Robert Wright's Nonzero

Josh: World War I shattered empires, ethnic cleansing created nation-states ... How the US and Russia wound up cooperating to fight ISIS and Sunni militias ... Why Turkey is holding up NATO membership for Sweden and Finland ... By helping to keep Syria divided, is the US giving ISIS free rein? ... What Turkey wants in exchange for letting Sweden and Finland into NATO ... In retrospect, should the US not have intervened in Syria? ... Why Russia-Ukraine might become another devastating frozen conflict ... Josh: Putin misapplied the lessons of Syria to Ukraine ... How US sanctions impede conflict resolution in the Middle East ...

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Mickey’s ingenious—and not at all far-fetched—solution to the Kamala problem ... Failures to unravel the Gordian knot of gun control ... Has Biden’s approval hit rock-bottom? Mickey hopes not ... The most plausible path to a ceasefire in Ukraine ... The Hillary Clinton-Cold War II connection ... Hillary lawyer Michael Sussmann acquitted ... Trump aide Peter Navarro indicted ... Inflation and Omicron: good news, bad news for Biden? ... Parrot Room preview: Depp-Heard verdict, the Ben Wittes defense of Michael Sussmann, what’s up with Tucker Carlson’s son?, Sheryl Sandberg’s political ambitions, prospective chief of staff replacement’s Harvey Weinstein problem, Ann Coulter starts a Substack, Freddie deBoer gets Ben Smith’d, making heads or tails of rising non-binary rates, Ukraine War spin, Dead End, Undone, Severance ...

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Why Jon’s dire Atlantic piece demanded a Bob-response ... Are today’s problems typical technological growing pains or alarming signs of demise? ... How much blame should social media get for the mess we’re in? ... Do today’s progressives recognize social progress? ... Jon: Productive “managed conflict” has become nearly impossible ... Will self-help save the planet? ... Can America survive without cultural common ground? ... Will the flip side of intranational tension be international cohesion? ... The three changes Jon thinks could save American society ...

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A brief word about civility. Why is Elon Musk feuding with AOC? Mickey vs. Andy McCarthy on the Sussman case. Is the FBI really the bad guy? Is it crazy to think video games can cause violence? Run, Michelle, run! Is Pakistan coming apart? Shouldn’t Frank Foer defend his Alfa Bank story again? The case for Peter Beinart. Kerry’s failure to undermine Trump on Iran. Biden’s failure to reverse Trump on Iran. Kelly Anne Conway pushes Trump’s hot button. Why Trump can’t quit Jared. Bob’s Dead End update. Mickey thinks it’s time for an Yglesias self-reckoning. Everybody likes Goodfellas, but the Copacabana is not the longest tracking shot. And everybody likes After Hours. Will Peter Thiel control two senators? Three generations of Bushes are enough. Do the Clintons really need all that money? Is writing about national service inherently boring? Does Ukraine show that all big military platforms are dead ducks? Will Bob ever stop talking about Ukraine media bias? Mickey’s Inferno: sports talk radio. Severance and Station Eleven: There’s just no pleasing Mickey. Gratuitous musical reference of the week.

This dialogue is (in part, at least) a continuation of a publicly available dialogue taped earlier in the day.

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California voting information materials fail the cognitive empathy test ... Will the latest mass shooting spur effective federal gun legislation? ... Mickey: Schumer will learn from Obama’s post-Sandy Hook political mistakes ... Are elites and geniuses more juvenile than the rest of us? ... Bob asks: Why is Western media so slow to report bad news from Ukraine? ... Do we really know “what the Ukrainian people want”? ... The status of the US’s “strategic ambiguity” toward Taiwan becomes more ambiguous ... Mickey: Americans’ enthusiasm for funding Ukraine is cooling ... Trump’s Republican bêtes noires win in Georgia ... Parrot Room preview: Franklin Foer’s role in the Sussman case, Severance, Kellyanne Conway’s book, Elon Musk’s tweets, Peter Thiel the kingmaker, the Bush dynasty vs. the Clinton dynasty, Luke Russert reopens the national service debate, monkeypox, the Institute for the Study of War’s role in the Ukraine bad news lag, the Iran nuclear deal, the Dead End podcast, and Station Eleven ...

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Suzanne’s new book, The Apocalypse and the End of History: Modern Jihad and the Crisis of Liberalism ... The ongoing War on Terror in the age of the new Cold War ... Jihadism as a modern phenomenon ... The recent evolution of the doctrine of jihad ... What about modernity are jihadists – and US right-wingers – reacting against? ... Suzanne: To thwart authoritarians, build robust democratic communities ... Who is fighting the liberal status quo? ... Are Democrats too idealistic? ... Dispelling the myth of primordial ethnic tribalism ...

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The inevitable Musk sex scandal. Musk is better at Twitter than Trump. Who picked Johnny Depp as the anti-Me-Too poster boy? Bob got addicted to the Depp-Heard trial and he doesn’t know why. The hard case Tucker Carlson critics are ducking. Bob lets Mickey go on. Up to a point. What does Ron Brownstein mean by ‘transformation’ exactly? The craziest anti-deplorable. Twitter eats Ben Wittes’s brain. Zelensky lowers expectations. Biden’s charter school sellout? The three levels of Severance. Did Tucker’s mom get to him? The race to identify Biden’s core problem: Megalomania gaining down the stretch. New Jersey corruption: Just when Bob thought he was out, they pulled him back in. Why would BBB cause inflation?—Can Larry Summers be wrong? The origins of Ukrainian nationalism. Mickey’s crazy explanation of Spanish anarchism. Good news and bad news about Covid vaccination. Parrot impersonates Elon Musk singing ‘Get Rhythm’.  

This dialogue is (in part, at least) a continuation of a publicly available dialogue taped earlier in the day.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe

Bob: Tucker Carlson’s replacement rhetoric is intentionally inflammatory ... Is the rhetoric of “transformation” analogous to that of “replacement”? ... Two NYT headlines that trigger Bob ... Is Russia making more progress than it seems in eastern Ukraine? ... Mickey: If Trumpists depose Mitch McConnell, it could forestall a Trump 2024 run ... George W. Bush’s magnificent Ukraine-Iraq gaffe ... Can John Fetterman win in the PA general election? ... Parrot Room preview: Severance, Covid, Elon Musk’s sex scandal, the Depp-Heard trial, Jonathan Chait on charter schools, unemployment fraud, the Dead End podcast, the origins of Ukrainian nationalism, Benjamin Wittes’s infuriatingly Blobby Twitter thread, and what Ramesh Ponnuru misses about replacement rhetoric ...

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Ian's brand new book, The Power of Crisis ... Did NATO expansion lead to the invasion of Ukraine? ... Ian: We shouldn’t have left Russia behind after the Cold War ... How much trouble is caused by America’s lack of perspective-taking? ... The critical problems Ian wants the world to focus on ... Does the “democracy vs. autocracy” framing do more harm than good? ... The rival technological visions of the US and China (and Elon Musk) ... Could our current crises be the seeds of future flourishing? ...

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The baby formula conundrum ... Mickey: Chuck Schumer has put Dems in a bad position for the midterms ... Is the Ukraine military aid bill excessive? ... How neoconish think tanks influence Western coverage of Ukraine ... Mickey asks: Would a new cold war be so bad? Bob answers. ... Kathy Barnette’s surprising surge in the Pennsylvania GOP senate primary ... If a Trumpist Trump hasn’t endorsed wins a race, is it a win for Trump? ... Is Tesla’s stock price threatening Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase? ... Musk backpedals on his free speech position ... Video of Israeli soldiers beating mourners at the funeral of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh goes viral ... Mickey: It’s much more plausible that the Roe v. Wade opinion leaker was a left-winger ... Parrot Room preview: Steve Schmidt’s meltdown, Dinesh D’Souza is at it again, the creepy views of a Disinformation Governance Board member, IQ differences in a pair of South Korean twins, J.D. Vance, the child tax credit, Station Eleven, the etymology of “black hole” and its connection to Bob, drinking spinal fluid for brain rejuvenation, Tucker Carlson, and the shifting Latino vote ...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe