Older/Wiser with Linda Chavez

The midterms are next week, and Gen Z accounts for a growing share of the vote. On the surface, this demographic’s politics can be hard to parse. Nearly half of Gen Zers voted for Donald Trump in 2024—but this same bloc is powering movements on the left like the Democratic Socialists of America. Rachel Janfaza is the founder of the Up and Up—a qualitative research, media, and strategy firm focused on Gen Z—and a member of Gen Z herself. She joins Linda to lay out why her generation’s voting patterns actually make sense, how issues like AI and abortion figure with her peers—and why there are, in fact, two Gen Zs.

Europe and NATO are stuck in the past. Linda’s guest is Renew Democracy Initiative CEO Uriel Epshtein, who just got back from a gathering of the top allied security officials at the Warsaw Security Forum. There, Uriel saw firsthand how the West is approaching Russia and Ukraine with yesterday’s playbook. Following Trump’s diesel deal with Russia and restrictions on Ukrainian use of Starlink—and with the midterms right around the corner—Uriel lays out what he thinks it will take for the West to stop Putin.

Americans aren’t the only ones going to the polls this fall. A week before the midterms, Israelis will vote for a new parliament—and possibly, a new prime minister. With the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Gaza playing an outsize role in US politics, the campaign in Israel will be sure to have an effect across the Atlantic. Will Benjamin Netanyahu persevere, or will he experience the same fate as Viktor Orbán in Hungary? Linda speaks with Tel Aviv-based analyst Eli Kowaz about what it means for Israel, the United States—plus, what it’s like to raise a young family in a nation at war.

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From JD Vance to two-thirds of the Supreme Court, Catholicism is a real force among American conservatives, and the religion is attracting new recruits on the right. Journalist Nate Weisberg watched his friend from college convert, joining a burgeoning group of new, young Catholics working in right-wing politics. Linda chats with Nate about his New York Magazine piece, “The Young Catholic Elite Poised to Take Over MAGA,” and asks why an old faith is newly influential.

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Where is America’s only living former Republican president, George W. Bush? Where are the titans of industry from companies like Amazon? The Supreme Court justices, lawyers at Paul, Weiss and other top firms, and politicians on Capitol Hill? The media leaders at outlets like The Washington Post? In America’s moment of democratic crisis, prominent figures who could have stood up to MAGA demagoguery bent the knee or simply disappeared. Linda’s latest guest has a new book out investigating where all of these would-be guardians ran off to. Jacob Weisberg is the author of Profiles in Cowardice and former editor-in-chief of The Slate Group. Tune in to find out why so many are sitting things out.

Donald Trump is 80. Joe Biden left office at 82. Americans are living longer than ever before—concentrating political power and resources among an aging demographic.

Yale Professor Samuel Moyn is the author of the new book Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth—and What to Do About It. He has some ideas for dealing with our disproportionately senior ruling class, and there’s no better place to discuss those ideas than on a podcast literally called Older/Wiser.

So, can the boomers be stopped? Host Linda Chavez (a baby boomer herself) and Professor Moyn debate proposals from weighting votes based on age to upper age limits for office—and the question of how to transfer wealth to the next generation.

If you’re a premium subscriber to The Next Move, you are among the first to hear this episode of the Older/Wiser podcast—24 hours before the rest of the world gets to tune in. Early access to this podcast is just one of the ways we’re saying “thank you” for your support. Premium subscribers also receive automatic entry into exciting raffles and contests and invitations to Zoom calls with Garry Kasparov and other pro-democracy leaders.

If you’re not yet a premium subscriber and you’d like to get access to these perks and support our work, there’s never been a better time to join our community. Your support drives the work of the Renew Democracy Initiative, including bringing political dissidents to meet students, business leaders, and elected officials, as well as providing humanitarian assistance to frontline communities in Ukraine. Click here for an update on our on-the-ground work in Ukraine.

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Russia is facing battlefield setbacks in Ukraine—but Moscow may not need victory there to beat the democratic West. Mother Jones Washington Bureau Chief David Corn argues in his new book, How Russia Won, that Vladimir Putin is already accomplishing his broader goals by subverting the United States from within. He makes that case to Older/Wiser’s Linda Chavez on today’s podcast.

If you’re a premium subscriber to The Next Move, you are among the first to hear this episode of the Older/Wiser podcast—24 hours before the rest of the world gets to tune in. Early access to this podcast is just one of the ways we’re saying “thank you” for your support. Premium subscribers also receive automatic entry into exciting raffles and contests and invitations to Zoom calls with Garry Kasparov and other pro-democracy leaders.

If you’re not yet a premium subscriber and you’d like to get access to these perks and support our work, there’s never been a better time to join our community. Your support drives the work of the Renew Democracy Initiative, including bringing political dissidents to meet students, business leaders, and elected officials, as well as providing humanitarian assistance to frontline communities in Ukraine. Click here for an update on our on-the-ground work in Ukraine.

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Does the West still have something to offer the world? Dalibor Roháč has an answer: economic growth—and it’s the subject of his new book, Unshackled: How Economic Growth Can Defeat the World’s Dictators. As national debt, border closures, and creeping cronyism sap the dynamism of Western democracies, Dalibor and Linda discuss how to renew the institutions that keep democratic capitalism innovative. A dynamic, open society, he says, is the West’s best answer to China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea alike.

If you’re a premium subscriber to The Next Move, you are among the first to hear this episode of the Older/Wiser podcast—24 hours before the rest of the world gets to tune in. Early access to this podcast is just one of the ways we’re saying “thank you” for your support. Premium subscribers also receive automatic entry into exciting raffles and contests and invitations to Zoom calls with Garry Kasparov and other pro-democracy leaders.

If you’re not yet a premium subscriber and you’d like to get access to these perks and support our work, there’s never been a better time to join our community. Your support drives the work of the Renew Democracy Initiative, including bringing political dissidents to meet students, business leaders, and elected officials, as well as providing humanitarian assistance to frontline communities in Ukraine. Click here for an update on our on-the-ground work in Ukraine.

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What would it take to restore faith in American democracy? Linda’s latest guest, Jennifer Dresden, has one answer: proportional representation. Jennifer is a policy strategist at Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to safeguard our institutions through litigation, advocacy, and research. She previously served as the associate director of Georgetown’s Democracy and Governance Program. Linda and Jennifer dig into how proportional representation works and why advocates say it might be better than our current system—and whether it’s realistic.

If you’re a premium subscriber to The Next Move, you are among the first to hear this episode of the Older/Wiser podcast—24 hours before the rest of the world gets to tune in. Early access to this podcast is just one of the ways we’re saying “thank you” for your support. Premium subscribers also receive automatic entry into exciting raffles and contests and invitations to Zoom calls with Garry Kasparov and other pro-democracy leaders.

If you’re not yet a premium subscriber and you’d like to get access to these perks and support our work, there’s never been a better time to join our community. Your support drives the work of the Renew Democracy Initiative, including bringing political dissidents to meet students, business leaders, and elected officials, as well as providing humanitarian assistance to frontline communities in Ukraine. Click here for an update on our on-the-ground work in Ukraine.

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Nathan Law became Hong Kong’s youngest-ever elected lawmaker at 23—then watched his city’s promised freedoms rapidly collapse as China tightened its grip. Jailed, disqualified from office, and forced to flee before the 2020 National Security Law took effect, Law now lives in exile in the UK while Beijing harasses his family back home. In this episode of Older/Wiser, Linda and Nathan discuss Hong Kong’s broken “one country, two systems” promise, the human cost of standing up to an authoritarian regime, transnational repression on foreign soil, and why Nathan still continues his advocacy even from thousands of miles away.

If you’re a premium subscriber to The Next Move, you are among the first to hear this episode of the Older/Wiser podcast—24 hours before the rest of the world gets to tune in. Early access to this podcast is just one of the ways we’re saying “thank you” for your support. Premium subscribers also receive automatic entry into exciting raffles and contests and invitations to Zoom calls with Garry Kasparov and other pro-democracy leaders.

If you’re not yet a premium subscriber and you’d like to get access to these perks and support our work, there’s never been a better time to join our community. Your support drives the work of the Renew Democracy Initiative, including bringing political dissidents to meet students, business leaders, and elected officials, as well as providing humanitarian assistance to frontline communities in Ukraine. Click here for an update on our on-the-ground work in Ukraine.

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