The Glenn Show

2:19 John apologizes for his previous statement about Trump and assassination, and Glenn reaffirms their friendship

7:21 Glenn: “We literally dodged a bullet”

9:09 John: Going MAGA is taking the easy political route

11:06 Glenn: There are good reasons to support some of Trump’s policies, if not his rhetoric

18:57 Does the 2024 election have a “summer of 2020” vibe?

23:38 Ground News ad

25:58 The fantasy Kamala Harris / Corey Booker ticket

33:27 Is “Make America Nice Again” a compelling campaign message?

38:22 Is “Trump is a threat to democracy” a lexically inept slogan?

45:53 It’s time for Biden to step down

49:50 John: “I'm honestly glad the assassin missed”

54:49 Do Glenn and John need couples counseling?

Recorded July 20, 2024

Links and Readings

Andrew Napolitano’s conversation with John Mearsheimer

Andrew Napolitano conversation with Jeffrey Sachs

Evan Vucci’s iconic post-assassination attempt photo of Trump and Secret Service agents

John’s NYT column, “Why Are Democrats Speaking to America in Ancient Greek?”

George Orwell’s essay, “Politics and the English Language”

Larry Kotlikoff’s Substack post, “Biden Must Step Aside—This Week!”

Yascha Mounk’s Substack, Persuasion

Glenn’s conversation with Yasha Mounk

Glenn and the team discuss the use of independent podcasts as platforms for world leaders and the use and misuse of AI translations and voice simulations.

Buy Glenn's memoir, LATE ADMISSIONS: CONFESSIONS OF A BLACK CONSERVATIVE. Available here or wherever you get your books: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881349

2:29 Have we already forgotten the horror of October 7?

9:22 Ben: We can’t ignore the loss of innocent life in Gaza

13:58 “From the river to the sea” and “all lives matter”

22:00 Celebrating the deaths of Israelis

26:31 Drawing the line at BDS

33:05 Glenn: If you want free speech, prepare to be uncomfortable

37:44 Columbia University administrators put on leave after allegedly antisemitic text messages

41:41 How Glenn discovered Benjamin’s work

47:40 The social meaning of race

51:01 The invitation to empathy in Late Admissions

59:02 Benjamin’s work with the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program

Recorded July 10, 2024

Links and Readings

Benjamin’s book, Juror’s Stories of Death: How America’s Death Penalty Invests in Inequality

Benjamin’s book, Dying Inside: The HIV/AIDS Ward at Limestone Prison

Benjamin’s book, Disposable Heroes: The Betrayal of African American Veterans

Glenn’s conversation with Omer Bartov

Glenn’s book, Race, Incarceration, and American Values

Glenn’s book, The Anatomy of Racial Inequality

Erving Goffman’s book, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity

Erving Goffman’s book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

Robert Putnam’s book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

Orlando Patterson’s book, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study

Coleman Hughes’s book, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s book, Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America

Glenn’s conversation with his son, Glenn Loury II

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Student

1:18 John: Biden probably should not be running for president

7:47 Who’s running the country?

11:17 Presidential b******t

13:35 Ground News ad

15:56 Is Kamala up to the big job?

22:44 Kamala’s questionable climb to the top

27:53 The NYT Editorial Board’s surprising call for Biden to drop out

33:50 Trump at Gettysburg

35:45 Trump’s victory is now more probable. But is it more defensible?

40:42 Interrogating the “elitist backlash” interpretation of Trumpism

45:43 How should Dems proceed in a post-Biden election?Recorded July 4, 2024

Links and Readings

Full video of the Trump-Biden debate

Harry G. Frankfurter’s book, On B******t

Clip from Adam McKay’s film, Vice

Kamala Harris attacks Biden during a 2019 primary debate

Kamala Harris defends Biden’s recent debate performance

NYT Editorial Board calls on Biden to leave the race

Jill Biden’s Vogue cover

0:00 Intro

1:28 Biden’s abysmal debate performance

5:01 Billionaire survivalists

12:53 So you made it to your luxury bunker. Now what?

16:22 The postapocalyptic war of all against all

21:29 Is the very existence of billionaires the real doomsday scenario?

26:20 The doomsday tax

32:24 Will the bunker dwellers have a reason to live?

40:39 The problem of government after nuclear holocaust

46:08 The literal bunker mentality

52:08 Was Mark responsible for Sam Bankman-Fried’s downfall? Who can say for sure?

Recorded June 28, 2024

Links and Readings

Evan Osnos’s 2017 New Yorker piece, “Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich”

Douglas Rushkoff’s book, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires

Douglas Rushkoff’s Guardian piece, “The Super-Rich ‘Preppers’ Planning to Save Themselves from the Apocalypse”

Ingrid Schmidt’s Hollywood Reporter piece, “Billionaires’ Survivalist Bunkers Go Absolutely Bonkers with Fiery Moats and Water Cannons”

Andre Mayer’s CBC News piece, “From Luxury Bunkers to Tactical Vehicles, the Ultra-Rich Are Preparing for the Big One”

Cixin Liu’s trilogy of sci-fi novels, The Three Body Problem

Everybody Loves Raymond complete series DVD box set

Louis van Gasteren’s documentary, Now Do You Get Why I Am Crying?

Paul Celan’s Selected Poems and Prose, translated by John Felstiner

Tadeusz Borowski’s book, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentleman

Glenn, Nikita, and Mark’s previous conversation, “The Ethics of Giving in the Very Long Term”

0:00 Great writing is “a marriage of life and honesty”

3:20 Glenn: I am my book’s primary audience

8:00 Glenn the Rationalist vs Glenn the Believer

18:00 How much did Glenn’s socio-economic status affect his sense of black belonging?

24:26 The radical rhetoric of privileged African Americans

29:38 Against reparations

33:57 A raised fist, but not a hand out

40:27 Colorblindness in theory and practice

50:11 Is race orthodoxy the first step on the road to totalitarianism?

1:03:01 Self-reliance and individualism

Recorded June 26, 2024

Links and Readings

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

Jennifer and Winkfield’s book, Letters in Black and White: A New Correspondence on Race

Stephen Shames and Ericka Huggins’s book, Comrade Sisters: Women of the Black Panther Party

Jon Gray, Pierre Serrao, and Lester Walker’s cookbook, Ghetto Gastro Presents Black Power Kitchen

Glenn’s essay, “Self-Censorship in Public Discourse: A Theory of ‘Political Correctness’ and Related Phenomena”

Thomas Chatterton Williams’s book, Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race

Sheena Michele Mason’s forthcoming book, The Raceless Antiracist: Why Ending Race Is the Future of Antiracism

Coleman Hughes’s book, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America

Winkfield and Jennifer’s conversation with Angel Eduardo

Free Black Thought

Václav Havel’s book, The Power of the Powerless

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay, “Self-Reliance”

0:00 Why the different format?

4:04 Joe asks John to account for his “emotional and irrational conclusions” about Trump and his recent conviction

15:28 Ground News ad

17:49 Did John really mean it when he implied he hoped someone would assassinate Trump?

23:00 Lauren wants John to justify his “casual endorsement” of gender fluidity in pronoun usage

32:37 Jerry asks why “external factors” like poverty are often used to explain lagging African American scholastic performance, those factors haven’t hindered them from achieving wildly disproportionate success in the cultural realm

38:34 Patrick calls out Glenn for his frequent use of the word “irregardless”

41:26 kgweiland asks Glenn if the Pamela Foster story in my memoir was “yours to share”

46:17 Scott Alex has some technical questions about linguistics for John

50:01 Jakon Joi asks for advice dealing with the tragic, possibly racially motivated murder of her father

Recorded June 23, 2024

Links and Readings

June 2024 thread of subscriber questions

John talking about Trump voters on Real Time in 2023

Daniel Bessner and Glenn on Real Time in 2023

Richard Dawkins interviews John

John’s book, The Language Hoax: Why the World Looks the Same in Any Language

0:00 Glenn II returns to The Glenn Show

2:17 Glenn II: Dad, you’re not really a “conservative” in the present-day sense of the term

13:20 Glenn and Glenn II agree that the “systemic racism” argument is overblown but disagree over what to do about it

22:04 What social conditions lead to the kind of behavior Glenn often condemns?

31:36 The luck and privilege that allowed Glenn to recover from his mistakes

39:19 Glenn II: “I found myself getting angry at someone who doesn’t exist anymore”

46:59 The conversation Glenn never had with his father

51:06 What Late Admissions taught Glenn II about his father

57:32 Grace in the face of public scandal

1:01:28 Love, death, and the Lourys

Recorded June 15, 2024

Links and Readings

Glenn’s essay, “Self-Censorship in a Time of War”

Scenes from The Wire, Season 4

Glenn and Glenn II’s September 2018 Bloggingheads conversation

Glenn II’s book, Invisible Funerals: A Tale of Nine Burials

Glenn II’s book, Love Letters & Elegies: Tales from Beyond the Pale

Glenn II’s book, What Death Can Touch

ORDER Glenn's memoir, LATE ADMISSIONS: CONFESSIONS OF A BLACK CONSERVATIVE. Available here or wherever you get your books: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881349

0:00 Glenn and John’s summer plans

3:56 Glenn’s forthcoming book on self-censorship

9:53 John’s forthcoming book on pronouns

17:25 Ground News ad

19:45 Inside the audiobook recording process

21:13 Why John isn’t celebrating Trump’s conviction

27:34 What’s so “monstrous” about Trump?

32:17 Is Trump demonizing immigrants or proposing sensible border regulation?

39:17 Inside the collapse of Ibram X. Kendi’s research center

44:42 Does Kendi’s fall mark the end of the woke moment?

49:15 The willful incomprehension directed at Byron Donalds

55:11 Joe Biden’s outdated speech at Morehouse

Recorded June 8, 2024

Links and Readings

Glenn’s 1994 essay, “Self-Censorship in Public Discourse: A Theory of ‘Political Correctness’ and Related Phenomena”

Henry Frankfurt’s book, On B******t

Glenn and John’s conversation with Mark Goldblatt

Rachel Poser’s New York Times Magazine piece, “Ibram X. Kendi Faces a Reckoning of His Own”

Herbert Guttman’s book, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925

Joe Biden’s commencement address at Morehouse

ORDER Glenn's memoir, LATE ADMISSIONS: CONFESSIONS OF A BLACK CONSERVATIVE. Available here or wherever you get your books: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881349

0:00 How Josh got Glenn started in podcasting

3:05 Early career advice to Glenn: Don’t be an a*****e

6:30 A recent loss in Josh’s life

8:36 Did Trump’s prosecution and conviction set a dangerous precedent?

15:37 Biden’s uninspiring presidential campaign

19:38 Josh: Trump is “an enemy of and a threat to … fundamental political values”

23:22 The problem of the meritocracy

28:54 The “shame” Glenn felt after his speech at a synagogue

39:19 The things left unsaid about the Gaza War

47:22 Were Glenn’s fears about reaction to his thoughts about Gaza overblown?

51:23 Can mistaken ad hominem inferences about audiences initiate self-censorship on the part of speakers?

55:55 When Manhattan Institute President Reihan Salaam when to Berkeley

1:00:58 Josh: Campus protests have basically been a good thing

1:09:33 Josh’s thoughts on what John Rawls might have said about the State of Israel

Recorded June 1, 2024

Links and Readings

Glenn’s writing for Boston Review

Glenn and Josh’s first Bloggingheads conversation

Michael Lind’s UnHerd piece, “Trump’s Conviction Is an Assault on Democracy”

Michael Sandel’s book, The Tyranny of Merit

Michael Sandel’s Boston Review piece, “How Markets Crowd Out Morals”

Michael Sandel discusses The Tyranny of Merit on TGS

Glenn’s Substack post, “Self-Censorship in a Time of War”

Glenn’s 1994 essay, “Self-Censorship in Public Discourse: A Theory of ‘Political Correctness’ and Related Phenomena”

Glenn’s Palm Beach Synagogue speech, “What Has Become of the Partnership between Black and Jews”

John Mearsheimer on TGS

Omer Bartov on TGS

Reihan Salam’s book, Melting Pot or Civil War?

The Kalven Committee Report

John Rawls’s book, A Theory of Justice

John Rawls’s book, The Law of Peoples

Josh’s essay, “Is There a Human Right to Democracy?”