Another engaging riff with David Storey, Boston College philosophy professor and Spartan Race athlete. This time I take center stage. We explore why Americans are collectively depressed, why Democrats ignore power politics, why turning off phones and turning toward each other feels great, and how all of this is related.

I make a case for phone-free schools. Dave helps me see even bigger benefits.

We get political. We get personal. We refuse to give advice or answer the question, "What should the average person do?"

**Key takeaways**

• 11:00 Feeling bottled up? Recapture the oomph and lock arms with others
• 15:00 The Tit-for-Tat strategy from the Prisoner's Dilemma
• 21:00 Reclaiming power. "Don't step on me."
• 23:00 Two reasons Democrats get complacent about power politics
• 28:00 Want advice on what to do? Instead, ask yourself these four questions
• 32:00 Conscious phone use through PSAs and intentional points of friction
• 35:00 It's time to make public spaces public again
• 38:00 Stricter phone policies in schools free teachers to teach, not police
• 41:00 Adults exerting their agency. "Trust your moral compass."
• 45:00 Moving beyond the hyper-individualistic story of America
• 47:00 Laughter is something we create together

**Resources**

• David's web site, including his podcast, Wisdom@Work

**Subscribe to the podcast**

To hear the origin stories of more big ideas, subscribe to How My View Grew on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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In this five-minute episode of How My View Grew, I offer six ideas for Democrats and Never-Trumpers who haven't given up:

1. Doing something is better than doing nothing.
2. We're lousy at predicting the outcomes of our actions.
3. The 2026 mid-terms are super-important.
4. Winning in 2026 requires two distinct tasks.
5. Dems and Never Trumpers need a new mood.
6. Biden-to-Trump voters need permission structures, not shaming.

**Subscribe to the podcast**

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Status differences, real and perceived, and the resentment that comes with them.

Republicans use them to fire up voters and win elections. Democrats largely ignore them.

To regain power and reverse the authoritarian tide, Democrats will need to take status differences seriously.

My five-minute take.

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In this five-minute episode, which concludes season three, I share five thoughts that I think you will enjoy even though they're neither profound nor useful.

1. Co-ed Sleepovers
2. Love Overestimated
3. Pronouns Everywhere
4. What Men Do
5. A Bold Child

**Subscribe to the podcast**

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Part two of a provocative conversation with David Storey, associate professor of philosophy at Boston College.

**Key takeaways**

• 0:45 The right has coded expertise as feminine
• 2:45 How ironic: the manosphere exists in disembodied cyberspace
• 6:00 What Fight Club was all about
• 11:00 The retro-romantic part of MAGA
• 13:00 The war on terror was a weak halfway house between the Cold War and MAGA
• 17:00 The tech right as Nietzschean supermen
• 19:00 Funneling alpha energy into a mass movement against Big Tech
• 21:00 Can Democrats become more fluent in Christianity as they embrace economic populism?

**Resources**

• David's web site, including his podcast, Wisdom@Work

**Subscribe to the podcast**

To hear the origin stories of more big ideas, subscribe to How My View Grew on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Part one of a fascinating and just plain fun conversation about the manosphere with David Storey, associate professor of philosophy at Boston College.

Our first experiment in doing a "high-brow brocast."

Big ideas with a casual vibe.

**Key takeaways**

• 4:00 Beards, mustaches, and the aesthetics of Trumpism
• 7:15 When my mask threatens your identity
• 12:10 Why this philosophy professor competes in Spartan races
• 17:00 The laptop class manipulates bits, not its
• 19:00 The economics behind the rise of the manosphere
• 24:00 The impact on young men of #metoo and the rise of girl-boss culture
• 26:00 When the male body feels stuck, where does testosterone go?

**Resources**

• David's web site, including his podcast, Wisdom@Work

**Subscribe to the podcast**

To hear the origin stories of more big ideas, subscribe to How My View Grew on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

**Share the love**

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This past Saturday, I attended the No Kings protest in a Midwestern college town. I walked in with a spring in my step, yet left early with a frown on my face.

In this 5-minute episode of How My View Grew, I explain why.

It's a good-news, bad-news tale.

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In this episode of How My View Grew, Greg Thomas describes how jazz saved him from hating so-called "white people" and how he learned to see the Black American experience as a hero's journey that is central to American history and culture.

**Key takeaways**

• 3:00 Early-life learning about rabid southern racists
• 9:00 "I gotta pick up an instrument"
• 13:30 The pathologizing of Black Americans by "white" liberals
• 16:00 The depth and wisdom of Albert Murray, Ralph Ellison, and Stanley Crouch
• 19:00 "This history has got my back" and the artificiality of "whiteness"
• 22:00 The hero's journey
• 23:30 Amiel's reflections

**Resources**

• Jazz Leadership Project
• Omni-American Future Project
• “King of Cats,” Henry Louis Gates Jr’s long profile of Murray in The New Yorker
• The Omni-Americans: Some Alternatives to the Folklore of White Supremacy by Albert Murray

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When right-wingers in the United States were in the wilderness for decades, they didn't just sit on their hands. They envisioned bold ways to change the country. When they came to power, they were ready to act.

Setting aside whether you like those ideas, ask yourself this: if Republicans could do this, why can't Democrats? Are liberals and progressives incapable of imagining what they'll do when back in power? Or have they simply not yet grown this potential?

Maybe it's time for all of us to not just play defense against the current mayhem but also to envision a better offense. If your party were to regain power, what would you want it to do?

In this episode, I invite you to think audaciously and notice not only what you come up with, but also how this improves your mood for dealing with the current presidency and its agents of sycophancy.

Imagine tomorrow so you have more power to act today.

To get you started, I propose two audacious ideas for a post-Trump America.

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Let's admit it. The Trump presidency isn't just creating chaos and destruction with sadistic glee.

It's also exhausting.

What's exhausting isn't only the President, but also the mafia state he has built, many journalists who cover him, and progressives who frame the situation ideologically.

In this 9-minute episode, I describe seven causes of Trump Mafia State Fatigue:

1. The Bullshit Asymmetry Principle
2. The Gaslighting Effect
3. Fly in the Ear
4. Affirmative action for mediocrity
5. The double-edged corruption sword
6. Sanewashing
7. Progressive ideological framing

**Subscribe to the podcast**

To hear the origin stories of more big ideas, subscribe to How My View Grew on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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