This Time Tomorrow

What happens when the world’s most powerful leaders can’t even describe their vision for the future? Our guest, futurist Märtha Rehnberg, reveals something that’s surprised her in her career: too many leaders today are stuck in reactive mode, managing the present rather than daring to imagine, and build, a better tomorrow.

Märtha makes a case for the power of audacious or even “unreasonable,” visions, the kind that spark revolutions in science, technology, and society. Yet Europe, she warns, too often settles for bureaucracy and incremental change, leaving it vulnerable in an era of global transformation and technological rivalry.

This episode dives into Europe’s vision crisis: Why are we struggling to craft stories that inspire and unite? How can we move beyond just surviving crises to actively shaping our future? The answer, Märtha argues, lies in unlocking imagination, nurturing creativity, and weaving narratives that bring people together around a shared, ambitious purpose.

The message is clear: Europe’s path forward demands more than pragmatism. It’s time to embrace discomfort, face hard truths, and invest in the ideas and stories that will propel us toward a future we actually want to live in.

Märtha Rehnberg is Co-Founder of DareDisrupt, a think tank specialized in responsible disruption and exponential technologies. She advises some of the largest companies in the world on disruption, with a special focus on heavy asset industries. As policy advisor, she has worked directly on EU’s Industrial Strategy, the Green Deal, the Taxonomy on Sustainable Finance and most recently her work focuses on Science4Policy, with the EU Commission’s Joint Research Council.

In his 7th monologue, Ted reflects on being a 19-year-old in Paris in 2007, pretending to be a music journalist as a way to access culture, freedom and adulthood in a city that tolerated experimentation and half-formed selves. That personal con becomes a metaphor for a wider pre-2008 world built on confidence, surface credibility and the belief that history, markets and liberal democracy would quietly sort themselves out. But after the financial crash, that illusion collapsed, leaving insecurity, stalled adulthood and resentment that far-right movements exploited by reframing openness and liberalism as theft and betrayal.

Ted argues that today’s authoritarian turn is not a corrective, but rather a slide toward 21st-century fascism, marked by scapegoating, violence and demands for allegiance rather than freedom. The freedoms we once took for granted are now suspect, and we must challenge these forces while we still can. Not so that we can go back to what was, but so that we can create a future in which equality is more evenly distributed.

In the second part of his monologue on time—recorded on New Year’s Eve—Omri Preiss argues that democracies face a stark choice between defending the free world and allowing autocracy to prevail. This, right now, is a decisive moment for free and open societies.

Reflecting on how modern freedoms are historically very recent, Omri traces liberty’s development from ancient empires through religious authority, limited aristocratic rights, and finally to broad democratic rights in the last century. These freedoms have not been around for very long, and yet they are now widely taken for granted. We must recognise, first of all, that they are dangerously easy to lose. And second, that rising authoritarian leaders and movements, often cloaked in populist rhetoric, are actively trying to dismantle the democratic institutions that support them.

The main takeaway? Democracy is not an abstract issue. It’s something that directly shapes people’s lives, and defending it requires urgent, active engagement to prevent freedom from becoming just a brief “blip” in history (or, indeed, a momentary time out from tyranny).

In the 37th episode of This Time Tomorrow, we discuss the absurd, surreal escalation of Donald Trump’s long-standing fixation on Greenland, including threats of tariffs against Europe and rhetoric that continues to undermine international norms. The move simply does not make much sense, given existing US–Denmark agreements that already allow unlimited American military presence on Greenland. So what’s actually in it for Trump?

European leaders have responded rhetorically by backing Denmark and Greenland’s right to self-determination, while debating trade retaliation tools and limited military signalling. And yet, coordination and resolve remain… Well, a bit weak?

Trump’s behavior appears to be driven less by policy than by a desire to dominate headlines, extract concessions, and destabilise institutions (if not a downright desire to “burn down” the global order).

Europe must plan for worst-case scenarios by building greater military, economic, and technological autonomy. (Basically, it’s time for Europe to dump her crazy boyfriend and delete his number.) In the meantime, the bare minimum we can do is try to manage various Trumpian psychodrama to avoid outright conflict.

Authoritarianism advances gradually. In the 36th episode of This Time Tomorrow, we compare Iran’s brutal crackdown on mass protests with developments in the United States. They’re not the same, but they do represent different points along the same downward trajectory.

In Iran, widespread participation in ongoing protests signals a potentially transformative moment that the regime is trying to suppress through extreme violence. In the US, the expansion and normalisation of aggressive federal forces like ICE is indicative of an early-stage pattern seen historically in fascist and autocratic takeovers.

And Europe…?

Europe must clearly choose to defend democratic norms—now, pronto, immediately and forcefully— because waiting until violence is fully normalised is only going to make meaningful resistance a lot harder.

Join Omri, Benni and Daniela as they explain why it’s time to leave the gym (that NY resolution never sticks, anyway) and start saving democracy instead.

With their recent invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of president Nicolás Maduro, the United States are signalling a return to a “spheres of influence” world order. By treating Vladimir Putin as a peer and focussing US dominance on the Western Hemisphere, the US is retreating from the rules-based international order it once upheld.

Was the US intervention in Venezuela part of an implicit bargain with Russia, in which the US traded freedom of action in the Americas for Russian leeway in Ukraine? Either way, the shift from a rules-based world order leaves Europe dangerously exposed and strategically sidelined… We can now only assume that US security guarantees are no longer reliable, and must therefore urgently prepare for an increasingly erratic kings-and-empires world order.

Join Omri, Benni and Daniela for a frank and open discussion about what all of this means for Europe and the future of European democracy.

Want to take action? At work, ask your boss or co-workers the following: In which ways are we dependent on American services, and what are we doing to switch to European providers?

Want to do more? Subscribe to This Time Tomorrow, and share this episode with a friend or two.

As always, thanks for listening.

In this monologue, Omri reflects on… time. Yes, time, that old, finite, existential resource. And he does so by linking personal focus to global political urgency.

Because at a time when digital “surveillance capitalism” monetises our attention, fuels our distraction, and weakens our democracy and collective problem-solving, major crises are being ignored. Climate change, AI, inequality, and rising autocracy are not just features of our social media feeds… they’re out there, happening.

But it’s not just us, as individuals. As we doom scroll for updates instead of taking action, our institutions, too, fail to act quickly enough in the face of existential challenges.

Are we doomed to sleepwalk into irreversible catastrophe while we wait for the next seven year budget cycle?

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Drawing on how the US military increased its operational capacity during World War II, Omri demonstrates that large-scale mobilisation and investment to defend democracy and address existential threats is possible without dragging ones feet… As long as the threat is seen for what it is.

Tune in for your daily dose of metaphysics, if not for a dramatic call to action.

In Bulgaria, Gen Z has toppled the government after weeks of protests. What happened? Why? And what’s next? In the US, a longer version of the National Security Strategy has leaked… and, again, it’s bad news for democracy in Europe. In Israel, democrats are still reeling after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked president Herzog for a pardon for bribery and fraud charges and an end to a five-year corruption trial. Will he get one? And what does the country teach us about the autocrats’ playbook?

Join Omri, Benni and Daniela for another report from the frontlines against autocracy and far-right populism.

As fathers, this one is close to our hearts.

Join Omri and Benni for the 33rd episode of This Time Tomorrow as they sit down with co-founder George Gabriel to talk about The Dad Shift — the campaign for better paternity leave in the UK.

In a wide-ranging conversation, they dig into the economic case for better paternity leave, exploring why backing fathers isn’t just socially important, it also makes financial sense for families and the wider economy. They unpack the somewhat uncomfortable truth that the UK currently offers the worst paternity leave in Europe, and how this reality feeds into outdated expectations, toxic masculinity, and the cultural baggage that in some ways still shape what fatherhood is “supposed” to look like.

George also lifts the curtain on the inner workings of The Dad Shift campaign, from how the idea first sparked, to the early organising efforts, to shaping the strategy and the practical, on-the-ground tactics being used to push for change. If you’re into political campaign design and herding cats (i.e. MPs and hundreds of activists!) then look no further. George has got the goods.

Towards the end, George also shares where he hopes the campaign is headed, and what a transformed future for dads and families could look like.

Go on now. Give it a listen. It’s a really powerful episode with real heart, real stakes, and a vision for what fatherhood and family life in the UK could be.

And if you like the episode, then please share it with a friend to help us to grow our audience, and the Dad Shift to gain more followers and activists.

As ever, thanks for listening.

Sometimes, all you need to do is to enforce the law.

Just enforce the law.

In the 32nd episode of This Time Tomorrow, we give a nod of appreciation to the European Commission for doing the right thing and issuing a fine of €120 million to X for breaching its transparency obligations under the Digital Services Act. But is that enough? Is Elon Musk shaking in his boots? And what now?

Next up, we head over to Washington to discuss the new US National Security Strategy… if that is what you should call it when you decide to abandon your European allies and hand over your foreign policy to Russia.

Last, we travel east to Germany and take a look at the German Mittelstand’s flirt with the far-right. What’s happening with the German firewall? Are German SMEs inviting the AfD to step out of the cold and into… the foyers of mainstream society?

Are you as concerned about the state of the world as we are? Not quite pleased with the global rise of anti-democrats and the far-right?

Then join us. Become a democracy defender. Join a cause or a party, stand up for freedom and human dignity. Take action, action, action.

Don’t wait. Do it today. And if you like this episode of This Time Tomorrow, then please share it with a friend to help us grow our audience.

As ever, thanks for listening.