In Search of Sanity

After Macklemore accused Israel of genocide and apartheid during performances at MetLife Stadium, Robert Kraft refused to host him at Gillette Stadium. Other venues objected and Macklemore was removed from the remaining dates of Ed Sheeran's tour. The online pro-Palestine crowd promptly turned on Sheeran.

Macklemore has the right to speak. Kraft has the right to decide who performs at his stadium. Sheeran has a tour to run. This week, Mark and I ask: did anyone actually do anything wrong, or does every disagreement now require a human sacrifice?

Political tribes and their chiefs now seem to believe they are saving civilisation. One side is fighting fascism. The other is fighting socialism. Alas, once disagreement becomes proof of evil, politics stops being a contest of ideas and becomes a vicious divorce, and the kids caught in the middle are the whole country.

This week, Mark and I rummage through the Greek philosophy on love for three ideas we may have mislaid. Philia, fellowship between citizens; pragma, the grudging compromises that stop society falling over; and xenia, extending dignity to strangers, even the irritating ones with podcasts. We also consider Mandela's admission that he was no saint, merely "a sinner who keeps on trying".

The good news is that democracy does not require us to love our opponents. Only to stop treating them as enemies. Listen in. Love may be the most radical idea in politics.

California has the wealth and talent of a superpower. It also has some of America's worst housing costs, highest wealth and income inequality, eye-watering energy prices, stubborn homelessness, weak infrastructure and awful school outcomes. Yet after years of Democratic dominance, voters still seem reluctant to change the management. This week on In Search of Sanity, California newspaper editor Joe Tarica joins us to ask why. Britain, meanwhile, is seeing voters scatter across Labour, Conservatives, Reform, Greens and Liberal Democrats. So why does America's richest state remain so stubbornly locked into a two-party choice?

A slightly lighter 15 Minutes In Search of Sanity this week, yet with a serious question underneath.

Prince Harry was once Britain's most popular royal. Now he and Meghan Markle are planning to spend more time back in Britain just as support for the monarchy hits historic lows.

So we look beyond the Sussex soap opera and ask what a constitutional monarchy actually means. Is the King really just ceremonial? Who pays for the institution and how much constitutional power still sits behind the crowns, carriages and bearskins?

Fifteen minutes of monarchy, money and mild mockery.

As faith in America's institutions declines, increasingly radical voices on both Left and Right are offering very different answers. Are they diagnosing real problems, exploiting public frustration or both?

Last week we examined the rise of democratic socialism. This week we turn to the populist Right, from Tucker Carlson and America First to the darker fringes represented by Nick Fuentes.

Perhaps America's problem isn't that Left or Right has all the wrong answers. It's that too many Americans have stopped believing the center has any answers at all.

One man owns more wealth than the bottom half of America. Britain’s richest 10% now hold half the country’s wealth. The DSA’s have more members than ever. The Greens just overtook the Tories in members.

Even Lenin admitted socialism doesn’t deliver equality. He called it a “narrow horizon” on the way to something else.

Denmark isn’t socialist. Venezuela isn’t an accident. Most of the kids calling themselves socialists, from New York or Newcastle, have no idea why that used to be a scary word.

Same panic, two countries. We go looking for cause and effect. 15 minutes, five definitions, zero patience for either side’s myths.

In Sweden, trust-based governance outperformed fear-and-mandate governance in the US and UK. Not just on the virus alone. On education, the economy, free speech and institutional credibility.

This week, Mark and I go looking for the line running through Fauci, Whitty, Ferguson and the technocrats and politicians who told us they knew best…..then shut us down. Literally. Then we explore why the one country that didn't panic came out the other side with something the rest of us lost. Trust.
Who should be point the finger at? With the 250 year anniversary of American Independence still fresh in our minds, our conclusion may surprise you!

Discussed: Anthony Fauci, American Policy, COVID-19, British Policy, Bipartisanship

Philip Balboni has done it all. Victory & tragedy. Built his own cable network. Co-founded GlobalPost & World Political Review. Board & Executive Member of Columbia School of Journalism. Won every major award in American Journalism. Lost a reporter, Jim Foley, to an ISIS execution video.

We asked him the questions everyone else is too polite to ask.

• Did the legacy networks drift left first, or did Fox and GB News just find the audience they’d already lost?

• Who actually runs a newsroom now. Journalists. Politicians. Or Big Tech?

• Can “independent and nonpartisan” survive when journalism and academia lean left?

• What losing Jim Foley taught GlobalPost about the real cost and value of journalism.

He didn’t dodge one of them.

Arsonist or fire department. You decide.

In Search of Sanity. Listen now.

Fly the Stars and Stripes today and you’re either a patriot or a problem, depending on who’s watching. Put up a St George's Cross in England and you're either patriotic or prejudiced. What changed?

This week we discuss record-low patriotism numbers in America, a lamppost flag war in Britain, a Church of England warning shot, and a straight answer to the question nobody’s asking plainly enough: Why did the flag stop being ours, and start being a side?

Conversations over confrontations. Ideas over ideology. Make sure to subscribe to our free Substack if you enjoy the content.

You already know the algorithm is playing you. What nobody tells you is you can play it right back.

This week on iSoS, we dig into the actual science of why outrage spreads faster than good news online. Then we discuss some concrete moves that flip the script and start feeding you content that makes you feel like a person again, not a gladiator.

Discussed: Media Literacy, Social Media, Politics, Bipartisanship, Online Discourse.