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Daniel Bessner – Managing American Decline in the Trump Era

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Video Links

0:00 Intro

1:10 Glenn meets the young Marx

2:32 The new wokeness of the political right

8:30 What is the democratic counterpart of foreign policy and national security run by experts?

17:04 Russia’s motivations: Fear of NATO or imperial ambitions

21:41 Danny: Zelenskyy made a huge misstep in the Oval Office

26:12 Does China have global security ambitions?

35:09 Ending the Middle East’s post-Ottoman redefinition

39:42 Danny: It’s gotta be rough to be Peter Beinart

43:46 Why we don’t need Hitler to explain Trump’s authoritarianism

56:29 Danny: We’ve been in the midst of a constitutional crisis since the 1940s

57:58 Can the nuclear taboo hold?

Recorded April 19, 2025

Links and Readings

Danny’s podcast, American Prestige

Karl Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page’s paper, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens”

Walter Lippmann’s book, Public Opinion

Danny’s book, Democracy in Exile: Hans Speier and the Rise of the Defense Intellectual

Transcript of Matt Lauer’s 1998 interview with Madeline Albright

Paul Thomas Chamberlain’s book, The Cold War Killing Fields: Rethinking the Long Peace

Lindsey O’Rourke’s book, Covert Regime Change: America’s Secret Cold War

Peter Beinart’s book, Being Jewish after the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning

Glenn’s conversation with Peter Beinart

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

Danny’s Jacobin piece, “This Is America”

James Whitman’s book, Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law

Carl Schmitt’s book, The Concept of the Political

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Glenn Loury