Keen On America

What is the ideological alternative to Trumpism? In The Purposeful Warrior, Michigan’s Democratic candidate for Governor, Jocelyn Benson, offers “a road map for shattering the status quo and standing up for ourselves, our communities, and our country”. Benson’s book, with its focus on common decency, could certainly be read as an ideological alternative to transactional Trumpism. But The Purposeful Warrior, with its self-help sounding title and laundry list of moral truisms, might alternatively be interpreted as a defense of the status quo by a Harvard Law School educated politician.

Five Key Takeaways

* Being a "purposeful warrior" means fighting with focus, standing up for what's right even when it's difficult, and building a "bravery muscle" through repeated acts of courage.

* Benson's experience defending Michigan's 2020 election results against pressure from President Trump - which led to armed protesters at her home - became a defining example of her standing up for democratic principles.

* True strength combines courage with grace and empathy - Benson emphasizes that warriors need both grit and forgiveness to be effective.

* Building a personal "board of directors" or trusted circle of advisors is crucial for staying aligned with your purpose when faced with challenges.

* Democrats need to focus less on rhetoric and more on delivering tangible results that improve people's daily lives to rebuild trust with voters, particularly around economic concerns.

Jocelyn Benson is Michigan’s 43rd Secretary of State. In this role she is focused on ensuring elections are secure and accessible, and dramatically improving customer experiences for all who interact with Secretary of State offices. Benson is the author of State Secretaries of State: Guardians of the Democratic Process, the first major book on the role of the secretary of state in enforcing election and campaign finance laws. She is also the Chair of Michigan’s Task Force on Women in Sports, created by Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2019 to advance opportunities for women in Michigan as athletes and sports leaders. A graduate of Harvard Law School and expert on civil rights law, education law and election law, Benson served as dean of Wayne State University Law School in Detroit. When she was appointed dean at age 36, she became the youngest woman in U.S. history to lead a top-100, accredited law school. She continues to serve as vice chair of the advisory board for the Levin Center at Wayne Law, which she founded with former U.S. Senantor Carl Levin. Previously, Benson was an associate professor and associate director of Wayne Law’s Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights. Prior to her election, she served as CEO of the Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality (RISE), a national nonprofit organization using the unifying power of sports to improve race relations. Benson is co-founder and former president of Military Spouses of Michigan, a network dedicated to providing support and services to military spouses and their children. In 2015, she became one of the youngest women in history to be inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame.

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.

There are few more respected economic analysts in the world than the Financial Times Chief Economic Commentator Martin Wolf. Yesterday, we ran a conversation with Wolf about the survival of American democracy. Today, we talk Trumpian economics, particularly tariff policy. Wolf characterizes Trump's trade policies as historically unprecedented in their scale, comprehensive nature, and unpredictability. But are they “dumb”, I asked? He acknowledges genuine issues driving tariff policy like global imbalances and deindustrialization but believes the current approach won't solve these problems. Wolf explains that the US-China trade war is causing significant economic disruption, with prohibitive tariffs likely stopping trade between the world’s two dominant economies. He warns that investor confidence is damaged by unpredictability, which will take years to restore, and questions the wisdom of dismantling America's alliance system. Dumb, dumb and dumber.

Five Key Takeaways

* Trump's tariff policies are unprecedented in economic history for their scale, comprehensive nature affecting most of the world, and extraordinary unpredictability.

* There are legitimate economic problems regarding global imbalances and deindustrialization, but Wolf believes the current approach won't solve these issues and may worsen them.

* The economic consequences include potential slowdowns in US retail sales, reduced profits for retailers, job losses, and decreased manufacturing investment due to uncertainty.

* Investor confidence is severely damaged by unpredictability, with concerns about US government stability reflected in Treasury markets, and this uncertainty could take "a decade or two" to fully dissipate.

* Wolf compares the current US withdrawal from global leadership to America's post-WWI rejection of the League of Nations, calling it "strikingly willful" and potentially destabilizing for the global order.

Full Transcript

Andrew Keen: Hello everybody, we are at the London office of the Financial Times with the chief economics commentator of the newspaper, one of the world's leading economists, Martin Wolf. Martin's been on the show many times. Martin, before we went live you suggested to me that this was your moment, that suddenly economics has become interesting again. Is it because of this Tariff thing that a certain Donald Trump has introduced well, there's no doubt

Martin Wolf: what you describe as this tariff thing has created a novelty, to put it mildly. He's done things that as far as I can see have never been done before in the history of economics. So and you don't normally live through an experience with a set of policies, trade policy, which has been pretty unexciting since the Second World War, and you're suddenly in a different world. And that was not quite what we expected. In addition to that, it's not even as though it's sort of predictably in a different world. It was sort of every day or so. It seems to be something different. So in that sense, yes, it is very, very exciting. Now, there are other things going on, obviously in the administration and other areas which might turn out to be even more important. The attack on science and the funding of science, for example, the attack on universities. These are all very, important, the dismantling of important parts of the government, the relationship with allies, but I think this tariff war is remarkable for its scale. We've never seen changes in tariffs on this level before. It's comprehensive nature that base effects most of the world and it's extraordinary unpredictability. So this This is a new world for economists and we will be studying this, I'm absolutely sure, for half a century.

Andrew Keen: My sense, Martin, is that one of the reasons you're enjoying it is because you're a natural polemicist and you haven't pulled your punches in your columns. I think you recently wrote in one of your last FTPs that America is inevitably going to lose in this war against China. Is it as dumb? As it seems. I mean, you're the chief economist at the chief economics commentator at the FT, one of the world's, as I said, most respected economists. You're an expert on this area. Is it just dumb? Are there any coherent economic arguments in favor of tariffs, of what they're doing? Well, I think...

Martin Wolf: There is a genuine problem, and part of that is to do with trade. And more broadly the balance of payments, which is affecting the U.S., is genuine. There's a real set of issues, and economists, including me actually, have been discussing these problems, which you might call actually two problems, the global imbalances problem and the deindustrialization problem. These are two real problems, economic and social. The problem is that it's very hard for me to see how these policies that are now being introduced will solve those problems worldwide, and they are global problems. And the way the war is being pursued, if you like, by the Trump administration is such as, I think, inevitably to lose the many of the allies they ought to have in this contest and therefore they are playing this match, if we like, without the help of lots of people who should be on their side. And I don't think the way they're going about it now will solve that problem. I think making it worse but yes there are a couple of genuine real problems which is perfectly reasonable for them want to for them to want to address address if they can do so in a coherent well-planned

Andrew Keen: relatively inclusive way is it a problem with China essentially in terms of China producing too much and not buying enough of American goods is that the heart of the problem I think the problem China's

Martin Wolf: not the only such country. They are right to observe that Germany has also behaved somewhat in the same way, but Germany's capacity for disruption, though very real in Europe and I wrote about that in my book on the crisis published about a decade ago, is not global. The rise of China was bound to be a massively disruptive event. How could it not be? Suddenly there's a new peer competitor out there in the world. I don't think we had the right or the capacity to prevent its rise I would have strongly opposed any such effort but some people I'm sure would disagree but China is a vast country with a tremendously capable population and an even more capable government than we thought 20 or 30 years ago and its rise was going to be very disruptive its disruption is for the world I mean it's also disrupted Europe a lot it's disrupted any country that is competing with Chinese manufacturers. Actually, that includes Japan. Japan has been displaced as a manufacturing exporter to significant degree by China. So it's not just about America. One of the mistakes is thinking it's just about America. The rise of China is a fundamental transformational moment. And there is a specific problem with China, which is it's been following the general line of East Asian manufacturing-led development but because it's much bigger and because there are features of its economy particularly excess savings which are even larger than in other countries the disruption is even bigger so there's a genuine disruptive force here which we should have started dealing with consistently.

Andrew Keen: About two decades ago. My sense is that Trump is trying in his own peculiar way to walk back some of these policies. But has the damage already been done? Well, that's a very interesting question.

I’ve been in London this week talking to America watchers about the current situation in the United States. First up is Edmund Fawcett, the longtime Economist correspondent in DC and historian of both liberalism and conservatism. Fawcett argues that Trump’s MAGA movement represents a kind of third way between liberalism and conservatism - a version of American populism resurrected for our anti-globalist early 21st century. He talks about how economic inequality fuels Trumpism, with middle-class income shares dropping while the wealthy prosper. He critiques both what he calls right-wing intellectual "kitsch" and the left's lack of strategic vision beyond its dogma of identity politics. Lacking an effective counter-narrative to combat Trumpism, Fawcett argues, liberals require not only sharper messaging but also a reinvention of what it means to be modern in our globalized age of resurrected nationalism.

5 Key Takeaways

* European reactions to Trump mix shock with recognition that his politics have deep American roots.

* Economic inequality (declining middle-class wealth) provides the foundation for Trump's political appeal.

* The American left lacks an effective counter-narrative and strategic vision to combat Trumpism.

* Both right-wing intellectualism and left-wing identity politics suffer from forms of "kitsch" and American neurosis.

* The perception of America losing its position as the embodiment of modernity creates underlying anxiety.

Full Transcript

Andrew Keen: Hello everybody, we are in London this week, looking westward, looking at the United States, spending some time with some distinguished Englishmen, or half-Englishmen, who have spent a lot of their lives in the United States, and Edmund Fawcett, former Economist correspondent in America, the author of a number of important books, particularly, Histories of Liberalism and Conservatism, is remembering America, Edmund. What's your first memory of America?

Edmund Fawcett: My first memory of America is a traffic accident on Park Avenue, looking down as a four-year-old from our apartment. I was there from the age of two to four, then again as a school child in Washington for a few years when my father was working. He was an international lawyer. But then, after that, back in San Francisco, where I was a... I kind of hacked as an editor for Straight Arrow Press, which was the publishing arm of Rolling Stone. This was in the early 70s. These were the, it was the end of the glory days of Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, the anti-war movement in Vietnam. It was exciting. A lot was going on, a lot was changing. And then not long after that, I came back to the U.S. for The Economist as their correspondent in Washington. That was in 1976, and I stayed there until 1983. We've always visited. Our son and grandson are American. My wife is or was American. She gave up her citizenship last year, chiefly for practical reasons. She said I would always feel American. But our regular visits have ended, of course. Being with my background, my mother was American, my grandfather was American. It is deeply part of my outlook, it's part of my world and so I am always very interested. I read quite a bit of the American press, not just the elite liberal press, every day. I keep an eye on through Real Clear Politics, which has got a very good sort of gazetteer. It's part of my weather.

Andrew Keen: Edmund, I know you can't speak on behalf of Europe, but I'm going to ask a dumb question. Maybe you'll give me a smarter answer than the question. What's the European, the British take on what's happening in America? What's happened in this first quarter of 2025?

Edmund Fawcett: I think a large degree of shock and horror, that's just the first reaction. If you'll allow me a little space, I think then there's a second reaction. The first reaction is shock and terror, with good reason, and nobody likes being talked to in the way that Vance talked to them, ignorantly and provocatively about free speech, which he feels he hasn't really thought hard enough about, and besides, it was I mean... Purely commercial, in largely commercial interest. The Europeans are shocked by the American slide from five, six, seven decades of internationalism. Okay, American-led, but still internationalist, cooperative, they're deeply shocked by that. And anybody who cares, as many Europeans do, about the texture, the caliber of American democracy and liberalism, are truly shocked by Trump's attacks on the courts, his attacks on the universities, his attack on the press.

Andrew Keen: You remember, of course, Edmund, that famous moment in Casablanca where the policeman said he was shocked, truly shocked when of course he wasn't. Is your shock for real? Your... A good enough scholar of the United States to understand that a lot of the stuff that Trump is bringing to the table isn't new. We've had an ongoing debate in the show about how authentically American Trump is, whether he is the F word fascist or whether he represents some other indigenous strain in US political culture. What's your take?

Edmund Fawcett: No, and that's the response to the shock. It's when you look back and see this Trump is actually deeply American. There's very little new here. There's one thing that is new, which I'll come to in a moment, and that returns the shock, but the shock is, is to some extent absorbed when Europeans who know about this do reflect that Trump is deeply American. I mean, there is a, he likes to cite McKinley, good, okay, the Republicans were the tariff party. He likes to say a lot of stuff that, for example, the populist Tom Watson from the South, deeply racist, but very much speaking for the working man, so long as he was a white working man. Trump goes back to that as well. He goes back in the presidential roster. Look at Robert Taft, competitor for the presidency against Eisenhower. He lost, but he was a very big voice in the Republican Party in the 1940s and 50s. Robert Taft, Jr. didn't want to join NATO. He pushed through over Truman's veto, the Taft-Hartley bill that as good as locked the unions out, the trade unions out of much of the part of America that became the burgeoning economic America, the South and the West. Trump is, sorry, forgive me, Taft, was in many ways as a hard-right Republican. Nixon told Kissinger, professors are the enemy. Reagan gave the what was it called? I forget the name of the speech that he gave in endorsing Barry Goldwater at the 1964 Republican Convention. This in a way launched the new Republican assault on liberal republicanism. Rockefeller was the loser. Reagan, as it were, handed the palm to Rocket Goldwater. He lost to Johnson, but the sermon they were using, the anti-liberal went into vernacular and Trump is merely in a way echoing that. If you were to do a movie called Trump, he would star, of course, but somebody who was Nixon and Reagan's scriptwright, forgive me, somebody who is Nixon and Reagan's Pressman, Pat Buchanan, he would write the script of the Trump movie. Go back and read, look at some of Pat Buchanan's books, some of his articles. He was... He said virtually everything that Trump says. America used to be great, it is no longer great. America has enemies outside that don't like it, that we have nothing to do with, we don't need...

What’s it like to have to work physically hard to make a living in America today? In A Living, the writer and physician Michael Stein shares conversations with his working-class patients. He explores how work shapes identity, provides meaning beyond income, and impacts upon physical and mental health. Stein promotes the dignity of physical labor, noting that many workers find deep satisfaction in producing tangible results, while highlighting how America’s healthcare system often fails to recognize the importance of work in patients' lives.

Five Key Takeaways

* Work is deeply meaningful beyond income - people work to make friends, exert power, learn new skills, and find purpose. For many working-class Americans, their labor provides a core sense of identity and belonging.

* Physical labor often provides a satisfaction that "b******t jobs" (white-collar positions) lack, as workers can see the tangible results of their efforts at the end of the day, giving them a sense of accomplishment.

* The American healthcare system spends too much on treatment and not enough on prevention, with doctors having limited time to understand the full context of patients' lives, including how their work affects their health.

* The rise of AI may flip traditional hierarchies, potentially making physical labor more secure and valued than knowledge work, as robots won't easily replace plumbers, electricians, and other skilled manual laborers.

* Unemployment is fundamentally unhealthy - when factories close or people lose physical work, it has measurable negative impacts on community health outcomes, highlighting work's importance to wellbeing beyond financial security.

Does the United States of America still have anything going for it? According to the Arizona based Larry Aldrich, co-author of the upcoming What’s Right About America, there remains much to celebrate about his country’s foundational strengths, its resilience in the face of sometimes daunting challenges, and its continued innovation. He argues that America's focus on individual empowerment and the rule of law has created a structure that’s enabled the country to overcome its difficulties and divisions throughout its turbulent history. While acknowledging current political divisiveness over issues like immigration reform, Aldrich maintains that the American system of checks and balances continues to work and will enable the nation to navigate through its currently turbulent moment.

Five Point Takeaway

* Aldrich identifies five core American traits: courage, imagination, grit, generosity, and optimism, which he believes contribute to the nation's continued strength and resilience.

* He argues that America's innovative spirit continues to thrive through private sector achievements like SpaceX, which builds upon foundations established by government initiatives like NASA.

* Aldrich believes the American system of checks and balances, though currently stressed, is functioning as designed and will help correct excesses in governmental power.

* On immigration, he advocates for more humane policies and increased legal immigration, arguing that immigrants fill essential roles in the economy that many Americans don't want.

* Despite describing himself as a libertarian who has never voted for a Democrat at the federal level, Aldrich expresses views that sometimes align with centrist positions, including criticism of excessive regulation and opposition to political extremes.

Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Is any criticism of Israel, by definition, anti-semitic? Not according to Uri Kaufman who, in his new book American Intifada, examines what he calls the "new antisemitism" following the Gaza war. That said, Kaufman nonetheless believes that progressive institutions and figures like Obama and the New York Times manifest a form of antisemitism by holding Israel to different moral standards than other countries. He contends that many supposedly well-meaning media organizations willfully misrepresent facts about Gaza and Israel's actions, and that the path to peace requires Palestinians to unambiguously accept a Jewish state in the Middle East. Perhaps. Although just as Uri Kaufman believes progressives hold Israel to different moral standards than other countries, I wonder if Zionists like Kaufman hold Palestinians to higher moral standards than other disempowered peoples.

Five Key Takeaways

* Kaufman defines "new antisemitism" as discrimination against Jews that comes from well-intentioned progressives who unknowingly apply different standards to Israel than to other countries.

* He argues that media organizations like the New York Times and BBC misrepresent facts about Gaza, incorrectly labeling it as "occupied" despite Israel's withdrawal, and uncritically reporting Palestinian casualty figures.

* Kaufman believes many progressives automatically side with Palestinians as "people of color" against Israelis, who they view as a "white group of privilege," regardless of factual context.

* He maintains that criticism of Israel can be legitimate without being antisemitic, but claims many critics apply double standards they wouldn't use for other conflicts.

* Kaufman believes peace will only come when Palestinians unambiguously accept a Jewish state in the Middle East, and suggests that educating progressives about their biases is needed to change Western perceptions about Israel.

Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In today’s discussion with David Masciotra about the first hundred days of Trump 2.0 I made the (Freudian) error of referring to it as a “hundred years”. It certainly feels like a hundred years. So how should the Democrats respond to Trump’s avalanche of illiberalism? Masciotra argues they should emulate Ted Kennedy's forceful 1987 rhetoric against Robert Bork, focusing on the existential threats to civil rights and democracy rather than worrying about bread and butter economic issues. Masciotra criticizes the Dems for neglecting their working class base while pursuing moderate suburban voters and running Kamala-style cheerful campaigns. He believes Democrats lack the unified messaging infrastructure that the Republicans have built and suggests they need to balance aggressive opposition with muscular Kennedyesque idealism to effectively counter Trump's assault upon American democracy.

Five Key Takeaways

* Masciotra believes Democrats should adopt Ted Kennedy's direct, aggressive rhetorical approach from his Robert Bork speech to counter Trump's policies.

* He argues Democrats often run positive campaigns while Republicans run fear-based campaigns, which are typically more effective.

* The Democratic Party lacks the unified messaging infrastructure the Republican Party has built over decades.

* Masciotra suggests Democrats are too focused on chasing moderate voters while neglecting their base, unlike Republicans who effectively rally their core supporters.

* He contends that after condemning Trump's actions, Democrats need to offer Kennedy-like idealism that gives people "ripples of hope" and something more positive to work toward.

Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Few analysts are more familiar with the politics of both contemporary Turkey and the United States than my old friend , the distinguished Turkish political scientist Soli Ozel. Drawing on his decades of experience in both countries, Ozel, currently a senior fellow at the Institut Montaigne, explains how democratic institutions are similarly being challenged in Trump’s America and Erdogan's Turkey. He discusses the imprisonment of Istanbul's popular mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, restrictive speech in American universities, and how economic decline eventually undermines authoritarian regimes. Ozel emphasizes that effective opposition requires both public discontent and compelling leadership alternatives, which Turkey has developed but America currently sorely lacks. Most intriguingly, he suggests that Harvard's legal battle against Trump could be as significant as the 1925 Scopes trial which marked the end of another bout of anti-scientific hysteria in America.

5 Key Takeaways

* Populist authoritarianism follows a similar pattern regardless of left/right ideology - controlling judiciary, media, and institutions while claiming to represent "the people" against elites.

* Academic freedom in America has declined significantly, with Ozel noting he experienced more classroom freedom in Turkey than at Yale in 2019.

* Economic pain combined with a crisis of legitimacy is crucial for challenging authoritarian regimes, but requires credible opposition leadership to succeed.

* Istanbul mayor Imamoglu has emerged as a powerful opposition figure in Turkey by appealing across political divides and demonstrating practical governance skills.

* Turkey's strategic importance has increased due to its position between war zones (Syria and Ukraine) and Europe's growing need for security partners as American support becomes less certain.

Full Transcript

Andrew Keen: Hello, everybody. It's not great news these days that the U.S. Brand has been, so to speak, tarnished as a headline today on CNN. I'm quoting them. CNN, of course, is not Donald Trump's biggest fan. Trump tarnishes the U S brand as a rock of stability in the global economy. I'm not sure if the US was ever really a rock of stability for anything except itself. But we on the show as. As loyal viewers and listeners know, we've been going around the world, taking stock of the US brand, how it's viewed around the word. We did a show last week with Simon Cooper, the Dutch-based Paris writer of the Financial Times, who believes it's time for all Americans to come and live in Europe. And then with Jemima Kelly, another London-based correspondent. And I thought we would broaden. I asked european perspective by visiting my old friend very old friend Soli Ozel. iVve known him for almost forty years he's a. Senior fellow of international relations and turkey at the montane institute he's talking to us from vienna but he is a man who is born and spends a lot of his time thinking about. Turkey, he has an interesting new piece out in the Institute Montaigne. Turkey, a crisis of legitimacy and massive social mobilization in a regional power. I want to talk to Soli later in this conversation about his take on what's happening in Turkey. But first of all, Soli, before we went live, you noted that you first came to America in September 1977. You were educated here, undergraduate, graduate, both at uh, sized in Washington DC and then at UC Berkeley, where you and I studied together at the graduate program. Um, how do you feel almost 50 years, sorry, we're dating ourselves, but how did you feel taking off your political science cap, your analyst cap, how did you feel about what's happening in America as, as a man who invested your life in some ways in the promise of America, and particularly American education universities.

Soli Ozel: Yeah, I mean, I, yes, I came to the States or I went to the States in September of 1977. It was a very different America, post Vietnam. And I went through an avant garde college liberal arts college.

Andrew Keen: Bennington wasn't

Soli Ozel: Bennington College, and I've spent about 11 years there. And you and I met in 1983 in Berkeley. And then I also taught at American universities. I taught at UC Santa Cruz, Northwestern, SAIS itself, University of Washington, Yale, and had fellowships in different parts. Now, of course, in those years, a lot has changed in the US. The US has changed. In fact, I'm writing a piece now on Christopher Lash. And reading Christopher Lasch work from the 60s and the 1970s, in a way, you wonder why Trumpism has not really emerged a bit earlier than when it did. So, a lot of the... Dynamics that have brought Donald Trump to power, not once, but twice, and in spite of the fact that, you know, he was tried and found guilty and all that. Many of those elements have been there definitely since the 1980s, but Lascch identified especially this divergence between educated people and less educated people between brainies and or the managerial class and the working class in the United States. So, in a way, it looks like the Trumpism's triumph came even a bit late, although there were a couple of attempts perhaps in the early 1990s. One was Pat Buchanan and the other one, Ross Perot, which we forget that Ross Perot got 19% of the vote against in the contest when Bill Clinton. Won the election against George H.W. Bush. So underground, if you will, a lot was happening in the United States.

Andrew Keen: All right. And it's interesting you bring up Lash, there's that sort of whole school Lasch Daniel Bell, of course, we had Daniel Bell's son, David Bell, on the show recently. And there's a lot of discussion, as I'm sure you know, about the nativism of Trump, whether it's uniquely American, whether it was somehow inevitable. We've done last week, we did a show about comparing what's happening now in America to what happened after the First World War. Being less analytical, Solé, my question was more an emotional one to you as someone who has built their life around freedom of expression in American universities. You were at Bennington, you were at SICE, you're at UC Berkeley, as you know, you taught at UC Santa Cruz and Yale and many other places. You come in and out of this country giving lectures. How do you personally feel about what's happening?

Soli Ozel: Yeah, okay. I mean, in that sense, again, the United States, by the way, I mean the United States has been changing independently of Mr. Trump's presidency. It was much more difficult to be, I mean when I went to college in Bennington College, you really did not bite your tongue when you were going to speak either as a student or a professor. And increasingly, and especially in my last bout at Yale in 2019, I felt that, you know, there were a lot of constraints on what you could say or how you could say it, whether you would call it walkism, political correctness, whatever it was. It was a much, the atmosphere at the university was much more constrained in terms of what transpired in the classroom and that I mean, in Turkey, I had more freedom in terms of how we debated things in class that I felt that...

Andrew Keen: That is astonishing. So you had more freedom in...

Soli Ozel: As well, you did in Yale in 1990. I'm talking about not the political aspect of things, but how you debate something, okay, whether or not, I mean, there would be lots of views and you could you could present them without insulting anyone, however you presented them was fine, and this is how...

Americans, it’s time to move to Europe! The American geo-strategist Jason Pack anticipated last week’s advice from Simon Kuper and moved to London a few years ago during the first Trump Presidency. Pack, the host of the excellent Disorder podcast, confesses to be thrilled to have escaped MAGA America. He describes the esthetics of contemporary Washington DC as "post-apocalyptic" and criticizes what he sees as the Trump administration's hostile atmosphere, ideological purity tests, and institutional destruction. Contrasting this with Europe's ideological fluidity, Pack warns that Trump's isolationist policies are increasing global disorder by fundamentally undermining America's global leadership role with its erstwhile European allies.

Five Key Takeaways

* Pack left America because he found the "esthetics" of working in policy and media spaces increasingly distasteful, particularly during Trump's first administration.

* He argues that European political systems allow for greater ideological fluidity, while American politics demands strict partisan loyalty.

* Pack describes Washington DC as "post-apocalyptic" with institutions functioning like zombies - going through motions without accomplishing anything meaningful.

* Unlike European populists who want to control institutions, Pack believes Trump's administration aims to destroy government institutions entirely.

* Pack warns that America's deteriorating relationships with traditional allies is creating a "rudderless world" with increased global disorder and potential for conflict.

Full Transcript

Andrew Keen: Hello, everybody. Over the last few days, we've been focusing on the impressions of America, of Trump's America around the world. We had the Financial Times' controversial columnist, Simon Cooper, on the show, arguing that it's the end of the American dream. He had a piece in the FT this week, arguing that it's time to move to Europe for Americans. Not everyone agrees. We had the London-based FT writer Jemima Kelly on the show recently, also suggesting that she hasn't quite given up on America. She is, of course, a Brit living in the UK and looking at America from London. My guest today, another old friend, is Jason Pack. He is the host of the Excellent Disorder podcast. Jason's been on the shows lots of times before. He's an observer of the world's early 21st century disorder. And he is an American living in London. So I'm thrilled that Jason is back on the show. Jason, did you have a chance to look at Simon Cooper's piece? Is it time for Americans to move to Europe?

Jason Pack: You've already moved. Well, he's just popularizing what I've believed for eight or 10 years already. So yeah, I looked at the piece. I really enjoyed your podcast with him. I don't think many Americans will move because most Americans are not particularly global in their outlook. And as disenchanted as they will be, their networks of family and of perspective are in America. Some elites in media and finance will move. But for me, I just found the aesthetics of America becoming distasteful when I worked in D.C. during the first Trump administration. And that's why I pursued a European citizenship.

Andrew Keen: Jason, it's interesting that you choose the word aesthetics. Two thoughts on that. Firstly, America has never been distinguished for its aesthetics. People never came to America for aesthetics. It's never been a particularly beautiful country, a very dynamic place, a very powerful place. So why do you choose that word aesthetic?

Jason Pack: Because for most upper middle class Americans, life under Trump, particularly if they're white and heterosexual, will not change tremendously. But the aesthetics of working in the policy space or in the media will change. Having to deal with all the BS that we hear when we wake up and turn on the TV in the morning, having to interact with Republican nutcase friends who say, oh, the fat is being trimmed by the doge and don't worry about all those people who've been being laid off. The aesthetics of it are ugly and mean. And I have found among some Republican colleagues and friends of mine that they love the vileness of this dog-eat-dog aesthetic.

Andrew Keen: Yeah, it's an interesting way of putting it. And I understand exactly what you're saying. I'm less concerned with the aesthetics as with the reality. And my sense in some ways of what's happening is that the Trump people are obsessed with what you call aesthetics. They want to appear mean. I'm not actually sure that they're quite as mean as they'd like to think they are.

Jason Pack: Oh, they're pretty mean. I mean, people are running around the NIH offices, according to colleagues of mine. And if you're out to the bathroom and your card is inserted in your computer, they go in, they steal the data from your computer.

Andrew Keen: Actually, I take your point. What I meant more by that is that whereas most traditional authoritarian regimes hide their crimes against migrants. They deny wrongdoing. My sense of the Trump regime, or certainly a lot of the people involved in this Trump administration, is that they actually exaggerate it because it gives them pleasure and it somehow benefits their brand. I'm not convinced that they're quite as bad as they'd like to think.

Jason Pack: Oh, I agree with that. They make Schadenfreude a principle. They want to showcase that they enjoy other people's pain. It's a bizarre psychological thing. Trump, for example, wanted to show his virility and his meanness, probably because he's an inner coward and he's not that feral. But we digress in terms of the aesthetics of the individual American wanting to leave. I experienced American government, like the State Department, and then, the bureaucracy of the policy space, say think tanks, or even the government relations trade space, say working for oil companies and government relations, as already authoritarian and ass-kissing in America, and the aesthetics of those industries I have always preferred in Europe, and that's only diverging.

Andrew Keen: One of the things that always struck me about Washington, D.C. It was always uncomfortable as an imperial city. It always has been since the end of the Second World War, with America dominating the world as being one of two or perhaps the only super power in the world. But Washington, DC seems to always have been uncomfortable wearing its imperial mantle cloak in comparison, I think, to cities like London or Paris. I wonder whether, I'm not sure how much time you've spent back in America since Trump came back to power. I wonder if in that sense DC is trying to catch up with London and Paris.

Jason Pack: I actually was giving a briefing in Congress to staffers of the House Foreign Affairs Committee only three weeks ago, and DC seemed post-apocalyptic to me. Many of my favorite restaurants were closing. There was traffic jams at bizarre hours of the day, which I think this is because the Trump people don't know how public transport works and they just ride their cars everywhere. So, yes, it seemed very bizarre being back. You were trying to gauge the interlocutor you were speaking to, were they merely pretending to be on board with Trump's stuff, but they actually secretly think it's ridiculous, or were they true believers? And you had to assess that befor...

Don’t say we weren’t warned. Project 2025, the 2022 Heritage Foundation’s 900-page policy blueprint, unambiguously plotted out the strategy of the second Trump administration. As Atlantic staff writer David A. Graham makes clear in his refreshingly brief The Project, the Heritage Foundation document is an verbose summary of Trump 2.0’s ambition to reshape government by strengthening executive power, promote traditional family structures, eliminate climate regulations, attack DEI initiatives, restructure the civil service and (gasp) outlaw pornography. Graham sees this project as both radical in its methods yet traditional in its values, produced by isolationists intent on resurrecting their fantasy of small town America.

Five Point Takeaway

* Project 2025 was created by former Trump administration officials under the Heritage Foundation to provide a comprehensive policy agenda and staffing strategy for a second Republican presidency.

* Despite Trump publicly distancing himself from the project during his campaign, many of its policies are now being implemented, particularly through executive orders and civil service reforms.

* The project emphasizes traditional Christian values, binary gender definitions, nuclear families, and aims to use government power to promote these views through various policies and incentives.

* On climate, the project seeks to eliminate climate research, end climate-related regulations, and promote fossil fuel extraction, prioritizing economic growth over environmental concerns.

* Graham believes Democrats could learn from the project's systematic, forward-thinking approach rather than remaining reactive, as Republicans are reshaping government in ways that may be difficult to reverse.

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