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In this bonus episode, I talk with my grandson Will Kelly about his weight-loss journey, which he is documenting on social media. We talk about his desire to live out loud, our family history of addiction issues, and his strategies for healthy, sustainable weight loss.

Check out this episode on Substack to see clips from Will's TikTok and instagram

Follow Will on Instagram and TikTok

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Pre-order Glenn's forthcoming book, SELF-CENSORSHIP. Available here or wherever you get your books: https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=self-censorship--9781509567409

Video Links

0:00 Intro

1:10 Glenn meets the young Marx

2:32 The new wokeness of the political right

8:30 What is the democratic counterpart of foreign policy and national security run by experts?

17:04 Russia’s motivations: Fear of NATO or imperial ambitions

21:41 Danny: Zelenskyy made a huge misstep in the Oval Office

26:12 Does China have global security ambitions?

35:09 Ending the Middle East’s post-Ottoman redefinition

39:42 Danny: It’s gotta be rough to be Peter Beinart

43:46 Why we don’t need Hitler to explain Trump’s authoritarianism

56:29 Danny: We’ve been in the midst of a constitutional crisis since the 1940s

57:58 Can the nuclear taboo hold?

Recorded April 19, 2025

Links and Readings

Danny’s podcast, American Prestige

Karl Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page’s paper, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens”

Walter Lippmann’s book, Public Opinion

Danny’s book, Democracy in Exile: Hans Speier and the Rise of the Defense Intellectual

Transcript of Matt Lauer’s 1998 interview with Madeline Albright

Paul Thomas Chamberlain’s book, The Cold War Killing Fields: Rethinking the Long Peace

Lindsey O’Rourke’s book, Covert Regime Change: America’s Secret Cold War

Peter Beinart’s book, Being Jewish after the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning

Glenn’s conversation with Peter Beinart

Glenn’s memoir, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative

Danny’s Jacobin piece, “This Is America”

James Whitman’s book, Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law

Carl Schmitt’s book, The Concept of the Political

Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com

In this bonus episode of The Glenn Show, I talk with Brown University sophomore Alex Shieh about Bloat@Brown, his website calling out Brown administrators whose roles, he says, may violate federal discrimination laws. We talk about why he started Bloat@Brown, diversity of thought on campus, class-based affirmative action, and the role of diversity on campus.

This bonus episode is available in its entirety to full subscribers, without whom The Glenn Show would not be possible. If you want to listen to the full version of this episode and our other bonus content—including monthly Q&As with John McWhorter—go to https://glennloury.substack.com and sign up.

Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com

Pre-order Glenn's forthcoming book, Self-Censorship. Available here or wherever you get your books: https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetai...

Video Links

0:00 Intro

1:12 Attacks on the university from within and without

9:50 Ground News ad

11:43 Reshaping institutions by force and by argument

20:56 Critiquing the Gaza War without antisemitism

22:30 Reforming para-academic institutions

32:07 Is there a potential conflict between commitments to truth and commitments to diversity of thought?

39:19 Caught between “casual relativism” and “fierce absolutism”

52:18 Cornel: There is no “mic drop” argument on Gaza or anything else

55:19 The straight-jacket of emotional over-investment

1:00:36 The role of faith in the search for truth

1:10:19 Finding faith beyond reason in Stephen Sondheim

Recorded April 12, 2025

Links and Readings

Robbie and Cornel’s new book, Truth Matters: A Dialogue on Fruitful Disagreement in an Age of Division

Plato’s Republic

Thomas Kuhn’s book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Eugene Genovese’s book, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made

Antonio Gramsci’s book, The Prison Notebooks

William Blake’s poem, “London”

Pope John Paul II’s encyclical, Fides et Ratio

Genesis 22, King James Version

Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Glenn’s memoir, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative

Mandy Patinkin sings “Finishing the Hat” from Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George

Support The Glenn Show at http://glennloury.substack.com

VIdeo Links

0:00 Intro

0:45 Why Trump’s tariffs alarm economists

8:18 Are the tariffs designed to offset Trump’s tax cuts?

11:30 Larry’s break with Senator Ron Johnson

14:16 Larry: We’re not in a trade war with other countries, we’re in a trade war with other people

22:44 Is Trump under the sway of a foreign power?

28:45 What measures should investors take to protect themselves from tariff-generated market volatility?

35:46 The possible silver lining in the economy under tariffs

41:32 The hypothetical third-party billionaire who could defeat Trump

44:46 The social security Ponzi scheme

54:50 Larry’s plan for fixing social security

57:29 Are other aging nations facing the same social security crisis as the US?

1:02:23 The failure of checks and balances

Recorded April 4, 2025

Links and Readings

Larry’s Substack

Larry’s company, Economic Security Planning

The MaxiFi Planner

TIPs Ladder

Rajiv Sethi’s Substack, Imperfect Information

Larry’s book, You’re Hired: A Trump Playbook for Fixing America’s Economy

For the March 2025 Q&A, John and I take questions on getting outside our bubbles, the first hundred days of the second Trump administration, the Department of Education, contemporary black writers, race and advertising, the assumption of good faith, and undocumented immigration.

The Glenn Show is supported almost entirely by listeners, viewers, and readers. If you're not year a full subscriber, please consider becoming one at https://glennloury.substack.com. You'll get access to monthly Q&As, commenting privileges at the newsletter, and lots of bonus content. And if you're already a full subscriber, thank you for all you do.

Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com

Video Links

0:00 Intro

1:03 How Rick feels being a “liberal maverick,” according to the NYT

4:18 Rick’s advocacy for class-based affirmative action

6:39 Rick: “The Trump administration has gone too far” by trying to eliminate racial diversity

13:02 Opening up the elite university’s old boys club

21:21 Will economic diversity in admissions come with test score disparities?

23:55 Ground News ad 25:56 What’s Edward Blum’s deal?

29:36 Rick: The Democratic Party needs to ask itself why it lost to Trump

34:48 The black allies of class-based affirmative action

40:53 Is vocational training a viable alternative to four years of college?

44:48 Addressing the development problem among black students

52:52 Rick’s hopes for a new Democratic Party

Links and Readings

Rick’s new book, Class Matters: The Fight to Get Beyond Race Preferences, Reduce Inequality, and Build Real Diversity at America’s Colleges

Pew poll on race and ethnicity in college admissions

Glenn and John’s 2023 conversation with Peter Arcidiacono

The 1966 Coleman report, Equality of Educational Opportunity

Rick’s book, Excluded: How Snob Zoning, NIMBYism, and Class Bias Build the Walls We Don't See

Rick’s Atlantic piece, “Liberal Suburbs Have Their Own Border Wall”

Progressive Policy Institute

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Video Links

0:36 How Rajiv saw Trump’s assault on elite higher ed coming

4:26 The Trump administration’s legitimate complaints against higher ed

9:41 Rajiv: The crackdown on campus protest would have happened even without the October 7 protest

17:10 How test scores can marry merit and diversity on college campuses

21:06 Glenn: Doesn’t SFFA v. Harvard justify JD Vance’s criticisms of higher ed?

25:30 Columbia’s capitulation to the Trump administration

33:06 Columbia’s new measures against antisemitism

38:09 The opportunistic adoption of contested phrases

43:27 How bad is the antisemitism problem at Barnard and Columbia?

50:44 Who has the authority to police Columbia’s MESAAS scholars?

1:00:55 Facing the prospect of Trump-generated American brain drain

Recorded March 23, 2025

Links and Readings

Rajiv’s Substack, Imperfect Information

Rajiv’s post April 2024 post, “Minority Report”

FIRE’s 2024 Faculty Survey

Rajiv’s post, “The Lion Hath Roared”

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s “Working Definition of Antisemitism”

Eli Lake’s X post questioning the attempt to deport Mahmoud Khalil

Preorder Glenn’s book, Self-Censorship

Noam Dworman moderates a debate between Eli Lake and Norman Finkelstein

Lex Friedman hosts a debate between Norman Finkelstein, Mouin Rabbani, Benny Morris, and Destiny

Dworman interviews Rashid Khalidi

Henry Louis Gates Jr. on Mari Matsuda’s Words That Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, and the First Amendment

Killer Mike’s 2024 FIRE keynote

Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com

I spent part of last week visiting Stanford University, and John is off taking care of business in Australia. The time difference, travel, and speaking obligations made scheduling a recording impossible. So this week, I’ve got something a little different for you. Instead of recording a conversation on the day’s news with John, I decided to record one on my own. In this episode, I talk through some opinion pieces that grabbed my attention and give my take on the topics. I address Trump and the economy, Trump’s predictability and unpredictability, DOGE and MAGA’s slashing of the federal government, Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest, antisemitism, and attacks on Tesla cars, dealerships, and charging stations. This is a bit of an experiment—my team and I wanted to see what would happen if I gave it a shot. Let me know how it’s working for you in the comments.

These pieces are all quite relevant as of this posting, on Monday afternoon. But by Friday? Who knows. So I decided to release this episode simultaneously to both free and full subscribers. If you like getting The Glenn Show a few days early, consider becoming a full subscriber. You’ll get new episodes early, plus access to monthly Q&As with John McWhorter, bonus episodes, and other exclusive content.

Become a full subscriber at https://glennloury.substack.com

Video Links

2:31 The opportunities and risks of Trump's economic plans

6:50 Is Trump as unpredictable as he seems?

16:00 DOGE and MAGA take a chainsaw to the federal government

22:30 An argument against Mahmoud Khalil's detention ...

32:49 ... and one in favor of Khalil's detention

41:38 Is it time for an official ban on antisemitism?

49:14 Teslas are burning

Recorded March 14, 2025

Links and Readings

Steve Cortes’s RCP piece, “Trump and the Economy: Opportunities and Risks”

Susan Glasser’s New Yorker piece, “Uncertainty Is Trump’s Brand. But What if He Already Told Us What He’s Going to Do?”

Tim Murtaugh’s Washington Times piece, “Why the Democrat Brand Is in the Toilet”

Jeff Mayhugh’s Hill piece, “The MAGA Revolution Is Playing with Fire”

Ross Barkan’s NYMag piece, “Mahmoud Khalil’s Arrest Will Backfire on Trump”

Josh Hammer’s Daily Signal piece, “Mahmoud Khalil and the Red-Green Assault on American Sovereignty”

Mackenzie France’s RCP piece, “Congress Should Pass Antisemitism Awareness Act”

Rich Lowry’s New York Post piece, “Tesla Terrorism Only Reveals the Left’s Impotence”

Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com

Video Links

0:00 Intro

1:33 The relationships Peter has lost and gained

4:14 Why Peter thinks this is a “watershed” moment in Jewish history

6:50 Who can criticize Israel?

9:44 The challenge of October 7’s aftermath to Jewish self-understanding

15:54 Peter: Jews should support non-violent Palestinian protest, not criminalize it

20:12 Shouldn’t the Palestinians have taken the deals they were offered?

25:48 Peter’s argument for a one-state solution

34:34 The “dirty little secret” of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Jewish critics

37:12 The idolatry of the Jewish state

39:45 The mutual liberation of Jews and Palestinians

41:37 Why aren’t the critics of snowflakes and trigger warnings defending pro-Palestinian campus protesters?

46:01 Peter: Antisemitism is on the rise, and ethno-nationalism is the reason

50:20 Peter: If Gaza is unlivable, then Gazans should be allowed to live where they want

Recorded February 21, 2025

Links and Readings

Peter’s Substack, The Beinart Notebook

Jewish Currents magazine

Peter’s new book, Being Jewish after the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book, The Message

Eitan Hersh and Laura Loyden’s article, “Antisemitic Attitudes across the Ideological Spectrum”