In this installment Claire and I take on a reader’s challenge: surely, the left cannot be blamed for the rise of Donald Trump! Fair question. And yet, as we unpack over the course of this episode, the excesses of the progressive wing did play a role in birthing Trump, if only by driving many in the middle into his camp.
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We explore how Democrats miscalculated their supposed national majority, ignoring the social conservatism among minorities who were assumed to be safe allies. We talk about the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, identity politics, and the failure to confront Biden’s age. We lament the fact that both parties, in different ways, have let their extremists set the tone — and that this dynamic has left the majority of Americans politically homeless.
From there, the discussion widens: could a centrist “America Party” emerge from the sane remnants of both sides? Is there still hope for reform, or is the U.S. locked into a destructive two-party straitjacket? We debate the costs of Trump’s foreign policy blunders, the dangers of social media run amok, the looming disruptions of artificial intelligence, and the erosion of global trust in American democracy.
It’s not all doom and gloom — we end by considering cycles of history, and whether sanity might yet return after this fever has run its course. But we’re clear-eyed about the stakes: if Americans continue to make catastrophically bad choices, they may not just diminish their own country, but also discredit democracy itself.
