The Wright Show

Aaron: The new BBC podcast on the White Helmets is journalistic malpractice ... Aaron critiques the standard Western narrative on Syria ... Was the Syria intervention just a proxy war against Iran? ... How Aaron changed his views on Syria (featuring Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters) ... The controversy over the 2018 chemical attack in Douma ... How epithets like ‘Assad apologist’ short-circuit good journalism ... Aaron’s beef with Bellingcat ... How more transparency at OPCW would help the fight against chemical weapons ... Bob's Christmas wish ...

Bob receives the Maroon 5 endorsement ... The New York Times piece on the Toobin Affair ... The endless attempt to overturn the election ... Could we double the rate of covid vaccination? ... Does Joe Biden have an ideology? ... Bob fails in his bid to troll the Blob ... Mickey’s embarrassing tweet takes off ... Twitter’s anti-egalitarian bent ...

How political scientists think about civil war ... Richard: claims that we’re on the brink of civil war have a “pro-wrestling quality” ... Two theories of civil war: grievance vs. opportunity ... Should we worry about escalating civil conflict that falls short of civil war? ... Information ecosystems and civil conflict ... Richard’s critique of the “great powers” paradigm in international relations ...

A grand unified theory of Biden’s cabinet: cognitive decline ... Judging the Texas lawsuit on its merits ... Is Trump’s post-election campaign poisoning America? ... The state of Congress after Trump ... Bob and Mickey reach consensus: Hunter Biden seems pretty shady ... Who gets the vaccine first and which one will they get? ... Some problematic Biden cabinet picks ...

Could evolution have a higher purpose? ... The value of (some) untestable hypotheses ... What zombies can (and can’t) teach us about consciousness ... Evolutionary teleology vs. evolutionary teleonomy ... Why does evolution produce increasingly complex forms of life? ... Distinguishing between physical laws and natural processes ... Could the hypothesis that evolution is serving a larger purpose be tested? ...

The latest election conspiracy theory: suitcases full of ballots in Atlanta ... Georgia sparks a Trumpworld civil war ... Mickey's Jared-centric conspiracy theory about Trump's post-presidency ... What if election fraud is actually discovered? ... Mickey's Bibi-centric conspiracy theory for why Trump sucks up to Putin ... What's the deal with Neera Tanden? ... Bob critiques Biden's underwhelming cabinet picks ... Mickey's Israel-centric conspiracy theory for Bill Kristol's leftward shift ... Do you want to be at the front of the Covid vaccination line? ...

Continuing the exploration of "the Dharma of Bob" ... Bob: There is no good alternative to global community ... Defining non-zero-sumness ... How genetic "selfishness" led to altruism ... The psychology of tribalism ... Can we bridge the polarization divide? ... Sadly, self-transcendence isn't genetically inheritable ... Does Bob see cause for optimism? ...

A new, Jared-centric theory for why Trump kisses up to Putin ... Bob's weekly Steve Bannon update ... Who will Trump pardon next? ... Mickey says the Supreme Court ruling on churches is no big deal ... The (probably Israeli) assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist ... Have deficit hawks gone extinct? ... Bob: "I do think the Biden administration is kind of doomed" ... Mickey critiques Bob's blockbuster debate with Bill Kristol ... Evaluating Biden's initial cabinet picks ... Bob on the future of Bloggingheads ...

How Bill became a NeverTrumper ... Bob worries that neoconservatives have exploited the Resistance ... Bill has some regrets about supporting Tom Cotton ... Bob accuses Bill of countenancing guilt-by-association tactics ... Charges of anti-Semitism and dual loyalty in the Israel debate ... Bill: The cartoonish caricature of the GOP turned out to be correct ... The psychology of GOP elites who still support Trump ... Bill's hopes for the Biden administration ...

Mickey denounces Rudy ... Is Trump damaging democracy? ... Hate speech vs. free speech ... Mickey says "the Left" doesn’t want a peaceful transfer of power ... Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias leave Vox ... When exactly did the New York Times abandon objectivity? ... Will Trumpian election truthers be a major force for years to come? ... The Nonzero Newsletter’s Progressive Realism report card ...

Stephen’s new book, Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of US Global Supremacy ... How the term "isolationism" came to be ... Stephen: Most US foreign policy elites wanted to stay out of Europe through 1940 ... The fall of France and America’s decision to dominate the world ... Stephen: The UN was created to project American power ... What happened to making the world safe for capitalism? ... Bob puts Stephen’s arguments through the ringer ... Biden and the future of American hegemony ... Stephen says “restrainers” are gaining ground in foreign policy circles ...

Trump’s chances of overturning the election ... Revelations from Giuliani’s Four Seasons Landscaping press conference ... Mickey’s Freudian theory of guilt-fueled anti-Trump triumphalism ... The debut of the progressive realism report card ... Explaining down ballot Republicans’ outperformance of Trump ... What’s next for Trump and Trumpism? ... Jeffrey Toobin's punishment ...

Greg's book, The Coddling of the American Mind ... Greg: Paranoid parenting made today's college students fragile ... How social media increased polarization and mental illness ... Greg critiques the "hyper-bureaucratization" of universities ... Is the anti–cancel culture brigade hypocritical about free speech? ... Greg praises the American folk understanding of free speech ... How much should we respect the religious sensibilities of others? ... How cognitive behavioral therapy helped save Greg's life ... Twitter as meditative practice ...

With Trump poised to lose, Mickey looks on the bright side ... Bob deplores Trump's unfounded election allegations ... Why were the polls so off? ... If Latinos are assimilating culturally by voting GOP, are Mickey's immigration fears kaput? ... Possible reasons for the tightness of the race ... Will Trumpism live on? ... Bob has some good news on the Covid front ... Mickey foresees a dreary Biden administration ... Bob foresees a Blob-ified Biden foreign policy ... Did Trump move the GOP to the left? ...

Philo of Alexandria, seminal Logos theorist ... Bob: Teleology is perfectly compatible with a scientific worldview ... A logic shaping the unfolding of life ... How Jordan Peterson understands the Logos ... Does order flow from consciousness? ... Moral progress and human interdependence ... Teleology without theology ... The Logos and the "simulation hypothesis" ...