Glenn Loury invites guests from the worlds of academia, journalism and public affairs to share insights on economic, political and social issues.
In this post-show recording with Mark and Nikita, I talk about my conversation with John McWhorter, my elation over Trump's victory, and why I wasn't forthcoming about my preference for him over Harris.
This episode is available only to full subscribers to my Substack. If you're listening to the full episode, thank you for all your support. And if you want more of The Glenn Show, in addition a host of other benefits, go to https://glennloury.substack.com and become a full subscriber.
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Order Glenn's memoir, LATE ADMISSIONS: CONFESSIONS OF A BLACK CONSERVATIVE. Available here or wherever you get your books: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881349
1:21 Have Glenn’s intellectual shifts been misread?
5:45 Danny: Francis Fukuyama was right
10:30 Capitalism won. Is that a good thing?
14:18 The climate under capitalism
20:24 Danny: “People said 'f**k you' to the Democratic Party”
23:51 Why the “Trump is a fascist” argument makes no sense
27:53 Whither the working class coalition?
33:10 How the US foreign policy establishment won the argument and lost Ukraine
36:28 Danny: There is no way the US can maintain influence in East Asia
38:26 Does Jewish survival require a Jewish state?
43:50 The limits of social science
49:36 The media’s obsession with polling
53:55 Is the US reaping what it’s sown on immigration?52:34 Is the US reaping what it’s sown on immigration?
Recorded November 9, 2024
Links and Readings
Dann’s podcast, American Prestige
Danny’s conversations with Glenn about his intellectual history, parts 1, 2, 3, and 4
Francis Fukuyama’s Financial Times piece, “What Trump Unleashed Means for America”
Danny’s Nation essay, “The Liberal Discontents of Francis Fukuyama”
Adam Tooze’s podcast, Ones & Tooze
Danny’s Harper’s essay, “The Life and Death of Hollywood”
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’s manifesto, The Communist Manifesto
Danny’s Harper’s essay, “Empire Burlesque”
Danny’s Boston Review piece, “Mass Destruction”
Glenn’s recent conversation with Rajiv Sethi
JD Vance’s book, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
John Murray Cuddihy’s book, The Ordeal of Civilization: Freud, Marx, Lévi-Strauss, and the Jewish Struggle with Modernity
Yuri Slezkine’s book, The Jewish Century
In this post-show conversation with my creative director Nikita Petrov, I review this week's episode with historian Daniel Bessner. We also talk about Trump's policy proposals, capitalism, Russia and Ukraine, NATO, and why I sometimes pull back from speaking my mind.
This episode is available only to full subscribers to my Substack. If you're listening to the full episode, thank you for all your support. And if you want more of The Glenn Show, in addition to a host of other benefits, go to https://glennloury.substack.com and become a full subscriber.
In this month's Substack subscriber-only Q&A session, we talk about Donald Trump's "Nazi rally" at Madison Square Garden, Martha Raddatz's comments about Venezuelan gangs in Colorado, Glenn's retirement, John's comments about Trump and Vance, my comments about Israel and Palestine, and, of course, Trump's victory.
This is the Post-Show episode following this week's conversation with John McWhorter. In it, Glenn sits down with his editor Mark Sussman and his creative director Nikita Petrov to talk about the election, why he understands where Trump's supporters are coming from, the meaning of voting, and the possibility that Trump might release sealed documents relating to the JFK assassination.
If you're a paying subscribing, you're receiving the full episode. If you're not, you're receiving a preview clip. Consider becoming a subscriber at https://glennloury.substack.com, and receive early access to weekly episodes, exclusive content like post-show episodes, monthly Q&As with John McWhorter, and a host of other benefits.
If you subscribe only to the free version of this podcast, you’ll notice this episode has arrived a few days early. I figured that by Friday, when the episode normally drops for the general public, it will be out of date already, so we’re releasing it to everyone today. If you find you enjoy starting your week with The Glenn Show, consider becoming a paying subscriber, which will get you early access to episodes, along with a host of other benefits.
Subscribe to The Glenn Show on Substack at https://glennloury.substack.com
[Note: In the episode, John mistakenly referred to the author of a biography of Ronald Reagan as George Will. He meant to reference Max Boot’s Reagan: His Life and Legacy.]
1:39 Pre-election jitters
3:23 Will Democrats contest the election if it goes Trump’s way?
4:44 A crisis for democracy, maybe, but not the end of democracy
10:02 John’s case against Trump’s proposed second administration
15:36 Ground News ad
17:28 The Obamas’ attempted intervention and post-presidential performance
26:58 The mind of the informed Trump voter
34:20 A revisionist history of the Trump presidency (or presidencies)
41:15 Is Trump losing it or just tired of campaigning?
44:25 The Washington Post and the LA Times decline to endorse
47:48 Glenn and John’s election night plans
50:48 The nightmare scenario
Recorded November 3, 2024
Links and Readings
Shelby Steele’s book, A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited about Obama and Why He Can’t Win
Jimmy Carter’s book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
John’s NYT column, “Donald Trump Is Bored”
Max Boot’s book, Reagan: His Life and Legacy
Everybody Loves Raymond: The Complete Series DVD box set
Douglas Murray’s Free Press piece, “Things Worth Remembering: Whoever Loses, They Should Lose Like Nixon”
Order Glenn's memoir, LATE ADMISSIONS: CONFESSIONS OF A BLACK CONSERVATIVE. Available here or wherever you get your books: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881349
0:00 Rajiv’s report from the FIRE conference
3:11 Roland Fryer’s keynote address
13:26 Ta-Nehisi Coates’s humanist universalism
17:25 “Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus”
18:50 Rajiv’s reading of Coates’s stand on “apartheid”
31:55 The gap between election forecasting models and prediction markets
36:52 The limits of models and markets
39:59 Rajiv: The markets show us a balance between narratives about the election
44:17 Is one crypto trader manipulating the prediction markets in favor of Trump?
53:12 Rajiv: Prediction markets may have sent early signals about January 6
55:19 Rajiv’s family history with Kamala Harris
57:45 The new prominence of Indian Americans in politics
1:03:07 The axiom of antiessentialism
Recorded October 27, 2024
Links and Readings
Rajiv’s Substack, Imperfect Information
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
Lara Bazelon’s 2022 Atlantic essay, “The ACLU Has Lost Its Way”
Glenn’s 2021 conversation with Bazelon
Glenn’s 2023 conversation with Erec Smith
Eugene Volokh on the Hamline University-Prophet Muhammad painting controversy
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book, The Message
Coates’s 2010 Atlantic essay, “The Ghost of Bobby Lee”
Ralph Wiley’s book, Dark Witness: When Black People Should Be Sacrificed (Again)
Last week’s TGS debate about The Messsage
Orlando Patterson’s book, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study
Glenn’s book, The Anatomy of Racial Inequality
Glenn’s memoir, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative
Recorded October 27, 2024
Links and Readings
Rajiv’s Substack, Imperfect Information
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
Lara Bazelon’s 2022 Atlantic essay, “The ACLU Has Lost Its Way”
Glenn’s 2021 conversation with Bazelon
Glenn’s 2023 conversation with Erec Smith
Eugene Volokh on the Hamline University-Prophet Muhammad painting controversy
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book, The Message
Coates’s 2010 Atlantic essay, “The Ghost of Bobby Lee”
Ralph Wiley’s book, Dark Witness: When Black People Should Be Sacrificed (Again)
Last week’s TGS debate about The Messsage
Orlando Patterson’s book, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study
Glenn’s book, The Anatomy of Racial Inequality
Glenn’s memoir, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative
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1:22 The Coates debate continues
3:18 John: Coates is a beautiful writer, but …
5:44 John: … The Message is suffused with incuriosity and simplistic thinking
13:45 Glenn: Coates is talking about humanism and power, not race
18:11 Ground News ad
20:25 Is it “all about whitey”?
22:11 Glenn: Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote this book. What am I doing?
27:40 What kind of historical imagination is at work in The Message?
34:11 Moral clarity or abdication of responsibility?
36:30 Pro-Palestinian writers John considers acceptable
41:54 The next entries in Glenn and John’s book club
42:04 Coates’s now notorious interview on CBS Mornings
48:45 What is the black intellectual’s role today?
52:16 The counterexample of South Africa
Recorded October 19, 2024
Links and Readings
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book, The Message
Glenn and John’s previous conversation
John’s NYT column, “Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Myth of Black Fragility”
Michael Chabon’s novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
Judge Andrew Napolitano on YouTube
Trevor Noah’s conversation with Coates
Ezra Klein’s conversation with Coates
Peter Beinart’s conversation with Coates
David Greenberg’s new book, John Lewis: A Life
Karen and Barbara Fields’s book, Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life
Glenn’s memoir, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative
James Baldwin’s essay, “Letter from a Region in My Mind”
Order Glenn's memoir, LATE ADMISSIONS: CONFESSIONS OF A BLACK CONSERVATIVE. Available here or wherever you get your books: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881349
Incogni is your personal data defender, safeguarding you from these digital predators. Use code GLENN at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: http://incogni.com/glenn
1:41 Penn’s sanctions against Amy
7:47 What’s at stake in the charges against Amy?
14:03 The trouble with “hate speech”
17:48 Should we abolish the nation-state?
21:38 The debates that can’t happen in the university
26:44 Ethnonationalism and group differences
33:11 Amy’s defense of maintaining an “Anglo-Protestant” American majority
42:32 Amy’s concerns about Asian migration
47:52 Are immigrants bringing lax attitudes toward property rights with them?
52:52 Glenn: Immigrants impart dynamism to a culture that’s always been in flux
1:01:13 Glenn and Amy talk about porn
1:07:51 The absence of virtue in political discourse
1:13:05 Amy’s next steps
Recorded October 12, 2024
Links and Readings
Amy’s Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed, “Paying the Price for the Breakdown of the Country’s Bourgeois Culture”
Glenn and Amy’s 2017 conversation, “The Downside to Social Uplift”
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s new book, The Message
William Vogelei’s Claremont Review of Books review of Robert Kagan’s Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart—Again
Coleman Hughes’s book, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America
Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson’s book, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
Daniel Di Martino’s recent appearance on The Glenn Show
Irving Kristol’s 1971 essay, “Pornography, Obscenity, and the Case for Censorship”
Glenn’s essay, “The Case for Black Patriotism”
1:12 The Vance-Walz debate
4:28 Glenn: Ta-Nehisi Coates’s new book is brilliant
13:16 John and Coates’s ancient beef
15:31 Coates’s “blistering” critique of Zionism
18:22 Ground News ad
20:39 Do you have to solve the problem of “apartheid” in order to criticize it?
33:10 Glenn’s reappraisal of Coates (and John’s bemusement)
34:53 ACTA ad 36:39 Will the race card play for Eric Adams?
42:31 What has Eric Adams accomplished?
43:57 Why John defends Amy Wax
49:17 Glenn: Amy Wax gets to have her opinion
Recorded October 5, 2024
Links and Readings
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book, The Message
Coleman Hughes’s Free Press review of The Message
Coates’s book, Between the World and Me
Coates’s Atlantic essay, “The Case for Reparations”
Glenn and John’s in-person TGS episode
Andrew Yang’s Newsweek piece, “I Ran against Eric Adams. I Saw This Coming.”
John’s NYT piece, “She Is Outrageous, Demeaning, Dangerous. She Shouldn’t Be Punished.”
Amy Wax’s December 2021 TGS appearance
Wax’s August 2022 TGS appearance
Wax’s March 2024 TGS appearance
Richard Sander’s Stanford Law Review article, “A Systematic Analysis of Affirmative Action in American Law Schools”
Order Glenn's memoir, LATE ADMISSIONS: CONFESSIONS OF A BLACK CONSERVATIVE. Available here or wherever you get your books: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881349
1:15 Why Daniel immigrated to the US
5:14 What went wrong in Venezuela?
8:45 Daniel: Both the Biden administration and global trends are to blame for the border crisis
11:19 Trump promises to deport record numbers of illegal immigrants. But can he?
13:00 What’s it take to fix immigration? Money.
18:39 The flawed strategy of making immigration into Mexico’s problem
20:48 The bad information and rumors fueling asylum-seekers
23:18 Should residency visa programs prioritize the richest immigrants?
32:13 The labor market consequences of immigration
37:27 Daniel’s large-scale proposals for national immigration policy
43:00 How many unauthorized immigrants are in US right now?
45:23 The political realities of immigration reform44:08 The political realities of immigration reform
Recorded September 23, 2025
Links and Readings
Daniel’s writing for City Journal
Daniel’s report for the Manhattan Institute, “The Lifetime Fiscal Impact of Immigrants”
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