Moshik Temkin is the author of The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair: America on Trial, and Warriors, Rebels, and Saints: The Art of Leadership from Machiavelli to Malcolm X, based on a course which he taught at Harvard University for over a decade. He is currently Distinguished Visiting Professor of Leadership and History at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University.

In the podcast, we discuss:

* Defining leadership beyond the Great Men

* Senators Wayne Morse and Ernest Gruening—whose names few remember, the lone dissenters against the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

* Trump as a product of historical and socio-economic forces, a symptom of the disease

* The rise of authoritarianism in America

* Why historical analogies can be weak toolst o understand contemporary politics; the constructive use of comparisons

* The Democratic Party’s problems and inability to unite behind Mamdani

* Local resistance against authoritarianism

Surveillance and control around the world

The Rhyming Chaos podcast is produced by Jeremy Goldkorn and Maria Repnikova, and edited by Cadre Scripts. The theme music is Paper Boy, composed and performed on the guzheng by Wu Fei. Our closing music is Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, arranged and performed by Wu Fei. Our cover art is by Li Yunfei.

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