestion of licensing psychics and incorporating these beliefs into clinical settings to prevent further institutional erosion might sound a little absurd. But perhaps it's one concrete way of addressing social cohesion in our bizarre age of bigfoot hunters, mediums, and alien enthusiasts.* Crisis of institutional trust: Americans are increasingly rejecting science, government, universities, and even churches, turning instead to individualistic paranormal beliefs as alternatives to evidence-based institutions.* COVID as a catalyst: The pandemic accelerated existing distrust, with libertarian "medical freedom" messaging providing a bridge between fringe beliefs and mainstream Republican politics, leading to figures like RFK Jr. gaining power.* Fragmented vs. collective belief: Unlike organized religion which builds community through shared doctrine, paranormal beliefs are highly individualistic and based on personal experience, ultimately driving people apart rather than together.* Real-world consequences: This isn't just harmless entertainment—it leads to defunding of universities, people avoiding medical care, and the weakening of institutions that society depends on for collective problem-solving.* Controversial solution: Hongoltz-Hetling reluctantly suggests licensing psychics and incorporating paranormal beliefs into clinical settings as a pragmatic strategy to prevent complete institutional collapse, though he acknowledges this feels like "capitulation to dark forces."Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling is a freelance journalist specializing in narrative features and investigative reporting. He has been named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, won a George Polk Award, and been voted Journalist of the Year by the Maine Press association, among numerous other honors. His work has appeared in Foreign Policy, USA Today, Popular Science, Atavist Magazine, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, the Associated Press, and elsewhere.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 the legal scholar Marcus Alexander Gadson, violence is central to the constitutional history of the United States. As American, in fact, as apple pie. In his new book Sedition, Gadson argues that America's revolutionary foundations established a precedent for political violence. Examining six 19th-century constitutional crises including the Buckshot War, Brooks-Baxter War, and Bleeding Kansas, Gadson explores how disputed elections, fraud allegations, and violent responses shaped American democracy. Gadson expresses concern about current threats to constitutional order, particularly the January 6th Capitol attack and subsequent pardons, warning that inadequate consequences may encourage future attempts to overturn elections through violence. Five Key Takeaways* Revolutionary Origins Create Precedent: America's birth through violent revolution against Britain established a template that future groups would invoke to justify political violence and rebellion.* Constitutional Crises Are Underappreciated: Gadson argues that violent constitutional crises have been more fundamental to American development than commonly recognized, with disputed elections frequently leading to armed conflict.* 19th Century Pattern: Six major incidents show recurring themes of election disputes, fraud allegations, militia involvement, and federal intervention, demonstrating fragility of democratic institutions.* January 6th Parallels: The Capitol attack fits historical patterns of insurrection, but the subsequent pardons set a dangerous precedent by failing to impose consequences.* Current Constitutional Danger: Gadson warns we may be in a constitutional crisis, citing concerns about election integrity, court order compliance, and the normalization of political violence. 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

Who was America's great power prophet during the Cold War? Perhaps not Henry Kissinger. In Zbig, Financial Times' U.S. editor, Edward Luce, makes the case that the Polish-American strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski was at least equal to Kissinger in his prophetic grasp of America's role in the Cold War world. Luce explores Brzezinski's role as Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, his combination of hard and soft power strategies against the Soviet Union, and his uncannily prescient predictions about Soviet collapse and the emergence of an "alliance of the aggrieved" against the United States. five key takeaways * Brzezinski was remarkably prescient - He accurately predicted Soviet collapse decades in advance, identifying the USSR's "Achilles heel" as its suppressed internal nations and calling it a "gerontocracy" destined to fail through "reverse natural selection."* The dinner that saved Europe - Brzezinski's coordination with Pope John Paul II in 1980 helped prevent Soviet invasion of Poland by persuading Solidarity to moderate their rhetoric while warning Moscow that Poland would be "indigestible."* Post-Cold War prophet of doom - Unlike triumphalist Americans in the 1990s, Brzezinski warned that U.S. hubris would create an "alliance of the aggrieved" (China, Russia, Iran, North Korea) - a prediction that proved remarkably accurate.* Meritocracy believer with aristocratic standards - Despite his Polish noble background, Brzezinski championed American meritocracy but maintained old-world intellectual rigor, famously giving only one A per class regardless of size.* Study your adversaries - His key lesson for today: America must continue studying and understanding other nations' languages, cultures, and motivations rather than assuming everyone should simply follow the American model.Edward Luce is the US national editor and columnist at the Financial Times. Luce's biography of Zbigniew Brzezinski Zbig, The life of Zbig Brzezinski: America's great power prophet, came out this month. He is the author of three highly acclaimed books, The Retreat of Western Liberalism (2017), Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Descent (2012), and In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India (2007). He appears regularly on CNN, NPR, MSNBC's Morning Joe, and the BBC.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, the self-styled San Francisco “progressive” Joan Williams was on the show arguing that Democrats need to relearn the language of the American working class. But, as some of you have noted, Williams seems oblivious to the fact that politics is about more than simply aping other people's language. What you say matters, and the language of American working class, like all industrial working classes, is rooted in a critique of capitalism. She should probably read the New Yorker staff writer John Cassidy's excellent new book, Capitalism and its Critics, which traces capitalism's evolution and criticism from the East India Company through modern times. He defines capitalism as production for profit by privately-owned companies in markets, encompassing various forms from Chinese state capitalism to hyper-globalization. The book examines capitalism's most articulate critics including the Luddites, Marx, Engels, Thomas Carlisle, Adam Smith, Rosa Luxemburg, Keynes & Hayek, and contemporary figures like Sylvia Federici and Thomas Piketty. Cassidy explores how major economists were often critics of their era's dominant capitalist model, and untangles capitalism's complicated relationship with colonialism, slavery and AI which he regards as a potentially unprecedented economic disruption. This should be essential listening for all Democrats seeking to reinvent a post Biden-Harris party and message. 5 key takeaways* Capitalism has many forms - From Chinese state capitalism to Keynesian managed capitalism to hyper-globalization, all fitting the basic definition of production for profit by privately-owned companies in markets.* Great economists are typically critics - Smith criticized mercantile capitalism, Keynes critiqued laissez-faire capitalism, and Hayek/Friedman opposed managed capitalism. Each generation's leading economists challenge their era's dominant model.* Modern corporate structure has deep roots - The East India Company was essentially a modern multinational corporation with headquarters, board of directors, stockholders, and even a private army - showing capitalism's organizational continuity across centuries.* Capitalism is intertwined with colonialism and slavery - Industrial capitalism was built on pre-existing colonial and slave systems, particularly through the cotton industry and plantation economies.* AI represents a potentially unprecedented disruption - Unlike previous technological waves, AI may substitute rather than complement human labor on a massive scale, potentially creating political backlash exceeding even the "China shock" that contributed to Trump's rise.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Full TranscriptAndrew Keen: Hello, everybody. A couple of days ago, we did a show with Joan Williams. She has a new book out, "Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back." A book about language, about how to talk to the American working class. She also had a piece in Jacobin Magazine, an anti-capitalist magazine, about how the left needs to speak to what she calls average American values. We talked, of course, about Bernie Sanders and AOC and their language of fighting oligarchy, and the New York Times followed that up with "The Enduring Power of Anti-Capitalism in American Politics."But of course, that brings the question: what exactly is capitalism? I did a little bit of research. We can find definitions of capitalism from AI, from Wikipedia, even from online dictionaries, but I thought we might do a little better than relying on Wikipedia and come to a man who's given capitalism and its critics a great deal of thought. John Cassidy is well known as a staff writer at The New Yorker. He's the author of a wonderful book, the best book, actually, on the dot-com insanity. And his new book, "Capitalism and its Critics," is out this week. John, congratulations on the book.So I've got to be a bit of a schoolmaster with you, John, and get some definitions first. What exactly is capitalism before we get to criticism of it?John Cassidy: Yeah, I mean, it's a very good question, Andrew. Obviously, through the decades, even the centuries, there have been many different definitions of the term capitalism and there are different types of capitalism. To not be sort of too ideological about it, the working definition I use is basically production for profit—that could be production of goods or mostly in the new and, you know, in today's economy, production of services—for profit by companies which are privately owned in markets. That's a very sort of all-encompassing definition.Within that, you can have all sorts of different types of capitalism. You can have Chinese state capitalism, you can have the old mercantilism, which industrial capitalism came after, which Trump seems to be trying to resurrect. You can have Keynesian managed capitalism that we had for 30 or 40 years after the Second World War, which I grew up in in the UK. Or you can have sort of hyper-globalization, hyper-capitalism that we've tried for the last 30 years. There are all those different varieties of capitalism consistent with a basic definition, I think.Andrew Keen: That keeps you busy, John. I know you started this project, which is a big book and it's a wonderful book. I read it. I don't always read all the books I have on the show, but I read from cover to cover full of remarkable stories of the critics of capitalism. You note in the beginning that you began this in 2016 with the beginnings of Trump. What was it about the 2016 election that triggered a book about capitalism and its critics?John Cassidy: Well, I was reporting on it at the time for The New Yorker and it struck me—I covered, I basically covered the economy in various forms for various publications since the late 80s, early 90s. In fact, one of my first big stories was the stock market crash of '87. So yes, I am that old. But it seemed to me in 2016 when you had Bernie Sanders running from the left and Trump running from the right, but both in some way offering very sort of similar critiques of capitalism. People forget that Trump in 2016 actually was running from the left of the Republican Party. He was attacking big business. He was attacking Wall Street. He doesn't do that these days very much, but at the time he was very much posing as the sort of outsider here to protect the interests of the average working man.And it seemed to me that when you had this sort of pincer movement against the then ruling model, this wasn't just a one-off. It seemed to me it was a sort of an emerging crisis of legitimacy for the system. And I thought there could be a good book written about how we got to here. And originally I thought it would be a relatively short book just based on the last sort of 20 or 30 years since the collapse of the Cold War and the sort of triumphalism of the early 90s.But as I got into it more and more, I realized that so many of the issues which had been raised, things like globalization, rising inequality, monopoly power, exploitation, even pollution and climate change, these issues go back to the very start of the capitalist system or the industrial capitalist system back in sort of late 18th century, early 19th century Britain. So I thought, in the end, I thought, you know what, let's just do the whole thing soup to nuts through the eyes of the critics.There have obviously been many, many histories of capitalism written. I thought that an original way to do it, or hopefully original, would be to do a sort of a narrative through the lives and the critiques of the critics of various stages. So that's, I hope, what sets it apart from other books on the subject, and also provides a sort of narrative frame because, you know, I am a New Yorker writer, I realize if you want people to read things, you've got to make it readable. Easiest way to make things readable is to center them around people. People love reading about other people. So that's sort of the narrative frame. I start off with a whistleblower from the East India Company back in the—Andrew Keen: Yeah, I want to come to that. But before, John, my sense is that to simplify what you're saying, this is a labor of love. You're originally from Leeds, the heart of Yorkshire, the center of the very industrial revolution, the first industrial revolution where, in your historical analysis, capitalism was born. Is it a labor of love? What's your family relationship with capitalism? How long was the family in Leeds?John Cassidy: Right, I mean that's a very good question. It is a labor of love in a way, but it's not—our family doesn't go—I'm from an Irish family, family of Irish immigrants who moved to England in the 1940s and 1950s. So my father actually did start working in a big mill, the Kirkstall Forge in Leeds, which is a big steel mill, and he left after seeing one of his co-workers have his arms chopped off in one of the machinery, so he decided it wasn't for him and he spent his life working in the construction industry, which was dominated by immigrants as it is here now.So I don't have a—it's not like I go back to sort of the start of the industrial revolution, but I did grow up in the middle of Leeds, very working class, very industrial neighborhood. And what a sort of irony is, I'll point out, I used to, when I was a kid, I used to play golf on a municipal golf course called Gotts Park in Leeds, which—you know, most golf courses in America are sort of in the affluent suburbs, country clubs. This was right in the middle of Armley in Leeds, which is where the Victorian jail is and a very rough neighborhood. There's a small bit of land which they built a golf course on. It turns out it was named after one of the very first industrialists, Benjamin Gott, who was a wool and textile industrialist, and who played a part in the Luddite movement, which I mention.So it turns out, I was there when I was 11 or 12, just learning how to play golf on this scrappy golf course. And here I am, 50 years later, writing about Benjamin Gott at the start of the Industrial Revolution. So yeah, no, sure. I think it speaks to me in a way that perhaps it wouldn't to somebody else from a different background.Andrew Keen: We did a show with William Dalrymple, actually, a couple of years ago. He's been on actually since, the Anglo or Scottish Indian historian. His book on the East India Company, "The Anarchy," is a classic. You begin in some ways your history of capitalism with the East India Company. What was it about the East India Company, John, that makes it different from other for-profit organizations in economic, Western economic history?John Cassidy: I mean, I read that. It's a great book, by the way. That was actually quoted in my chapter on these. Yeah, I remember. I mean, the reason I focused on it was for two reasons. Number one, I was looking for a start, a narrative start to the book. And it seemed to me, you know, the obvious place to start is with the start of the industrial revolution. If you look at economics history textbooks, that's where they always start with Arkwright and all the inventors, you know, who were the sort of techno-entrepreneurs of their time, the sort of British Silicon Valley, if you could think of it as, in Lancashire and Derbyshire in the late 18th century.So I knew I had to sort of start there in some way, but I thought that's a bit pat. Is there another way into it? And it turns out that in 1772 in England, there was a huge bailout of the East India Company, very much like the sort of 2008, 2009 bailout of Wall Street. The company got into trouble. So I thought, you know, maybe there's something there. And I eventually found this guy, William Bolts, who worked for the East India Company, turned into a whistleblower after he was fired for finagling in India like lots of the people who worked for the company did.So that gave me two things. Number one, it gave me—you know, I'm a writer, so it gave me something to focus on a narrative. His personal history is very interesting. But number two, it gave me a sort of foundation because industrial capitalism didn't come from nowhere. You know, it was built on top of a pre-existing form of capitalism, which we now call mercantile capitalism, which was very protectionist, which speaks to us now. But also it had these big monopolistic multinational companies.The East India Company, in some ways, was a very modern corporation. It had a headquarters in Leadenhall Street in the city of London. It had a board of directors, it had stockholders, the company sent out very detailed instructions to the people in the field in India and Indonesia and Malaysia who were traders who bought things from the locals there, brought them back to England on their company ships. They had a company army even to enforce—to protect their operations there. It was an incredible multinational corporation.So that was also, I think, fascinating because it showed that even in the pre-existing system, you know, big corporations existed, there were monopolies, they had royal monopolies given—first the East India Company got one from Queen Elizabeth. But in some ways, they were very similar to modern monopolistic corporations. And they had some of the problems we've seen with modern monopolistic corporations, the way they acted. And Bolts was the sort of first corporate whistleblower, I thought. Yeah, that was a way of sort of getting into the story, I think. Hopefully, you know, it's just a good read, I think.William Bolts's story because he was—he came from nowhere, he was Dutch, he wasn't even English and he joined the company as a sort of impoverished young man, went to India like a lot of English minor aristocrats did to sort of make your fortune. The way the company worked, you had to sort of work on company time and make as much money as you could for the company, but then in your spare time you're allowed to trade for yourself. So a lot of the—without getting into too much detail, but you know, English aristocracy was based on—you know, the eldest child inherits everything, so if you were the younger brother of the Duke of Norfolk, you actually didn't inherit anything. So all of these minor aristocrats, so major aristocrats, but who weren't first born, joined the East India Company, went out to India and made a fortune, and then came back and built huge houses. Lots of the great manor houses in southern England were built by people from the East India Company and they were known as Nabobs, which is an Indian term. So they were the sort of, you know, billionaires of their time, and it was based on—as I say, it wasn't based on industrial capitalism, it was based on mercantile capitalism.Andrew Keen: Yeah, the beginning of the book, which focuses on Bolts and the East India Company, brings to mind for me two things. Firstly, the intimacy of modern capitalism, modern industrial capitalism with colonialism and of course slavery—lots of books have been written on that. Touch on this and also the relationship between the birth of capitalism and the birth of liberalism or democracy. John Stuart Mill, of course, the father in many ways of Western democracy. His day job, ironically enough, or perhaps not ironically, was at the East India Company. So how do those two things connect, or is it just coincidental?John Cassidy: Well, I don't think it is entirely coincidental, I mean, J.S. Mill—his father, James Mill, was also a well-known philosopher in the sort of, obviously, in the earlier generation, earlier than him. And he actually wrote the official history of the East India Company. And I think they gave his son, the sort of brilliant protégé, J.S. Mill, a job as largely as a sort of sinecure, I think. But he did go in and work there in the offices three or four days a week.But I think it does show how sort of integral—the sort of—as you say, the inheritor and the servant in Britain, particularly, of colonial capitalism was. So the East India Company was, you know, it was in decline by that stage in the middle of the 19th century, but it didn't actually give up its monopoly. It wasn't forced to give up its monopoly on the Indian trade until 1857, after, you know, some notorious massacres and there was a sort of public outcry.So yeah, no, that's—it's very interesting that the British—it's sort of unique to Britain in a way, but it's interesting that industrial capitalism arose alongside this pre-existing capitalist structure and somebody like Mill is a sort of paradoxical figure because actually he was quite critical of aspects of industrial capitalism and supported sort of taxes on the rich, even though he's known as the great, you know, one of the great apostles of the free market and free market liberalism. And his day job, as you say, he was working for the East India Company.Andrew Keen: What about the relationship between the birth of industrial capitalism, colonialism and slavery? Those are big questions and I know you deal with them in some—John Cassidy: I think you can't just write an economic history of capitalism now just starting with the cotton industry and say, you know, it was all about—it was all about just technical progress and gadgets, etc. It was built on a sort of pre-existing system which was colonial and, you know, the slave trade was a central element of that. Now, as you say, there have been lots and lots of books written about it, the whole 1619 project got an incredible amount of attention a few years ago. So I didn't really want to rehash all that, but I did want to acknowledge the sort of role of slavery, especially in the rise of the cotton industry because of course, a lot of the raw cotton was grown in the plantations in the American South.So the way I actually ended up doing that was by writing a chapter about Eric Williams, a Trinidadian writer who ended up as the Prime Minister of Trinidad when it became independent in the 1960s. But when he was younger, he wrote a book which is now regarded as a classic. He went to Oxford to do a PhD, won a scholarship. He was very smart. I won a sort of Oxford scholarship myself but 50 years before that, he came across the Atlantic and did an undergraduate degree in history and then did a PhD there and his PhD thesis was on slavery and capitalism.And at the time, in the 1930s, the link really wasn't acknowledged. You could read any sort of standard economic history written by British historians, and they completely ignored that. He made the argument that, you know, slavery was integral to the rise of capitalism and he basically started an argument which has been raging ever since the 1930s and, you know, if you want to study economic history now you have to sort of—you know, have to have to address that. And the way I thought, even though the—it's called the Williams thesis is very famous. I don't think many people knew much about where it came from. So I thought I'd do a chapter on—Andrew Keen: Yeah, that chapter is excellent. You mentioned earlier the Luddites, you're from Yorkshire where Luddism in some ways was born. One of the early chapters is on the Luddites. We did a show with Brian Merchant, his book, "Blood in the Machine," has done very well, I'm sure you're familiar with it. I always understood the Luddites as being against industrialization, against the machine, as opposed to being against capitalism. But did those two things get muddled together in the history of the Luddites?John Cassidy: I think they did. I mean, you know, Luddites, when we grew up, I mean you're English too, you know to be called a Luddite was a term of abuse, right? You know, you were sort of antediluvian, anti-technology, you're stupid. It was only, I think, with the sort of computer revolution, the tech revolution of the last 30, 40 years and the sort of disruptions it's caused, that people have started to look back at the Luddites and say, perhaps they had a point.For them, they were basically pre-industrial capitalism artisans. They worked for profit-making concerns, small workshops. Some of them worked for themselves, so they were sort of sole proprietor capitalists. Or they worked in small venues, but the rise of industrial capitalism, factory capitalism or whatever, basically took away their livelihoods progressively. So they associated capitalism with new technology. In their minds it was the same. But their argument wasn't really a technological one or even an economic one, it was more a moral one. They basically made the moral argument that capitalists shouldn't have the right to just take away their livelihoods with no sort of recompense for them.At the time they didn't have any parliamentary representation. You know, they weren't revolutionaries. The first thing they did was create petitions to try and get parliament to step in, sort of introduce some regulation here. They got turned down repeatedly by the sort of—even though it was a very aristocratic parliament, places like Manchester and Leeds didn't have any representation at all. So it was only after that that they sort of turned violent and started, you know, smashing machines and machines, I think, were sort of symbols of the system, which they saw as morally unjust.And I think that's sort of what—obviously, there's, you know, a lot of technological disruption now, so we can, especially as it starts to come for the educated cognitive class, we can sort of sympathize with them more. But I think the sort of moral critique that there's this, you know, underneath the sort of great creativity and economic growth that capitalism produces, there is also a lot of destruction and a lot of victims. And I think that message, you know, is becoming a lot more—that's why I think why they've been rediscovered in the last five or ten years and I'm one of the people I guess contributing to that rediscovery.Andrew Keen: There's obviously many critiques of capitalism politically. I want to come to Marx in a second, but your chapter, I thought, on Thomas Carlyle and this nostalgic conservatism was very important and there are other conservatives as well. John, do you think that—and you mentioned Trump earlier, who is essentially a nostalgist for a—I don't know, some sort of bizarre pre-capitalist age in America. Is there something particularly powerful about the anti-capitalism of romantics like Carlyle, 19th century Englishman, there were many others of course.John Cassidy: Well, I think so. I mean, I think what is—conservatism, when we were young anyway, was associated with Thatcherism and Reaganism, which, you know, lionized the free market and free market capitalism and was a reaction against the pre-existing form of capitalism, Keynesian capitalism of the sort of 40s to the 80s. But I think what got lost in that era was the fact that there have always been—you've got Hayek up there, obviously—Andrew Keen: And then Keynes and Hayek, the two—John Cassidy: Right, it goes to the end of that. They had a great debate in the 1930s about these issues. But Hayek really wasn't a conservative person, and neither was Milton Friedman. They were sort of free market revolutionaries, really, that you'd let the market rip and it does good things. And I think that that sort of a view, you know, it just became very powerful. But we sort of lost sight of the fact that there was also a much older tradition of sort of suspicion of radical changes of any type. And that was what conservatism was about to some extent. If you think about Baldwin in Britain, for example.And there was a sort of—during the Industrial Revolution, some of the strongest supporters of factory acts to reduce hours and hourly wages for women and kids were actually conservatives, Tories, as they were called at the time, like Ashley. That tradition, Carlyle was a sort of extreme representative of that. I mean, Carlyle was a sort of proto-fascist, let's not romanticize him, he lionized strongmen, Frederick the Great, and he didn't really believe in democracy. But he also had—he was appalled by the sort of, you know, the—like, what's the phrase I'm looking for? The sort of destructive aspects of industrial capitalism, both on the workers, you know, he said it was a dehumanizing system, sounded like Marx in some ways. That it dehumanized the workers, but also it destroyed the environment.He was an early environmentalist. He venerated the environment, was actually very strongly linked to the transcendentalists in America, people like Thoreau, who went to visit him when he visited Britain and he saw the sort of destructive impact that capitalism was having locally in places like Manchester, which were filthy with filthy rivers, etc. So he just saw the whole system as sort of morally bankrupt and he was a great writer, Carlyle, whatever you think of him. Great user of language, so he has these great ringing phrases like, you know, the cash nexus or calling it the Gospel of Mammonism, the shabbiest gospel ever preached under the sun was industrial capitalism.So, again, you know, that's a sort of paradoxical thing, because I think for so long conservatism was associated with, you know, with support for the free market and still is in most of the Republican Party, but then along comes Trump and sort of conquers the party with a, you know, more skeptical, as you say, romantic, not really based on any reality, but a sort of romantic view that America can stand by itself in the world. I mean, I see Trump actually as a sort of an effort to sort of throw back to mercantile capitalism in a way. You know, which was not just pre-industrial, but was also pre-democracy, run by monarchs, which I'm sure appeals to him, and it was based on, you know, large—there were large tariffs. You couldn't import things in the UK. If you want to import anything to the UK, you have to send it on a British ship because of the navigation laws. It was a very protectionist system and it's actually, you know, as I said, had a lot of parallels with what Trump's trying to do or tries to do until he backs off.Andrew Keen: You cheat a little bit in the book in the sense that you—everyone has their own chapter. We'll talk a little bit about Hayek and Smith and Lenin and Friedman. You do have one chapter on Marx, but you also have a chapter on Engels. So you kind of cheat. You combine the two. Is it possible, though, to do—and you've just written this book, so you know this as well as anyone. How do you write a book about capitalism and its critics and only really give one chapter to Marx, who is so dominant? I mean, you've got lots of Marxists in the book, including Lenin and Luxemburg. How fundamental is Marx to a criticism of capitalism? Is most criticism, especially from the left, from progressives, is it really just all a footnote to Marx?John Cassidy: I wouldn't go that far, but I think obviously on the left he is the central figure. But there's an element of sort of trying to rebuild Engels a bit in this. I mean, I think of Engels and Marx—I mean obviously Marx wrote the great classic "Capital," etc. But in the 1840s, when they both started writing about capitalism, Engels was sort of ahead of Marx in some ways. I mean, the sort of materialist concept, the idea that economics rules everything, Engels actually was the first one to come up with that in an essay in the 1840s which Marx then published in one of his—in the German newspaper he worked for at the time, radical newspaper, and he acknowledged openly that that was really what got him thinking seriously about economics, and even in the late—in 20, 25 years later when he wrote "Capital," all three volumes of it and the Grundrisse, just these enormous outpourings of analysis on capitalism.He acknowledged Engels's role in that and obviously Engels wrote the first draft of the Communist Manifesto in 1848 too, which Marx then topped and tailed and—he was a better writer obviously, Marx, and he gave it the dramatic language that we all know it for. So I think Engels and Marx together obviously are the central sort of figures in the sort of left-wing critique. But they didn't start out like that. I mean, they were very obscure, you've got to remember.You know, they were—when they were writing, Marx was writing "Capital" in London, it never even got published in English for another 20 years. It was just published in German. He was basically an expat. He had been thrown out of Germany, he had been thrown out of France, so England was last resort and the British didn't consider him a threat so they were happy to let him and the rest of the German sort of left in there. I think it became—it became the sort of epochal figure after his death really, I think, when he was picked up by the left-wing parties, which are especially the SPD in Germany, which was the first sort of socialist mass party and was officially Marxist until the First World War and there were great internal debates.And then of course, because Lenin and the Russians came out of that tradition too, Marxism then became the official doctrine of the Soviet Union when they adopted a version of it. And again there were massive internal arguments about what Marx really meant, and in fact, you know, one interpretation of the last 150 years of left-wing sort of intellectual development is as a sort of argument about what did Marx really mean and what are the important bits of it, what are the less essential bits of it. It's a bit like the "what did Keynes really mean" that you get in liberal circles.So yeah, Marx, obviously, this is basically an intellectual history of critiques of capitalism. In that frame, he is absolutely a central figure. Why didn't I give him more space than a chapter and a chapter and a half with Engels? There have been a million books written about Marx. I mean, it's not that—it's not that he's an unknown figure. You know, there's a best-selling book written in Britain about 20 years ago about him and then I was quoting, in my biographical research, I relied on some more recent, more scholarly biographies. So he's an endlessly fascinating figure but I didn't want him to dominate the book so I gave him basically the same space as everybody else.Andrew Keen: You've got, as I said, you've got a chapter on Adam Smith who's often considered the father of economics. You've got a chapter on Keynes. You've got a chapter on Friedman. And you've got a chapter on Hayek, all the great modern economists. Is it possible, John, to be a distinguished economist one way or the other and not be a critic of capitalism?John Cassidy: Well, I don't—I mean, I think history would suggest that the greatest economists have been critics of capitalism in their own time. People would say to me, what the hell have you got Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek in a book about critics of capitalism? They were great exponents, defenders of capitalism. They loved the system. That is perfectly true. But in the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s, middle of the 20th century, they were actually arch-critics of the ruling form of capitalism at the time, which was what I call managed capitalism. What some people call Keynesianism, what other people call European social democracy, whatever you call it, it was a model of a mixed economy in which the government played a large role both in propping up demand and in providing an extensive social safety net in the UK and providing public healthcare and public education. It was a sort of hybrid model.Most of the economy in terms of the businesses remained in private hands. So most production was capitalistic. It was a capitalist system. They didn't go to the Soviet model of nationalizing everything and Britain did nationalize some businesses, but most places didn't. The US of course didn't but it was a form of managed capitalism. And Hayek and Friedman were both great critics of that and wanted to sort of move back to 19th century laissez-faire model.Keynes was a—was actually a great, I view him anyway, as really a sort of late Victorian liberal and was trying to protect as much of the sort of J.S. Mill view of the world as he could, but he thought capitalism had one fatal flaw: that it tended to fall into recessions and then they can snowball and the whole system can collapse which is what had basically happened in the early 1930s until Keynesian policies were adopted. Keynes sort of differed from a lot of his followers—I have a chapter on Joan Robinson in there, who were pretty left-wing and wanted to sort of use Keynesianism as a way to shift the economy quite far to the left. Keynes didn't really believe in that. He has a famous quote that, you know, once you get to full employment, you can then rely on the free market to sort of take care of things. He was still a liberal at heart.Going back to Adam Smith, why is he in a book on criticism of capitalism? And again, it goes back to what I said at the beginning. He actually wrote "The Wealth of Nations"—he explains in the introduction—as a critique of mercantile capitalism. His argument was that he was a pro-free trader, pro-small business, free enterprise. His argument was if you get the government out of the way, we don't need these government-sponsored monopolies like the East India Company. If you just rely on the market, the sort of market forces and competition will produce a good outcome. So then he was seen as a great—you know, he is then seen as the apostle of free market capitalism. I mean when I started as a young reporter, when I used to report in Washington, all the conservatives used to wear Adam Smith badges. You don't see Donald Trump wearing an Adam Smith badge, but that was the case.He was also—the other aspect of Smith, which I highlight, which is not often remarked on—he's also a critic of big business. He has a famous section where he discusses the sort of tendency of any group of more than three businessmen when they get together to try and raise prices and conspire against consumers. And he was very suspicious of, as I say, large companies, monopolies. I think if Adam Smith existed today, I mean, I think he would be a big supporter of Lina Khan and the sort of antitrust movement, he would say capitalism is great as long as you have competition, but if you don't have competition it becomes, you know, exploitative.Andrew Keen: Yeah, if Smith came back to live today, you have a chapter on Thomas Piketty, maybe he may not be French, but he may be taking that position about how the rich benefit from the structure of investment. Piketty's core—I've never had Piketty on the show, but I've had some of his followers like Emmanuel Saez from Berkeley. Yeah. How powerful is Piketty's critique of capitalism within the context of the classical economic analysis from Hayek and Friedman? Yeah, it's a very good question.John Cassidy: It's a very good question. I mean, he's a very paradoxical figure, Piketty, in that he obviously shot to world fame and stardom with his book on capital in the 21st century, which in some ways he obviously used the capital as a way of linking himself to Marx, even though he said he never read Marx. But he was basically making the same argument that if you leave capitalism unrestrained and don't do anything about monopolies etc. or wealth, you're going to get massive inequality and he—I think his great contribution, Piketty and the school of people, one of them you mentioned, around him was we sort of had a vague idea that inequality was going up and that, you know, wages were stagnating, etc.What he and his colleagues did is they produced these sort of scientific empirical studies showing in very simple to understand terms how the sort of share of income and wealth of the top 10 percent, the top 5 percent, the top 1 percent and the top 0.1 percent basically skyrocketed from the 1970s to about 2010. And it was, you know, he was an MIT PhD. Saez, who you mentioned, is a Berkeley professor. They were schooled in neoclassical economics at Harvard and MIT and places like that. So the right couldn't dismiss them as sort of, you know, lefties or Trots or whatever who're just sort of making this stuff up. They had to acknowledge that this was actually an empirical reality.I think it did change the whole basis of the debate and it was sort of part of this reaction against capitalism in the 2010s. You know it was obviously linked to the sort of Sanders and the Occupy Wall Street movement at the time. It came out of the—you know, the financial crisis as well when Wall Street disgraced itself. I mean, I wrote a previous book on all that, but people have sort of, I think, forgotten the great reaction against that a decade ago, which I think even Trump sort of exploited, as I say, by using anti-banker rhetoric at the time.So, Piketty was a great figure, I think, from, you know, I was thinking, who are the most influential critics of capitalism in the 21st century? And I think you'd have to put him up there on the list. I'm not saying he's the only one or the most eminent one. But I think he is a central figure. Now, of course, you'd think, well, this is a really powerful critic of capitalism, and nobody's going to pick up, and Bernie's going to take off and everything. But here we are a decade later now. It seems to be what the backlash has produced is a swing to the right, not a swing to the left. So that's, again, a sort of paradox.Andrew Keen: One person I didn't expect to come up in the book, John, and I was fascinated with this chapter, is Silvia Federici. I've tried to get her on the show. We've had some books about her writing and her kind of—I don't know, you treat her critique as a feminist one. The role of women. Why did you choose to write a chapter about Federici and that feminist critique of capitalism?John Cassidy: Right, right. Well, I don't think it was just feminist. I'll explain what I think it was. Two reasons. Number one, I wanted to get more women into the book. I mean, it's in some sense, it is a history of economics and economic critiques. And they are overwhelmingly written by men and women were sort of written out of the narrative of capitalism for a very long time. So I tried to include as many sort of women as actual thinkers as I could and I have a couple of early socialist feminist thinkers, Anna Wheeler and Flora Tristan and then I cover some of the—I cover Rosa Luxemburg as the great sort of tribune of the left revolutionary socialist, communist whatever you want to call it. Anti-capitalist I think is probably also important to note about. Yeah, and then I also have Joan Robinson, but I wanted somebody to do something in the modern era, and I thought Federici, in the world of the Wages for Housework movement, is very interesting from two perspectives.Number one, Federici herself is a Marxist, and I think she probably would still consider herself a revolutionary. She's based in New York, as you know now. She lived in New York for 50 years, but she came from—she's originally Italian and came out of the Italian left in the 1960s, which was very radical. Do you know her? Did you talk to her? I didn't talk to her on this. No, she—I basically relied on, there has been a lot of, as you say, there's been a lot of stuff written about her over the years. She's written, you know, she's given various long interviews and she's written a book herself, a version, a history of housework, so I figured it was all there and it was just a matter of pulling it together.But I think the critique, why the critique is interesting, most of the book is a sort of critique of how capitalism works, you know, in the production or you know, in factories or in offices or you know, wherever capitalist operations are working, but her critique is sort of domestic reproduction, as she calls it, the role of unpaid labor in supporting capitalism. I mean it goes back a long way actually. There was this moment, I sort of trace it back to the 1940s and 1950s when there were feminists in America who were demonstrating outside factories and making the point that you know, the factory workers and the operations of the factory, it couldn't—there's one of the famous sort of tire factory in California demonstrations where the women made the argument, look this factory can't continue to operate unless we feed and clothe the workers and provide the next generation of workers. You know, that's domestic reproduction. So their argument was that housework should be paid and Federici took that idea and a couple of her colleagues, she founded the—it's a global movement, but she founded the most famous branch in New York City in the 1970s. In Park Slope near where I live actually.And they were—you call it feminists, they were feminists in a way, but they were rejected by the sort of mainstream feminist movement, the sort of Gloria Steinems of the world, who Federici was very critical of because she said they ignored, they really just wanted to get women ahead in the sort of capitalist economy and they ignored the sort of underlying from her perspective, the underlying sort of illegitimacy and exploitation of that system. So they were never accepted as part of the feminist movement. They're to the left of the Feminist Movement.Andrew Keen: You mentioned Keynes, of course, so central in all this, particularly his analysis of the role of automation in capitalism. We did a show recently with Robert Skidelsky and I'm sure you're familiar—John Cassidy: Yeah, yeah, great, great biography of Keynes.Andrew Keen: Yeah, the great biographer of Keynes, whose latest book is "Mindless: The Human Condition in the Age of AI." You yourself wrote a brilliant book on the last tech mania and dot-com capitalism. I used it in a lot of my writing and books. What's your analysis of AI in this latest mania and the role generally of manias in the history of capitalism and indeed in critiquing capitalism? Is AI just the next chapter of the dot-com boom?John Cassidy: I think it's a very deep question. I think I'd give two answers to it. In one sense it is just the latest mania the way—I mean, the way capitalism works is we have these, I go back to Kondratiev, one of my Russian economists who ended up being killed by Stalin. He was the sort of inventor of the long wave theory of capitalism. We have these short waves where you have sort of booms and busts driven by finance and debt etc. But we also have long waves driven by technology.And obviously, in the last 40, 50 years, the two big ones are the original deployment of the internet and microchip technology in the sort of 80s and 90s culminating in the dot-com boom of the late 90s, which as you say, I wrote about. Thanks very much for your kind comments on the book. If you just sort of compare it from a financial basis I think they are very similar just in terms of the sort of role of hype from Wall Street in hyping up these companies. The sort of FOMO aspect of it among investors that they you know, you can't miss out. So just buy the companies blindly. And the sort of lionization in the press and the media of, you know, of AI as the sort of great wave of the future.So if you take a sort of skeptical market based approach, I would say, yeah, this is just another sort of another mania which will eventually burst and it looked like it had burst for a few weeks when Trump put the tariffs up, now the market seemed to be recovering. But I think there is, there may be something new about it. I am not, I don't pretend to be a technical expert. I try to rely on the evidence of or the testimony of people who know the systems well and also economists who have studied it. It seems to me the closer you get to it the more alarming it is in terms of the potential shock value that there is there.I mean Trump and the sort of reaction to a larger extent can be traced back to the China shock where we had this global shock to American manufacturing and sort of hollowed out a lot of the industrial areas much of it, like industrial Britain was hollowed out in the 80s. If you, you know, even people like Altman and Elon Musk, they seem to think that this is going to be on a much larger scale than that and will basically, you know, get rid of the professions as they exist. Which would be a huge, huge shock. And I think a lot of the economists who studied this, who four or five years ago were relatively optimistic, people like Daron Acemoglu, David Autor—Andrew Keen: Simon Johnson, of course, who just won the Nobel Prize, and he's from England.John Cassidy: Simon, I did an event with Simon earlier this week. You know they've studied this a lot more closely than I have but I do interview them and I think five, six years ago they were sort of optimistic that you know this could just be a new steam engine or could be a microchip which would lead to sort of a lot more growth, rising productivity, rising productivity is usually associated with rising wages so sure there'd be short-term costs but ultimately it would be a good thing. Now, I think if you speak to them, they see since the, you know, obviously, the OpenAI—the original launch and now there's just this huge arms race with no government involvement at all I think they're coming to the conclusion that rather than being developed to sort of complement human labor, all these systems are just being rushed out to substitute for human labor. And it's just going, if current trends persist, it's going to be a China shock on an even bigger scale.You know what is going to, if that, if they're right, that is going to produce some huge political backlash at some point, that's inevitable. So I know—the thing when the dot-com bubble burst, it didn't really have that much long-term impact on the economy. People lost the sort of fake money they thought they'd made. And then the companies, obviously some of the companies like Amazon and you know Google were real genuine profit-making companies and if you bought them early you made a fortune. But AI does seem a sort of bigger, scarier phenomenon to me. I don't know. I mean, you're close to it. What do you think?Andrew Keen: Well, I'm waiting for a book, John, from you. I think you can combine dot-com and capitalism and its critics. We need you probably to cover it—you know more about it than me. Final question, I mean, it's a wonderful book and we haven't even scratched the surface everyone needs to get it. I enjoyed the chapter, for example, on Karl Polanyi and so much more. I mean, it's a big book. But my final question, John, is do you have any regrets about anyone you left out? The one person I would have liked to have been included was Rawls because of his sort of treatment of capitalism and luck as a kind of casino. I'm not sure whether you gave any thought to Rawls, but is there someone in retrospect you should have had a chapter on that you left out?John Cassidy: There are lots of people I left out. I mean, that's the problem. I mean there have been hundreds and hundreds of critics of capitalism. Rawls, of course, incredibly influential and his idea of the sort of, you know, the veil of ignorance that you should judge things not knowing where you are in the income distribution and then—Andrew Keen: And it's luck. I mean the idea of some people get lucky and some people don't.John Cassidy: It is the luck of the draw, obviously, what card you pull. I think that is a very powerful critique, but I just—because I am more of an expert on economics, I tended to leave out philosophers and sociologists. I mean, you know, you could say, where's Max Weber? Where are the anarchists? You know, where's Emma Goldman? Where's John Kenneth Galbraith, the sort of great mid-century critic of American industrial capitalism? There's so many people that you could include. I mean, I could have written 10 volumes. In fact, I refer in the book to, you know, there's always been a problem. G.D.H. Cole, a famous English historian, wrote a history of socialism back in the 1960s and 70s. You know, just getting to 1850 took him six volumes. So, you've got to pick and choose, and I don't claim this is the history of capitalism and its critics. That would be a ridiculous claim to make. I just claim it's a history written by me, and hopefully the people are interested in it, and they're sufficiently diverse that you can address all the big questions.Andrew Keen: Well it's certainly incredibly timely. Capitalism and its critics—more and more of them. Sometimes they don't even describe themselves as critics of capitalism when they're talking about oligarchs or billionaires, they're really criticizing capitalism. A must read from one of America's leading journalists. And would you call yourself a critic of capitalism, John?John Cassidy: Yeah, I guess I am, to some extent, sure. I mean, I'm not a—you know, I'm not on the far left, but I'd say I'm a center-left critic of capitalism. Yes, definitely, that would be fair.Andrew Keen: And does the left need to learn? Does everyone on the left need to read the book and learn the language of anti-capitalism in a more coherent and honest way?John Cassidy: I hope so. I mean, obviously, I'd be talking my own book there, as they say, but I hope that people on the left, but not just people on the left. I really did try to sort of be fair to the sort of right-wing critiques as well. I included the Carlyle chapter particularly, obviously, but in the later chapters, I also sort of refer to this emerging critique on the right, the sort of economic nationalist critique. So hopefully, I think people on the right could read it to understand the critiques from the left, and people on the left could read it to understand some of the critiques on the right as well.Andrew Keen: Well, it's a lovely book. It's enormously erudite and simultaneously readable. Anyone who likes John Cassidy's work from The New Yorker will love it. Congratulations, John, on the new book, and I'd love to get you back on the show as anti-capitalism in America picks up steam and perhaps manifests itself in the 2028 election. Thank you so much.John Cassidy: Thanks very much for inviting me on, it was fun.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 are the Democrats losing the American working class? According to Joan Williams, it's because they are failing to prioritize economic concerns of working-class Americans. In her new book Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back, Williams argues that Democrats lost the 2024 election because of their over-preoccupation with the interests of college educated Americans. Williams notes significant shifts among non-college voters of color toward Republicans and believes Democrats must develop what she calls "cultural competence" to connect with working-class voters. She emphasizes that economic struggle, and not just racism, drove Trump's victory. Williams advocates for a messaging that resonates with working-class values while maintaining progressive goals on issues like climate change. Democrats, she suggests, must return to their traditional language and prioritize economic stability for all Americans if they are to win back power in 2028. Five Key Takeaways * Democrats lost working-class voters across racial groups in 2024, with significant shifts among non-college voters of color (35-point shift among Latinos and 30-point shift among Black voters) and even larger shifts among younger voters of color.* Williams argues that economic factors, not just racism, drove Trump's victory. She believes Democrats failed to prioritize inflation and economic issues that matter most to working-class Americans, focusing instead on issues that primarily resonate with college-educated elites.* The "class-culture gap" between college-educated elites and working-class Americans requires Democrats to develop "cultural competence" - understanding and connecting with the values, communication styles, and priorities of non-college educated voters.* Williams believes Democrats must center economic messaging on the principle that "anybody who works hard in America deserves a stable middle-class standard of living" while connecting progressive policies to working-class values.* Unlike some critics, Williams doesn't believe Democrats must abandon identity politics or progressive causes, but rather must present these causes in ways that connect with working-class values while prioritizing economic issues.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Described as having "something approaching rock star status” in her field by The New York Times Magazine, Joan C. Williams is an award-winning scholar of social inequality. She is the author of White Working Class, and has published on class dynamics in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, The New Republic and more. She is Distinguished Professor of Law and Hastings Foundation Chair (emerita) at University of California College of the Law San Francisco. 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 Erased: What American Patriarchy Has Hidden From Us, best selling writer Anna Malaika Tubbs reveals the secret history of American patriarchal values. Tubbs argues this patriarchy is the central narrative thread of American history. She emphasizes that patriarchy affects everyone differently according to their race, class, and gender - thereby creating a "gendered hierarchy" that excludes many from traditional gender roles. Tubbs maintains that this patriarchy persists. Indeed, she presents the Trump administration's Project 2025 as a reactionary attempt to return to this central narrative of American history. Five Key Takeaways * American patriarchy was intentionally built into the nation's founding documents, with women deliberately excluded from the Constitution. This systemic design continues to influence modern American society and politics.* Patriarchy affects different groups in varying ways—white women experience oppression differently than women of color, who historically weren't even afforded the "protections" of traditional gender roles. Understanding these distinctions is crucial for building effective coalitions.* Agency is central to resistance against patriarchal systems. Throughout history, marginalized groups have consistently demonstrated alternative ways of living despite systemic constraints.* Current political movements like Project 2025 represent a conscious return to traditional patriarchal values, particularly in their emphasis on women's reproductive roles.* According to Tubbs, addressing patriarchy requires multi-level approaches: personal reflection, reimagining relationships, mindful parenting, and policy change. Understanding how patriarchy operates helps explain voting patterns and can inform strategies for social change.Anna Malaika Tubbs is a New York Times bestselling author and multidisciplinary expert on current and historical understandings of race, gender, and equity. With a Ph.D. in Sociology and a Masters in Multidisciplinary Gender Studies from the University of Cambridge in addition to a Bachelors in Medical Anthropology from Stanford University, Anna translates her academic knowledge into stories that are clear and engaging. Her articles have been published by TIME Magazine, New York Magazine, CNN, Motherly, the Huffington Post, For Harriet, The Guardian, Darling Magazine, and Blavity. Anna's storytelling also takes form in her talks, including her TED Talk that has been viewed 2 million times, as well as the scripted and unscripted screen projects she has in development. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their three kids.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

History, Marshall Poe wrote in December 2023, shows that Israel will never win a “war of occupation”. Eighteen months later, with Israel on the brink of a full scale occupation of Gaza, Poe's argument is even more relevant. the Gaza war, the historian warns, is turning into Israel's Vietnam - an unwinnable occupation that will only bring shame on the invaders. Trust Poe on the Vietnam analogy. His last book was about the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam, so he's all too familiar with the catastrophic consequences of imperial wars of counter-insurgency. Five Takeaways * Counterinsurgency operations typically evolve into prolonged occupations, as forces cannot easily identify and eliminate insurgents without alienating the local population.* Military occupations historically fail when the entire civilian population becomes hostile to occupying forces, leading to ethical compromises and potential atrocities.* The My Lai massacre in Vietnam exemplifies how poor intelligence and leadership can result in civilian casualties when soldiers cannot distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.* Population relocation, a strategy being discussed for Gaza, has historically been catastrophic whenever attempted in the 20th century.* The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has limited viable solutions, with Poe suggesting the two-state solution is no longer realistic and expressing skepticism that external powers like the US can resolve the situation.Marshall Tillbrook Poe is an American historian, writer, editor, and founder of the New Books Network, an online collection of podcast interviews with a wide range of nonfiction authors. He has taught Russian, European, Eurasian, and world history at various universities including Harvard, Columbia, University of Iowa, and, currently, the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Poe is the author or editor of a number of books for children and adults.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children. 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

So why did Harris lose in 2024? For one very big reason, according to the progressive essayist Bill Deresiewicz: “because she represented the exhausted Democratic establishment”. This rotting establishment, Deresiewicz believes, is symbolized by both the collective denial of Biden's mental decline and by Harris' pathetically rudderless Presidential campaign. But there's a much more troubling problem with the Democratic party, he argues. It has become “the party of institutionalized liberalism, which is itself exhausted”. So how to reinvent American liberalism in the 2020's? How to make the left once again, in Deresiewicz words, “the locus of openness, playfulness, productive contention, experiment, excess, risk, shock, camp, mirth, mischief, irony and curiosity"? That's the question for all progressives in our MAGA/Woke age. 5 Key Takeaways * Deresiewicz believes the Democratic establishment and aligned media engaged in a "tacit cover-up" of Biden's condition and other major issues like crime, border policies, and pandemic missteps rather than addressing them honestly.* The liberal movement that began in the 1960s has become "exhausted" and the Democratic Party is now an uneasy alliance of establishment elites and working-class voters whose interests don't align well.* Progressive institutions suffer from a repressive intolerance characterized by "an unearned sense of moral superiority" and a fear of vitality that leads to excessive rules, bureaucracy, and speech codes.* While young conservatives are creating new movements with energy and creativity, the progressive establishment stifles innovation by purging anyone who "violates the code" or criticizes their side.* Rebuilding the left requires creating conditions for new ideas by ending censoriousness, embracing true courage that risks something real, and potentially building new institutions rather than trying to reform existing ones. Full Transcript Andrew Keen: Hello, everyone. It's the old question on this show, Keen on America, how to make sense of this bewildering, frustrating, exciting country in the wake, particularly of the last election. A couple of years ago, we had the CNN journalist who I rather like and admire, Jake Tapper, on the show. Arguing in a piece of fiction that he thinks, to make sense of America, we need to return to the 1970s. He had a thriller out a couple of years ago called All the Demons Are Here. But I wonder if Tapper's changed his mind on this. His latest book, which is a sensation, which he co-wrote with Alex Thompson, is Original Sin, President Biden's Decline, its Cover-up and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. Tapper, I think, tells the truth about Biden, as the New York Times notes. It's a damning portrait of an enfeebled Biden protected by his inner circle. I would extend that, rather than his inner circle protected by an elite, perhaps a coastal elite of Democrats, unable or unwilling to come to terms with the fact that Biden was way, way past his shelf life. My guest today, William Deresiewicz—always get his last name wrong—it must be...William Deresiewicz: No, that was good. You got it.Andrew Keen: Probably because I'm anti-semitic. He has a new piece out called "Post-Election" which addresses much of the rottenness of the American progressive establishment in 2025. Bill, congratulations on the piece.William Deresiewicz: Thank you.Andrew Keen: Have you had a chance to look at this Tapper book or have you read about Original Sin?William Deresiewicz: Yeah, I read that piece. I read the piece that's on the screen and I've heard some people talking about it. And I mean, as you said, it's not just his inner circle. I don't want to blame Tapper. Tapper did the work. But one immediate reaction to the debate debacle was, where have the journalists been? For example, just to unfairly call one person out, but they're just so full of themselves, the New Yorker dripping with self-congratulations, especially in its centennial year, its boundless appetite for self-celebration—to quote something one of my students once said about Yale—they've got a guy named Evan Osnos, who's one of their regulars on their political...Andrew Keen: Yeah, and he's been on the show, Evan, and in fact, I rather like his, I was going to say his husband, his father, Peter Osnos, who's a very heavy-hitting ex-publisher. But anyway, go on. And Evan's quite a nice guy, personally.William Deresiewicz: I'm sure he's a nice guy, but the fact is he's not only a New Yorker journalist, but he wrote a book about Biden, which means that he's presumably theoretically well-sourced within Biden world. He didn't say anything. I mean, did he not know or did he know?Andrew Keen: Yeah, I agree. I mean you just don't want to ask, right? You don't know. But you're a journalist, so you're supposed to know. You're supposed to ask. So I'm sure you're right on Osnos. I mean, he was on the show, but all journalists are progressives, or at least all the journalists at the Times and the New Yorker and the Atlantic. And there seemed to be, as Jake Tapper is suggesting in this new book, and he was part of the cover-up, there seemed to be a cover-up on the part of the entire professional American journalist establishment, high-end establishment, to ignore the fact that the guy running for president or the president himself clearly had no idea of what was going on around him. It's just astonishing, isn't it? I mean, hindsight's always easy, of course, 2020 in retrospect, but it was obvious at the time. I made it clear whenever I spoke about Biden, that here was a guy clearly way out of his depth, that he shouldn't have been president, maybe shouldn't have been president in the first place, but whatever you think about his ideas, he clearly was way beyond his shelf date, a year or two into the presidency.William Deresiewicz: Yeah, but here's the thing, and it's one of the things I say in the post-election piece, but I'm certainly not the only person to say this. There was an at least tacit cover-up of Biden, of his condition, but the whole thing was a cover-up, meaning every major issue that the 2024 election was about—crime, at the border, woke excess, affordability. The whole strategy of not just the Democrats, but this media establishment that's aligned with them is to just pretend that it wasn't happening, to explain it away. And we can also throw in pandemic policy, right? Which people were still thinking about and all the missteps in pandemic policy. The strategy was effectively a cover-up. We're not gonna talk about it, or we're gonna gaslight you, or we're gonna make excuses. So is it a surprise that people don't trust these establishment institutions anymore? I mean, I don't trust them anymore and I want to trust them.Andrew Keen: Were there journalists? I mean, there were a handful of journalists telling the truth about Biden. Progressives, people on the left rather than conservatives.William Deresiewicz: Ezra Klein started to talk about it, I remember that. So yes, there were a handful, but it wasn't enough. And you know, I don't say this to take away from Ezra Klein what I just gave him with my right hand, take away with my left, but he was also the guy, as soon as the Kamala succession was effected, who was talking about how Kamala in recent months has been going from strength to strength and hasn't put a foot wrong and isn't she fantastic. So all credit to him for telling the truth about Biden, but it seems to me that he immediately pivoted to—I mean, I'm sure he thought he was telling the truth about Harris, but I didn't believe that for one second.Andrew Keen: Well, meanwhile, the lies about Harris or the mythology of Harris, the false—I mean, all mythology, I guess, is false—about Harris building again. Headline in Newsweek that Harris would beat Donald Trump if an election was held again. I mean I would probably beat—I would beat Trump if an election was held again, I can't even run for president. So anyone could beat Trump, given the situation. David Plouffe suggested that—I think he's quoted in the Tapper book—that Biden totally fucked us, but it suggests that somehow Harris was a coherent progressive candidate, which she wasn't.William Deresiewicz: She wasn't. First of all, I hadn't seen this poll that she would beat Trump. I mean, it's a meaningless poll, because...Andrew Keen: You could beat him, Bill, and no one can even pronounce your last name.William Deresiewicz: Nobody could say what would actually happen if there were a real election. It's easy enough to have a hypothetical poll. People often look much better in these kinds of hypothetical polls where there's no actual election than they do when it's time for an election. I mean, I think everyone except maybe David Plouffe understands that Harris should never have been a candidate—not just after Biden dropped out way too late, but ever, right? I mean the real problem with Biden running again is that he essentially saddled us with Harris. Instead of having a real primary campaign where we could have at least entertained the possibility of some competent people—you know, there are lots of governors. I mean, I'm a little, and maybe we'll get to this, I'm little skeptical that any normal democratic politician is going to end up looking good. But at least we do have a whole bunch of what seem to be competent governors, people with executive experience. And we never had a chance to entertain any of those people because this democratic establishment just keeps telling us who we're going to vote for. I mean, it's now three elections in a row—they forced Hillary on us, and then Biden. I'm not going to say they forced Biden on us although elements of it did. It probably was a good thing because he won and he may have been the only one who could have won. And then Harris—it's like reductio ad absurdum. These candidates they keep handing us keep getting worse and worse.Andrew Keen: But it's more than being worse. I mean, whatever one can say about Harris, she couldn't explain why she wanted to be president, which seems to me a disqualifier if you're running for president. The point, the broader point, which I think you bring out very well in the piece you write, and you and I are very much on the same page here, so I'm not going to criticize you in your post-election—William Deresiewicz: You can criticize me, Andrew, I love—Andrew Keen: I know I can criticize you, and I will, but not in this particular area—is that these people are the establishment. They're protecting a globalized world, they're the coast. I mean, in some ways, certainly the Bannonite analysis is right, and it's not surprising that they're borrowing from Lenin and the left is borrowing from Edmund Burke.William Deresiewicz: Yeah, I mean I think, and I think this is the real problem. I mean, part of what I say in the piece is that it just seems, maybe this is too organicist, but there just seems to be an exhaustion that the liberal impulse that started, you know, around the time I was born in 1964, and I cite the Dylan movie just because it's a picture of that time where you get a sense of the energy on the left, the dawning of all this exciting—Andrew Keen: You know that movie—and we've done a show on that movie—itself was critical I guess in a way of Dylan for not being political.William Deresiewicz: Well, but even leaving that aside, just the reminder you get of what that time felt like. That seems in the movie relatively accurate, that this new youth culture, the rights revolution, the counterculture, a new kind of impulse of liberalism and progressivism that was very powerful and strong and carried us through the 60s and 70s and then became the establishment and has just become completely exhausted now. So I just feel like it's just gotten to the end of its possibility. Gotten to the end of its life cycle, but also in a less sort of mystical way. And I think this is a structural problem that the Democrats have not been able to address for a long time, and I don't see how they're going to address it. The party is now the party, as you just said, of the establishment, uneasily wedded to a mainly non-white sort of working class, lower class, maybe somewhat middle class. So it's sort of this kind of hybrid beast, the two halves of which don't really fit together. The educated upper middle class, the professional managerial class that you and I are part of, and then sort of the average Black Latino female, white female voter who doesn't share the interests of that class. So what are you gonna do about that? How's that gonna work?Andrew Keen: And the thing that you've always given a lot of thought to, and it certainly comes out in this piece, is the intolerance of the Democratic Party. But it's an intolerance—it's not a sort of, and I don't like this word, it's not the fascist intolerance of the MAGA movement or of Trump. It's a repressive intolerance, it's this idea that we're always right and if you disagree with us, then there must be something wrong with you.William Deresiewicz: Yeah, right. It's this, at this point, completely unearned sense of moral superiority and intellectual superiority, which are not really very clearly distinguished in their mind, I think. And you know, they just reek of it and people hate it and it's understandable that they hate it. I mean, it's Hillary in a word. It's Hillary in a word and again, I'm wary of treading on this kind of ground, but I do think there's an element of—I mean, obviously Trump and his whole camp is very masculinist in a very repulsive way, but there is also a way to be maternalist in a repulsive way. It's this kind of maternal control. I think of it as the sushi mom voice where we're gonna explain to you in a calm way why you should listen to us and why we're going to control every move you make. And it's this fear—I mean what my piece is really about is this sort of quasi-Nietzschean argument for energy and vitality that's lacking on the left. And I think it's lacking because the left fears it. It fears sort of the chaos of the life force. So it just wants to shackle it in all of these rules and bureaucracy and speech codes and consent codes. It just feels lifeless. And I think everybody feels that.Andrew Keen: Yeah, and it's the inability to imagine you can be wrong. It's the moral greediness of some people, at least, who think of themselves on the left. Some people might be listening to this, thinking it's just these two old white guys who think themselves as progressives but are actually really conservative. And all this idea of nature is itself chilling, that it's a kind of anti-feminism.William Deresiewicz: Well, that's b******t. I mean, let me have a chance to respond. I mean I plead guilty to being an old white man—Andrew Keen: I mean you can't argue with that one.William Deresiewicz: I'm not arguing with it. But the whole point rests on this notion of positionality, like I'm an older white man, therefore I think this or I believe that, which I think is b******t to begin with because, you know, down the street there's another older white guy who believes the exact opposite of me, so what's the argument here? But leaving that aside, and whether I am or am not a progressive—okay, my ideal politician is Bernie Sanders, so I'll just leave it at that. The point is, I mean, one point is that feminism hasn't always been like this. Second wave feminism that started in the late sixties, when I was a little kid—there was a censorious aspect to it, but there was also this tremendous vitality. I mean I think of somebody like Andrea Dworkin—this is like, "f**k you" feminism. This is like, "I'm not only not gonna shave my legs, I'm gonna shave my armpits and I don't give a s**t what you think." And then the next generation when I was a young man was the Mary Gates, Camille Paglia, sex-positive power feminism which also had a different kind of vitality. So I don't think feminism has to be the feminism of the women's studies departments and of Hillary Clinton with "you can't say this" and "if you want to have sex with me you have to follow these 10 rules." I don't think anybody likes that.Andrew Keen: The deplorables!William Deresiewicz: Yes, yes, yes. Like I said, I don't just think that the enemies don't like it, and I don't really care what they think. I think the people on our side don't like it. Nobody is having fun on our side. It's boring. No one's having sex from what they tell me. The young—it just feels dead. And I think when there's no vitality, you also have no creative vitality. And I think the intellectual cul-de-sac that the left seems to be stuck in, where there are no new ideas, is related to that.Andrew Keen: Yeah, and I think the more I think about it, I think you're right, it's a generational war. All the action seems to be coming from old people, whether it's the Pelosis and the Bidens, or it's people like Richard Reeves making a fortune off books about worrying about young men or Jonathan Haidt writing about the anxious generation. Where are, to quote David Bowie, the young Americans? Why aren't they—I mean, Bill, you're in a way guilty of this. You made your name with your book, Excellent Sheep about the miseducation...William Deresiewicz: Yeah, so what am I guilty of exactly?Andrew Keen: I'm not saying you're all, but aren't you and Reeves and Haidt, you're all involved in this weird kind of generational war.William Deresiewicz: OK, let's pump the brakes here for a second. Where the young people are—I mean, obviously most people, even young people today, still vote for Democrats. But the young who seem to be exploring new things and having energy and excitement are on the right. And there was a piece—I'm gonna forget the name of the piece and the author—Daniel Oppenheimer had her on the podcast. I think it appeared in The Point. Young woman. Fairly recent college graduate, went to a convention of young republicans, I don't know what they call themselves, and also to democrats or liberals in quick succession and wrote a really good piece about it. I don't think she had ever written anything before or published anything before, but it got a lot of attention because she talked about the youthful vitality at this conservative gathering. And then she goes to the liberals and they're all gray-haired men like us. The one person who had anything interesting to say was Francis Fukuyama, who's in his 80s. She's making the point—this is the point—it's not a generational war, because there are young people on the right side of the spectrum who are doing interesting things. I mean, I don't like what they're doing, because I'm not a rightist, but they're interesting, they're different, they're new, there's excitement there, there's creativity there.Andrew Keen: But could one argue, Bill, that all these labels are meaningless and that whatever they're doing—I'm sure they're having more sex than young progressives, they're having more fun, they're able to make jokes, they are able, for better or worse, to change the system. Does it really matter whether they claim to be MAGA people or leftists? They're the ones who are driving change in the country.William Deresiewicz: Yes, they're the ones who are driving change in the country. The counter-cultural energy that was on the left in the sixties and seventies is now on the right. And it does matter because they are operating in the political sphere, have an effect in the political sphere, and they're unmistakably on the right. I mean, there are all these new weird species on the right—the trads and the neo-pagans and the alt-right and very sort of anti-capitalist conservatives or at least anti-corporate conservatives and all kinds of things that you would never have imagined five years ago. And again, it's not that I like these things. It's that they're new, there's ferment there. So stuff is coming out that is going to drive, is already driving the culture and therefore the politics forward. And as somebody who, yes, is progressive, it is endlessly frustrating to me that we have lost this kind of initiative, momentum, energy, creativity, to what used to be the stodgy old right. Now we're the stodgy old left.Andrew Keen: What do you want to go back to? I mean you brought up Dylan earlier. Do you just want to resurrect...William Deresiewicz: No, I don't.Andrew Keen: You know another one who comes to mind is another sort of bundle of contradictions, Bruce Springsteen. He recently talked about the corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous nature of Trump. I mean Springsteen's a billionaire. He even acknowledged that he mythologized his own working-class status. He's never spent more than an hour in a factory. He's never had a job. So aren't all the pigeons coming back to roost here? The fraud of men like Springsteen are merely being exposed and young people recognize it.William Deresiewicz: Well, I don't know about Springsteen in particular...Andrew Keen: Well, he's a big deal.William Deresiewicz: No, I know he's a big deal, and I love Springsteen. I listened to him on repeat when I was young, and I actually didn't know that he'd never worked in a factory, and I quite frankly don't care because he's an artist, and he made great art out of those experiences, whether they were his or not. But to address the real issue here, he is an old guy. It sounds like he's just—I mean, I'm sure he's sincere about it and I would agree with him about Trump. But to have people like Springsteen or Robert De Niro or George Clooney...Andrew Keen: Here it is.William Deresiewicz: Okay, yes, it's all to the point that these are old guys. So you asked me, do I want to go back? The whole point is I don't want to go back. I want to go forward. I'm not going to be the one to bring us forward because I'm older. And also, I don't think I was ever that kind of creative spirit, but I want to know why there isn't sort of youthful creativity given the fact that most young people do still vote for Democrats, but there's no youthful creativity on the left. Is it just that the—I want to be surprised is the point. I'm not calling for X, Y, or Z. I'm saying astonish me, right? Like Diaghilev said to Cocteau. Astonish me the way you did in the 60s and 70s. Show me something new. And I worry that it simply isn't possible on the left now, precisely because it's so locked down in this kind of establishment, censorious mode that there's no room for a new idea to come from anywhere.Andrew Keen: As it happens, you published this essay in Salmagundi—and that predates, if not even be pre-counterculture. How many years old is it? I think it started in '64. Yeah, so alongside your piece is an interesting piece from Adam Phillips about influence and anxiety. And he quotes Montaigne from "On Experience": "There is always room for a successor, even for ourselves, and a different way to proceed." Is the problem, Bill, that we haven't, we're not willing to leave the stage? I mean, Nancy Pelosi is a good example of this. Biden's a good example. In this Salmagundi piece, there's an essay from Martin Jay, who's 81 years old. I was a grad student in Berkeley in the 80s. Even at that point, he seemed old. Why are these people not able to leave the stage?William Deresiewicz: I am not going to necessarily sign on to that argument, and not just because I'm getting older. Biden...Andrew Keen: How old are you, by the way?William Deresiewicz: I'm 61. So you mentioned Pelosi. I would have been happy for Pelosi to remain in her position for as long as she wanted, because she was effective. It's not about how old you are. Although it can be, obviously as you get older you can become less effective like Joe Biden. I think there's room for the old and the young together if the old are saying valuable things and if the young are saying valuable things. It's not like there's a shortage of young voices on the left now. They're just not interesting voices. I mean, the one that comes immediately to mind that I'm more interested in is Ritchie Torres, who's this congressman who's a genuinely working-class Black congressman from the Bronx, unlike AOC, who grew up the daughter of an architect in Northern Westchester and went to a fancy private university, Boston University. So Ritchie Torres is not a doctrinaire leftist Democrat. And he seems to speak from a real self. Like he isn't just talking about boilerplate. I just feel like there isn't a lot of room for the Ritchie Torres. I think the system that produces democratic candidates militates against people like Ritchie Torres. And that's what I am talking about.Andrew Keen: In the essay, you write about Andy Mills, who was one of the pioneers of the New York Times podcast. He got thrown out of The New York Times for various offenses. It's one of the problems with the left—they've, rather like the Stalinists in the 1930s, purged all the energy out of themselves. Anyone of any originality has been thrown out for one reason or another.William Deresiewicz: Well, because it's always the same reason, because they violate the code. I mean, yes, this is one of the main problems. And to go back to where we started with the journalists, it seems like the rationale for the cover-up, all the cover-ups was, "we can't say anything bad about our side. We can't point out any of the flaws because that's going to help the bad guys." So if anybody breaks ranks, we're going to cancel them. We're going to purge them. I mean, any idiot understands that that's a very short-term strategy. You need the possibility of self-criticism and self-difference. I mean that's the thing—you asked me about old people leaving the stage, but the quotation from Montaigne said, "there's always room for a successor, even ourselves." So this is about the possibility of continuous self-reinvention. Whatever you want to say about Dylan, some people like him, some don't, he's done that. Bowie's done that. This was sort of our idea, like you're constantly reinventing yourself, but this is what we don't have.Andrew Keen: Yeah, actually, I read the quote the wrong way, that we need to reinvent ourselves. Bowie is a very good example if one acknowledges, and Dylan of course, one's own fundamental plasticity. And that's another problem with the progressive movement—they don't think of the human condition as a plastic one.William Deresiewicz: That's interesting. I mean, in one respect, I think they think of it as too plastic, right? This is sort of the blank slate fallacy that we can make—there's no such thing as human nature and we can reshape it as we wish. But at the same time, they've created a situation, and this really is what Excellent Sheep is about, where they're turning out the same human product over and over.Andrew Keen: But in that sense, then, the excellent sheep you write about at Yale, they've all ended up now as neo-liberal, neo-conservative, so they're just rebelling...William Deresiewicz: No, they haven't. No, they are the backbone of this soggy liberal progressive establishment. A lot of them are. I mean, why is, you know, even Wall Street and Silicon Valley sort of by preference liberal? It's because they're full of these kinds of elite college graduates who have been trained to be liberal.Andrew Keen: So what are we to make of the Musk-Thiel, particularly the Musk phenomenon? I mean, certainly Thiel, very much influenced by Rand, who herself, of course, was about as deeply Nietzschean as you can get. Why isn't Thiel and Musk just a model of the virility, the vitality of the early 21st century? You might not like what they say, but they're full of vitality.William Deresiewicz: It's interesting, there's a place in my piece where I say that the liberal can't accept the idea that a bad person can do great things. And one of my examples was Elon Musk. And the other one—Andrew Keen: Zuckerberg.William Deresiewicz: But Musk is not in the piece, because I wrote the piece before the inauguration and they asked me to change it because of what Musk was doing. And even I was beginning to get a little queasy just because the association with Musk is now different. It's now DOGE. But Musk, who I've always hated, I've never liked the guy, even when liberals loved him for making electric cars. He is an example, at least the pre-DOGE Musk, of a horrible human being with incredible vitality who's done great things, whether you like it or not. And I want—I mean, this is the energy that I want to harness for our team.Andrew Keen: I actually mostly agreed with your piece, but I didn't agree with that because I think most progressives believe that actually, the Zuckerbergs and the Musks, by doing, by being so successful, by becoming multi-billionaires, are morally a bit dodgy. I mean, I don't know where you get that.William Deresiewicz: That's exactly the point. But I think what they do is when they don't like somebody, they just negate the idea that they're great. "Well, he's just not really doing anything that great." You disagree.Andrew Keen: So what about ideas, Bill? Where is there room to rebuild the left? I take your points, and I don't think many people would actually disagree with you. Where does the left, if there's such a term anymore, need to go out on a limb, break some eggs, offend some people, but nonetheless rebuild itself? It's not going back to Bernie Sanders and some sort of nostalgic New Deal.William Deresiewicz: No, no, I agree. So this is, this may be unsatisfying, but this is what I'm saying. If there were specific new ideas that I thought the left should embrace, I would have said so. What I'm seeing is the left needs, to begin with, to create the conditions from which new ideas can come. So I mean, we've been talking about a lot of it. The censoriousness needs to go.I would also say—actually, I talk about this also—you know, maybe you would consider yourself part of, I don't know. There's this whole sort of heterodox realm of people who did dare to violate the progressive pieties and say, "maybe the pandemic response isn't going so well; maybe the Black Lives Matter protests did have a lot of violence"—maybe all the things, right? And they were all driven out from 2020 and so forth. A lot of them were people who started on the left and would even still describe themselves as liberal, would never vote for a Republican. So these people are out there. They're just, they don't have a voice within the Democratic camp because the orthodoxy continues to be enforced.So that's what I'm saying. You've got to start with the structural conditions. And one of them may be that we need to get—I don't even know that these institutions can reform themselves, whether it's the Times or the New Yorker or the Ivy League. And it may be that we need to build new institutions, which is also something that's happening. I mean, it's something that's happening in the realm of publishing and journalism on Substack. But again, they're still marginalized because that liberal establishment does not—it's not that old people don't wanna give up power, it's that the established people don't want to give up the power. I mean Harris is, you know, she's like my age. So the establishment as embodied by the Times, the New Yorker, the Ivy League, foundations, the think tanks, the Democratic Party establishment—they don't want to move aside. But it's so obviously clear at this point that they are not the solution. They're not the solutions.Andrew Keen: What about the so-called resistance? I mean, a lot of people were deeply disappointed by the response of law firms, maybe even universities, the democratic party as we noted is pretty much irrelevant. Is it possible for the left to rebuild itself by a kind of self-sacrifice, by lawyers who say "I don't care what you think of me, I'm simply against you" and to work together, or university presidents who will take massive pay cuts and take on MAGA/Trump world?William Deresiewicz: Yeah, I mean, I don't know if this is going to be the solution to the left rebuilding itself, but I think it has to happen, not just because it has to happen for policy reasons, but I mean you need to start by finding your courage again. I'm not going to say your testicles because that's gendered, but you need to start—I mean the law firms, maybe that's a little, people have said, well, it's different because they're in a competitive business with each other, but why did the university—I mean I'm a Columbia alumnus. I could not believe that Columbia immediately caved.It occurs to me as we're talking that these are people, university presidents who have learned cowardice. This is how they got to be where they got and how they keep their jobs. They've learned to yield in the face of the demands of students, the demands of alumni, the demands of donors, maybe the demands of faculty. They don't know how to be courageous anymore. And as much as I have lots of reasons, including personal ones, to hate Harvard University, good for them. Somebody finally stood up, and I was really glad to see that. So yeah, I think this would be one good way to start.Andrew Keen: Courage, in other words, is the beginning.William Deresiewicz: Courage is the beginning.Andrew Keen: But not a courage that takes itself too seriously.William Deresiewicz: I mean, you know, sure. I mean I don't really care how seriously—not the self-referential courage. Real courage, which means you're really risking losing something. That's what it means.Andrew Keen: And how can you and I then manifest this courage?William Deresiewicz: You know, you made me listen to Jocelyn Benson.Andrew Keen: Oh, yeah, I forgot and I actually I have to admit I saw that on the email and then I forgot who Jocelyn Benson is, which is probably reflects the fact that she didn't say very much.William Deresiewicz: For those of you who don't know what we're talking about, she's the Secretary of State of Michigan. She's running for governor.Andrew Keen: Oh yeah, and she was absolutely diabolical. She was on the show, I thought.William Deresiewicz: She wrote a book called Purposeful Warrior, and the whole interview was just this salad of cliches. Purpose, warrior, grit, authenticity. And part of, I mentioned her partly because she talked about courage in a way that was complete nonsense.Andrew Keen: Real courage, yeah, real courage. I remember her now. Yeah, yeah.William Deresiewicz: Yeah, she got made into a martyr because she got threatened after the 2020 election.Andrew Keen: Well, lots to think about, Bill. Very good conversation, as always. I think we need to get rid of old white men like you and I, but what do I know?William Deresiewicz: I mean, I am going to keep a death grip on my position, which is no good whatsoever.Andrew Keen: As I half-joked, Bill, maybe you should have called the piece "Post-Erection." If you can't get an erection, then you certainly shouldn't be in public office. That would have meant that Joe Biden would have had to have retired immediately.William Deresiewicz: I'm looking forward to seeing the test you devise to determine whether people meet your criterion.Andrew Keen: Yeah, maybe it will be a public one. Bread and circuses, bread and elections. We shall see, Bill, I'm not even going to do your last name because I got it right once. I'm never going to say it again. Bill, congratulations on the piece "Post-Election," not "Post-Erection," and we will talk again. This story is going to run and run. We will talk again in the not too distant future. Thank you so much.William Deresiewicz: That's good.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

“That he not busy being born is busy dying”, Dylan noted in “It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)”, his grim 1965 masterpiece about reinvention. Sixty years later, at a time when “everything is technology”, these words have particular resonance in Silicon Valley. As That Was The Week publisher Keith Teare and I discuss in our weekly roundup of tech news, every Big Tech firm - from OpenAI and Airbnb to YouTube and Netflix — is in the perpetual business of radical reinvention. It's what Keith identifies as “the truth” of our technological age. Surviving this mayhem, then, requires not just perpetual birth, but also a lot of conscious dying. 5 takeaways* Keith Teare argues that "truth" can only meaningfully apply to facts and past events, not to opinions or future possibilities. He suggests that what becomes "true" is created after the fact through human actions and choices.* Our discussion explores how technological change is accelerating, with Paki McCormick's article "Everything is Technology" framing technology broadly as "the process of human ingenuity transforming conditions and creating change" rather than just gadgets.* We discuss AI's impact on education, with Keith sharing an example of a professor who allegedly resigned in real-time after discovering students had created a website with AI-generated lecture summaries and essay responses, highlighting the disruption to traditional academic models.* Our conversation covers how established companies like Airbnb and Netflix are evolving their business models, with Netflix adding an ad-supported tier alongside its subscription service and Airbnb expanding from accommodations to curated experiences.* We discuss economic differences between regions, referencing Yascha Mounk's article on the "great divergence" between the US and Europe in terms of GDP per capita, noting that the US has roughly three times the GDP per capita of Europe (approximately $85,000 versus $30,000). 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