This episode features a full-length debate between Shadi Hamid and Trita Parsi —two thinkers who fundamentally disagree about the role of American power in the world. Released jointly with The Disagreement podcast and hosted by Alex Grodd, the conversation reflects a shared Wisdom of Crowds ethos — one that treats disagreement not as a failure of understanding, but as a tool for thinking more clearly about first principles. Rather than trading talking points, Hamid and Parsi engage each other’s strongest arguments in a sustained, good-faith exchange.

Shadi draws on themes from The Case for American Power to defend a position that has fallen out of favor across much of the political spectrum: that American power, when used with moral purpose, can still play a necessary role in reducing global suffering. His argument is aimed in part at a disillusioned left that has come to see U.S. power primarily as a source of harm rather than a potential instrument of humanitarian good. Against this, Trita — one of the most incisive critics of American interventionism — offers a sustained challenge, grounded in historical failures, unintended consequences, and the limits of even well-intentioned power.

Does the world need the United States to act, and if so, when — and at what cost? How should past disasters constrain present ambitions? And if American power is curtailed, what realistic alternatives exist, and who bears responsibility when things go wrong? This debate doesn’t resolve those questions — but it models what it looks like to take them seriously, in conversation with someone who sees the world very differently.

Required Reading/ Listening:

* The Disagreement podcast.

* Shadi Hamid, The Case for American Power. (Amazon)

* Shadi’s 2024 debate with Daniel Bessner hosted by The Disagreement.

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This week Christine Emba and Sam Kimbriel are joined by Laura K. Field, a political theorist and the author of the new book Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right. It’s a sharp, readable taxonomy of the thinkers, factions and subcultures that helped build the MAGA coalition—from the Claremont world and national conservatism, to post-liberal Catholicism, to harder-edged online currents.

Laura explains how she came to write about this subject, and how she became convinced the movement wasn’t going to take an off-ramp after January 6. The three trace how these ideas migrate from argument to power. They dissect liberalism’s blindspots, which somehow persist to this day. And they look at the right’s internal fractures — and what those tensions might mean for the coming succession fight in the Republican Party.

Required Reading:

* Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right, by Laura K. Field (Amazon).

* Why Liberalism Failed, by Patrick Deneen (Amazon).

* “The Flight 93 Election,” by Publius Decius Mus (Claremont Review of Books).

* “Inside Stephen Miller’s Dark Plot to Build a MAGA Terror State,” by Greg Sargent (New Republic).

* “Why the MAGA-DOGE Coalition Will Hold,” by Patrick Deneen (UnHerd).

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Against the backdrop of Trump’s breathtaking snatch-and-grab operation against Venezuela’s nasty dictator Nicolás Maduro, Shadi and Damir debate the complexities of global politics, focusing on the tension between power and morality. They explore the implications of U.S. foreign policy decisions and debate the role of values in international relations.

Shadi pushes Damir about the implications of his commitments, who in turn says ugly things you probably won’t like.

Required Reading:

* “Venezuela and the End of Hipocrisy,” by Shadi Hamid (WoC).

* “The Great Unraveling Has Begun,” by Oona Hathaway (NYT).

* “On the Legality of the Venezuela Invasion,” by Jack Goldsmith (Executive Functions).

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As the year winds down, Shadi and Damir hosted Michael McFaul, a professor at Stanford University and former special assistant to President Obama and U.S. ambassador to Russia. His new book, Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder is as good a start as any in trying to figure out how U.S. foreign policy could — and should — develop in the wake of a second Trump presidency.

Required Reading:

* Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder, by Michael McFaul (Amazon).

* The Case for American Power, by Shadi Hamid (Amazon).

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This week, we have a special live episode for you. Wisdom of Crowds, in cooperation with Aspen’s Philosophy and Society program, threw a holiday party in DC, celebrating the release of our friend Osita Nwanevu’s new book, The Right of the People. Samuel Kimbriel sat down with Osita and the great Sam Goldman of the Hamilton School at the University of Florida, to kick off our celebration of America’s 250th with a debate of whether the constitution was a bad idea.

Osita argues that it is time for a new American founding. The clash between our democratic principles and our long term inequalities requires a gradual but fundamental reworking of the American constitutional order. Goldman dissents, arguing both that, for all its flaws, the American system is superior to any comparable existing democracy of comparable scale—and that any plausible step to dismantle it is likely to lead to ruin. Kimbriel tries to keep the peace.

Abandon arguing with your family over the holidays and argue with us instead!

Required Reading:

* The Right of the People, by Osita Nwanevu (Penguin Random House).

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This week, the great Nils Gilman joined Damir Marusic and Samuel Kimbriel on the pod to unpack the complexities of American foreign policy and its implications for Europe — and beyond. The conversation starts by trying to make sense of Trump’s latest National Security Strategy as a jumping off point, before pivoting into a discussion of populism.

Why do some causes, projects — and people — provide meaning while others fall flat? For example, why is Trump’s nationalism more politically effective than calls to global climate action? And is there a better way to create meaning in an increasingly fragmented world?

Required Reading:

* Nils Gilman, “Climate Leviathan” (Substack).

* Nils Gilman, “The Duopoly of Doom” (Substack).

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Damir’s back from Ukraine, still buzzing — and feeling weird about it. He and Christine talk about the thrill and guilt associated with reporting from war zones, the ethical implications of war tourism, and the psychological toll on both journalists and civilians.

The conversation then shifts to Trump and a possibly looming war with Venezuela. The Trump administration has cowed many a politician, but the fear seems to be ebbing. But have we gotten over our addiction to the thrill of political populism?

Required Reading:

* Damir Marusic, “My Night in Dnipro” (WoC).

* Christine Emba, “Vibe Shift 2.0” (WoC).

* Jason Willick, “There’s No Middle Ground on the Boat Strikes” (Washington Post).

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A few years ago, Lea Ypi was scrolling through Facebook when she came across a family photo she had never seen before. Someone had discovered a photograph of Ypi’s grandparents on their honeymoon and posted it on a public Facebook group. Ypi — a philosophy professor from Albania who teaches at the London School of Economics — was dismayed by the comments on the photograph, which ranged from inaccurate to judgmental to just plain mean. Were the husband and wife in this photo Albanian aristocrats? Fascist collaborators? Victims of Communism?

Responding to the trolls — as well as, as she puts it, “taking the trolls seriously” — Ypi decided to write a book reconstructing her grandparents’ story. The result is Indignity: A Life Reimagined, a book which asks, among other things, what does human dignity really mean? What makes this book even more interesting is that Ypi’s grandparents lived through some of the most dramatic moments in the twentieth century: the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the rise of Fascism, and World War II.

Ypi joins Damir and Santiago, who want to understand Ypi’s own philosophical priors. Damir wants to know where moral responsibility ends and and the structural forces of history begin. Santiago asks whether dignity, as a concept, has a metaphysical foundation. The result is a wide-ranging conversation that covers history, literature, philosophy and more.

In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Santiago asks Ypi about the difference between Fascist and Communist decision-making; Damir presses Ypi on the question of free will; Ypi discusses her two-point prescription for a better Europe; Santiago asks Ypi whether it’s hard to write about one’s country in a foreign language; and finally, Ypi’s hot take on Zohran Mamdani.

Required Reading:

* Lea Ypi, Indignity: A Life Reimagined (Amazon).

* Lea Ypi, Free: Coming of Age at the End of History (Amazon).

* Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (Amazon).

* Friedrich Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man (Amazon).

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After Friday’s meeting between Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani, everyone is asking: who is Zohran Mamdani really? What motivates him: is it progressive cultural issues, or economic populism? Is he woke, or a pragmatist? He won the mayor’s seat in New York City with just over fifty percent of the vote, when even the leaders of his own party refused to endorse him. What makes this guy tick?

Today’s guest is one of the best people, apart from Mamdani himself, to answer these questions. Ross Barkan is a political commentator and novelist who, in a previous life, ran for office in New York City. His campaign was run by none other than Zohran Mamdani. So he has a first-hand knowledge about Mamdani’s thinking about politics and governance. He is also a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker who has lived in the city his entire life, and has intimate acquaintances with the nuances of local politics and the different ethnic communities which make up New York City.

Shadi Hamid asks Ross about how Mamdani came to have such a mass appeal, even though he calls himself a democratic socialist and openly supports Palestine. Ross agrees that Mamdani’s positions on several hot-button issues herald a big transformation in the Democratic Party.

Damir Marusic takes a more skeptical position. Do the foreign policy positions of a New York City mayor really matter, or is it all symbolic politics? What Damir is impressed by is Mamdani’s talent for politics: his visit to the White House shows that he is a pragmatist, and that he just might have what it takes to do to the Dems what Trump did to the GOP.

Since interest in Mamdani is peaking right now, we are making this conversation free for all subscribers. The conversation covers a lot of the nitty-gritty of practical politics. Is it true that keeping Jessica Tisch as Police Commissioner is Mamdani’s way of offering an olive branch to the Democratic establishment? What does the appointment of populist anti-monopolist Lina Khan into Mamdani’s transition team mean on a political level? And was it a good idea for Mamdani to visit Trump?

Finally, Ross makes a case for Mamdani: “Even if you’re not a socialist or progressive, he is a young mayor who is willing to take risks and who is willing to hire young people into his administration who think outside the box.”

Required Reading:

* Ross Barkan’s interview with Zohran Mamdani (New Statesman).

* Eric Adams’ “New York City is the X of America” supercut (YouTube).

* Ross’ political commentary in New York magazine.

* Ross’ columns in the New Statesman.

* Ross Barkan, Fascism or Genocide: How a Decade of Political Disorder Broke American Politics (Amazon).

* Ross Barkan, Glass Century: A Novel (Amazon).

* “Lina Khan’s populist plan for New York: Cheaper hot dogs (and other things)” (Semafor).

* “Defund the police no more: Zohran Mamdani seals coup with deal to keep Jessica Tisch as NYPD Commissioner” (Fortune).

* “Mamdani issues broad public apology to NYPD” (Politico).

Full video:

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This week’s episode is a live recording of Wisdom of Crowds, where we celebrated a very special occasion: the publication of Shadi Hamid’s new book, The Case for American Power. The book is a soul-searching study about American power as a force for good in the world, and it combines memoir and foreign policy analysis. Shadi’s thesis is that if we want to make the world “more just and more moral, more democratic and more respectful of human rights,” then backing the United States is both the “last best hope and the least-bad option.”

Joining Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic is special guest Matt Duss, former foreign policy advisor to Bernie Sanders, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, and co-host of the Undiplomatic Podcast. “I am certainly not against the idea of American power,” says Matt. But his question is: “Which America?” Duss is less optimistic that US power can be put to good use because, he says, we are currently having a national debate about “what is the nature of the American project.” It’s unclear how that debate will end.

Nevertheless, Shadi argues, American democracy, however imperfect, is still superior to the regimes in the other global hegemons, Russia and China. We should not fear our own home — oikophobia is a real issue, Shadi says, using the term for “fear of one’s home,” the opposite of xenophobia. Duss partially agrees, but says that being a democracy does not necessarily imbue American foreign policy with moral authority. “International law does that.”

The topic of international law prompts Damir to steer the conversation towards the topic of Gaza. Does American collaboration with Israeli war crimes disprove Shadi’s thesis? Or does it paradoxically strengthen the argument that the world needs morally-guided American power? At this point, Shadi utters one of the best lines of the night: “To be seen as hypocritical is the cost of trying to being better than you actually are.”

We are making this episode completely free for all subscribers, including the Q and A section, which covers topics like: hypocrisy in foreign policy; why working with China is preferable to the US for some nations; how Gaza will change the Democratic Party; the crisis in the MAGA coalition; and more!

Required Reading and Listening:

* Shadi Hamid, The Case for American Power (Amazon).

* Shadi, “A Genocide is Happening in Gaza. We Should Say So” (Washington Post).

* Shadi, “Everyone says the Libya intervention was a failure. They’re wrong.” (Vox).

* Our 2024 podcast with Matt Duss (WoC).

* Rod Dreher, “What I Saw and Heard in Washington” (Substack).

* Roger Scruton, “Oikophobia” (Journal of Education).

Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

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